Altima SE V6--best tank: over 40 mpg!

[SentraSE-R]

Congratulations, VegasDude. You're putting me to shame. I only got 38.1 mpg driving 1100 miles to New Mexico in my SE-R. When I got here, I found a loose piece of plastic shielding hanging down under my car. It's temporarily wired back into place, and my mpg should improve, I hope.

[trikkonceptz]

Hey there Vegasdude, congratz on the achievement.

I have a couple of questions for you. Are you sure that 35mph is the most efficient speed within the city? I have found that my 1.8L 4 cyl as well as my previous vehicle which has a 4.7L v8 had their sweet spots around 40 mph.

Just seems to me that 35mph is kinda sow to be in that final gear for a car that size with a motor that size. You may want to try 40 if the speed limits allow. Secondly, in my own vehicle the xD, I found that a brisk acceleration to my cruising speed, 40mph, netted better results in my mpg's over a slower acceleration to speed. YRMV, but it may be worth a try. I do not change my shift points just how quickly I get there.

Keep up the good work ..

[VegasDude]

If I had a ScanGauge I could tell for sure, when I first started doing this I was driving 45. I gradually started slowing down and my mileage has been steadily increasing. The temperature is also increasing, but it is passing the point where it is offering any mileage gains since its tough to drive without the A/C.

90% of my driving is to and from work, where I go 30-35 and I'm getting very good at timing the lights the entire way. Freeway driving only hurts my mileage.

[VegasDude]

Last fill-up was a bit of a short tank (for me) since I wanted to start my Summer FE challenge over at CleanMPG.com.

620.9 Mi
12.95 Gal
47.95 MPG

Why the sudden spike? I would assume it's because I drove 150 miles for ~55 MPG while doing some testing to determine my car's optimum speed and scouting out roads to perform a full tank run-thru. Also I've been getting even better at my daily commute and if you can believe it, still don't use A/C regularly. Again, the highway mileage isn't close to this.

I have gone back thru my tanks and added +2.5% to each distance. This is based on a GPS-Odometer discrepancy. During a typical drive the odometer with turn over 10.0 miles and the GPS will read 10.2 to 10.4 miles (based on of 8-11 satellites.) My correction factor may change with new tires or if I have a chance to use mile markers instead.

I've also noticed my analog speedo is about 3 mph slow depending on my speed, although the average speed returned by the computer is more accurate.

Edit- After checking the odometer again on perfectly straight roads at a constant speed there appears to be no problem, so I've removed any correction factor from my tanks. I believe the GPS wasn't so accurate at slower speeds in the city.

[Berg]

hello guys new to this site.I just got a 2010 Altima V6 its got the CVT what tip can i get to get better MPG.I think these other Altimas are manual that are getting these great numbers what can I do??

[SentraSE-R]

Welcome, Berg. The best mpg driving tip anyone can give you in two words is - drive slow. If you could drive a full tank at 40 mph or whatever speed you can maintain at your CVT's highest ratio, you could get 35-40 mpg. We all lose mpgs going faster, accelerating from stops, idling at lights, climbing hills, etc. We gain them coasting and going slow. So we try to minimize the gas-wasting behavior, and maximize the gas-saving behavior.

[VegasDude]

I'd say the most important things are, in this order:
Drive slower
Accelerate lightly
Reduce unneeded consumption
Vehicle maintenance

I hope there's something of an ocean breeze keeping you cool. Warm temps will improve FE if you can stand to drive without the A/C. A full manual transmission helps a lot since we run with the engine fully off quite a bit. Definitely drive slow. Over a long distance I've found my car can sustain 55 MPG at 32-35 mph with a little pulse and glide and engine off coasting used at the right times. My personal goal to work and home is 50 MPG everyday.

Don't drive aggressively, Take 20-30 seconds to reach your speed. The CVT will automatically keep you at the optimum revs. Unfortunately you still have a torque converter. Get used to the timing of the lights in your area.

You will do better to gently accelerate to 5 or 10 mph above your target speed and easily make the light when it's green than to wait until its yellow (or orange) and floor it. The earlier you can recognize that you will not make the next light the sooner you can get off the gas. There are a few lights on my commute that always turn red before I get to them if I don't make the light a mile or so before hand when it's green. For these I basically roll to a stop. Get off the gas sooner on exit ramps. If you can, don't use the A/C. Unless the windows are all the way down at 55 mph+ you will use less gas with the A/C off.

I pump my tires up to the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall. This will cause a harsher ride but will improve FE noticeably.

I started doing these things and noticed the benefits immediately, the only thing for me to do differently was to do even more: Drive even slower until I found an ideal speed for both fuel consumption and the timing of traffic lights. Accelerate even lighter and skip unnecessary gears. Improve my understanding of the timing of the lights in my area.

[ShadeTreeMech]

you're fortunate to have a manual. I can't hardly get away with it with my auto due to it wanting to downshift all the time. Wish I had a gear lock option on mine.

But congrats on your mileage; just try to ignore my jealousy. I'm a huge fan of Nissan, and this just clinches it for me.