96 SL1 vs 03 Civic Lx

[gladstone]

Well, I have been attempting to get my fiancee' into a mpg competition between my 96 SL1 and her 03 Civic.

Background on the Vehicles

96 SL1- automatic, 1.9 SOHC, 186k miles, WAI
03 Civic- automatic, 1.7 SOHC Non vtec, 106k miles

I constantly get between 32 - 36 mpg with a best of 38.
I do not keep records for her car but the best, I have seen is 32 mpg and a worst of 26 mpg this week.

She doesn't drive bad enough in my opinion to get 26 mpg on driver alone, but I have been very unimpressed with the mpg on the Civic on previous trips.

I previously thought that civic were supposed to be amazing at MPG, but is the Saturn really a better base mpg vehicle?

[SentraSE-R]

It's not just the car, or the driver. It's the combination of the car, driver, and the drive. If you have a 30 mile country road drive, and she has a 5 mile city drive, you'll win even if you swap cars.

Your Saturn likely is the better base vehicle for mpg. It's lighter, unfettered by side air bags, and built to meet lower emissions and crash standards.

That said, 90% of mpg is in the driver, not the car. I'd bet that if you switched vehicles for a tank, you'd get better mpg in her car, too.