|
Made my first longer shakedown run and was a bit disappointed on the mileage. I drove 154 miles on my baseline fillup, of which 80 miles was on truly rural freeway; most of the rest was on two-lane highway, though I did drive through a city center (incl 10 min at one stoplight, though mostly slow-go freeways; took approx. 20 minutes longer than when there is no traffic).
Averaged 49.7 mpg, which quite frankly underwhelmed me. I do need a wheel alignment, I am just breaking in the engine, and I did hit a rush hour, so there's that. Short-term improvements are thus:
1. Nitrogen fill on tires to max sidewall pressure
2. Install sway bar and align tires (I had quite a bit of vibration)
3. A/C -- it's blowing hot -- it's the end of the hot season, so I'll pull it rather than fix it, and reinstall in May
4. Check the rear brakes -- I didn't do those
5. Check the transmission -- make sure I'm running the 3.52 gears like I think I am
6. Change the oil. May go with 5w20 mineral this time rather than the 0w20 synthetic I had (Johnny is concerned...)
Any further advice, Ecomodders? Any and all advice is appreciated!
Future posts: How I refurbed the interior, and then I am going to move on to documenting how we worked through MetroMPG's list of 65+ ecomods point by point (what's done, what's still in the hopper).
|