When i drove to Vermont with the Outback (following my buddy who was flat towing his Bronco) i filled up Concord,drove up 93 to Plymouth and took the back roads the rest of the way.by the time i got to destination,i only used 0.25 tank.the drive back home was back roads all the way..

 

Well when i filled back up last night,i figured out that i got approx 34 mpg (miles traveled divided by total gallons to refill)

 

i could of sworn that highway mpg was lower the 34 and where i hardly took the highway (back road speeds varied from 35-55 though) i was wondering if since i was behind a larger vehicle,maybe being in the draft helped ??

 

Not complaining but i just have never had a vehicle that got that kinda mileage..

Perhaps the first fill-up before you left, they topped the tank off to the brim.

 

So while driving, the gauge stays pegged for a while, till the level drops to the normal range.

 

Then to add to it, the fill up at the end could have been not topped off.

 

Try again, using the same pump and method to fill. And better to do a longer trip using half the tank or more to get a more accurate calculation.

Don't use the guage position to determine gallons used. You determine gallons the car drank when you pump gas the next time.

 

If you had a full tank to begin trip, and drove, then when you fill it back to full the next gas pump, however many gallons you pump in is what your car drank up, DO not rely on a gas guage.

 

Now with this being said, 34mpg is not out of the realm, depending on if you had a windy tailwind, headwind, crosswind, no wind, flat, slow fast, etc.

I've found the only accurate way to calculate over just one tank is to use the same gas pump at the same gas station. Hold it on full, and when it clicks off don't add anymore.

Now, if you keep track of mileages and fill up amounts over the course of months, that sort of stuff gets averaged out.

Its possible... I got 31 MPG in a 98 Impreza doing 70-80 MPH from Reno to Portland.

Sure.. I got 32 when I took a brand new 2011 Impreza (company car) to WCSS last year.

 

Its possible... I got 31 MPG in a 98 Impreza doing 70-80 MPH from Reno to Portland.

You get better mileage on the backroads and state highways because you are not turning 3000+ RPM all the time, and fighting 70+ mph wind. Wind resistance increases exponentially as speed increases. 15 mph and 500 rpm slower will make a big difference in fuel mileage.

I get usually 33 mpg out of my 96 sedan AWD manual driving 55-60 on trips. I've been well over 400 miles on a tank on several occasions.

I can get 34 at 40mph so it may be possible

Being Australian up until 1976 we also were in miles and gallons (oz gallons which is I think a little more than US gallons). Then we went metric.

 

Trouble has been since then that some organisations use litres per 100 kilometres, others kilometres per litre.

 

So if you find it confusing now consider us!

 

This was at a time when speed limits changed also. 35 mph went to 60 kph on town speed limit signs. For two decades after that I was still in my head multiplying that 60 by 6 to result in an approximate mph speed eg 36mph.

 

Celcius temperature reading came in too. So to get an approximate Fhareinheit reading (cant be bothered with the spell check) you doubled it and added 30. eg if the forecast was for 30 degrees celcius then x2 = 60 and add 30 eg 90 degrees Far....

 

But some things never changed. Peoples height is suppose to me in millimetres eg 182mm but most palces still say 6foot. tyres pressures most are in psi but slowly we are getting to metric. Pity the world isnt uniform.

 

I mean when are you guys going right hand drive anyway?

That sounds about right. My father gets 28 in town, 35 on the highway, and 30 on the interstate in his 97 legacy outback. The PandaWagon got 34 while cruising at 55, however, it drops to 25 if I'm buzzing down the interstate at 80+.

Wanna go fast? You will pay for it at the pump. Wanna sip the fuel? Cruise the lesser known highways and set the cruise to no higher than 60.

+1 speed is huge. back roads and your buddy flat towing probably means not 70-80 mpg. like they said, slowing down makes fur huge mileage gains, but few can sustain that kind of speed for the long term so it's unusual. your suspicion about drafting may have played a roll too and a quarter tank isn't the most accurate way to do it.

 

you don't mention auto or manual, but it's high for either one.

 

if some of the western members tested their mileage after the end of the first long mountain pass off a fill up - they could probably get up to 80 mpg.

Oops,kinda forgot about this thread..

 

the Outback is a 2.5,5spd

 

fastest we went was maybe 55 for short distances then down..

 

yeah,i never use the gas gauge for accurate reading but just for rough idea..

 

should of refilled once i got to destination to figure out exactly how much gas i used compared to miles traveled..

 

i'm just not used to getting such high mpg..coming from a lifted jeep with a 4.0 that got maybe 16-17mpg..

 

oh,and i think connection for filler neck is leaking..stunk something fierce on the way up to VT till gas level went down..

Edited October 2, 201114 yr by subie94

my old lexus averaged 26- driving calmly behing a u haul for 400 miles it did 32

 

my lifted 4runner does 18 ave, did 24.5 behind large u haul for 800 miles....i move alot