I test drove a Maz3 itouring HB today. Seriously awesome salesman said I could take the car home for the night (to my house 30 miles away!) All highway on the way home. At first I was disappointed to see my highway mpg averaging only 34ish. However, then I turned off the cruise control and my mpg avg went up around 43 for the rest of the trip. It doesn't seem possible that cruise control sucks up that much gas, but that's the only thing I changed. Anyone else noticed that?
cruise control is a mpg thief
- Thread starter Zuzu70
- Start date
JAmador
Member
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- Spring, TX
- :
- Malibu/ExpedMax
Awesome to get a 24hr test drive. I think those are getting more & more uncommon.
I think the difference could be partly on how aggressive the cc is on the accelerator vs manually modulating it for hills/inclines.
Bad example, apples to oranges, but we took an RV on an 8hr drive & were getting 7mpg using the cc & it jumped to 10-11 without it, due to how hills were handled.
I think the difference could be partly on how aggressive the cc is on the accelerator vs manually modulating it for hills/inclines.
Bad example, apples to oranges, but we took an RV on an 8hr drive & were getting 7mpg using the cc & it jumped to 10-11 without it, due to how hills were handled.
Cruise control itself has no means to reduce gas mileage. It's simply holding your speed constant. You can certainly do better using hypermiling techniques, which can be annoying to other drivers at best, and dangerous to everyone at worst.
I have a 170 mile round-trip commute. I set my cruise control to 67 mph most of the time. On flat road with little or no wind in warmer weather, my 2014 3s GT seems to get low to mid-40s at that speed. It drops several mpg in really cold weather.
I have a 170 mile round-trip commute. I set my cruise control to 67 mph most of the time. On flat road with little or no wind in warmer weather, my 2014 3s GT seems to get low to mid-40s at that speed. It drops several mpg in really cold weather.
Cruise control is not the most efficient way to drive a car, holding a constant speed. The "hypermiling" that Chilbana mentions are certain things that you may be doing, unintentionally, and improving mileage. Things like holding the throttle at a constant opening down hill and picking up extra speed, and coming up hill at slightly slower speeds. There are a variety of ways to significantly improve. It depends on terrain, vehicle, and, most importantly, driver. Just watch the messages here. Some folks can barely get 30 mpg in the 3, while others are getting about 40. I normally get about 32-33 on my 25 mile mixed commute, but can jump that to 36 with careful driving - still hitting over 70 on the interstates. At 75-80 mph, on flat road, it will get around 45 mpg, according to the trip computer. But, throw in accelerating and it drops quickly.
Cruise control might not be the most efficient, but for freeway driving I don't think its more efficient to pulse and glide. Either way its not possible that cruise dropped it by 10 MPGs. There has to be another factor. Did the first average calculation account for start up and driving to the freeway? wind? altitude? temp?
I've only had my car a week, my first freeway drive was pretty well under the EPA estimated highway fuel economy, but I think the engine needs more time to break in, and I was occasional putting it in a lower gear per the manual's instructions to avoid constant speed when brand new....
I've only had my car a week, my first freeway drive was pretty well under the EPA estimated highway fuel economy, but I think the engine needs more time to break in, and I was occasional putting it in a lower gear per the manual's instructions to avoid constant speed when brand new....
I've taken quite a few long distance trips (+400 miles RT) and use CC extensively. I've averaged 33.5-36.5 on all trips. most have 4-5 people in the car. The 33.5 one had only 2 of us, with suitcases, and a cooler, but it included the Cherohala Skyway and the Dragon, so that'd explain why only 33.5! (drive)
