Anyone else notice a HUGE loss in MPG, It's NOT your imagination
 

looks like they're using experimental fuels in the gas now and/or scamming with with E85 in the pumps...

looks like they're scamming us with HIGHER Ethanol in the gas?

Getting upto -38% to -33% loss in MPG lately..

my dads car was getting only 20mpg in his 4 banger (rated for 26 - 27 mpg · Highway: 34 MPG) no matter how hard i hyper mile it i can't get passed 26 even if I time it to hit every green light i should be at lest get 30-32


on the Sonic it's getting 6-12MPG even though it's rated 25/34 hyw/28 combined mpg

the SUV has also been running fairly positive fuel trims 10-12 range


I all ready replace the throttle body, mass air flow , air filter, map/baro


I tried adding an artificial restriction to the intake and it went negative fuel trims...

a lot of reports of other people losing mpg as well as well as the smell of the fuel being less gas like

While my memory may be faulty, I seem to recall MPG dropping 10% when E10 was introduced in my 1996 Subaru Legacy. I did no controlled tests though, so I would expect the actual decrease in MPG to be less.

There's no point in fuels with higher ethanol concentrations unless they have defined what problem is being solved, and how that solves it IN ADDITION TO engines being specifically tuned to operate with that ratio of ethanol.

Just because an engine can run on higher concentrations of ethanol doesn't mean it's a good idea.

This is easily testable. Gasoline and ethanol have differing specific gravities. Compare clear premium, rubbing alchohol and a sample. Use a titration tube for accuracy.

they must be mixing in some other fuel beside the gas and ethanol

the "gas" does not smell of gasoline

Gasoline smells like gasoline here. Just filled up the hybrid earlier today. Still getting 39mpg which is normal for driving around town.

The most recent car purchase I've made is a 2012 Prius plug-in bought in 2015. I sold that. Now the most recent purchase I still own is a 2006 Acura TSX bought in 2010. I don't own a vehicle from the last decade; closer to 2.

It's conceivable that I may never buy another petrol burning passenger vehicle. If I do, it's very likely to be my last.

Depending on where you live and the gasoline source, there can be a measurable effect on MPG. For example, additive mixes: https://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/i...g%20components

Gasoline blending components:

Naphthas which will be used for blending or compounding into finished aviation or motor gasoline (e.g., straight-run gasoline, alkylate, reformate, benzene, toluene, andxylene). Excludes oxygenates (alcohols, ethers), butane, and pentanes plus.

Bob Wilson

Still the same here.
I suspect winter cold mixed with a little mass hysteria.

Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but the last time I drove I saw that the gas gauge was on 1/2 when I had tried to fill the tank a week earlier.

I had asked for a fill and thrown down $25, but it clicked off so I threw down another $50 but they just gave me change for it and refused to top the tank. :( I'd picked that station so I could get a reading on the bottom of the gauge (it read full when I pulled away), not going back there.

So that's a big maybe?

Don't know how your super responds, but ours was sensitive to some tank configuration oddity. From the neck to 1/2 tank was like 150 miles, below half tank was 80 miles to empty on the gauge. the lower float stuck every so often.

The Superbeetle has gone to ground upriver. I have to sell the Dasher before it can come home, according to the new 'Home Owners Assoc.' [slumlord].

The XFi is my weekly driver.

HOAs are a breeding ground for people who failed out of politics.

California politics. :)

Who is "They". It is illegal to pump E85 from a gas pump labelled E10.

Is it just me or is that a unicorn over there.

It's The Man, man. Us vs them! :rolleyes:

well there has been many many reports of people getting way less MPG then normal..

I don't think it was a bad batch of fuel how could it happen from multiple places across the country? and why was the effect on multiple cars that i use... a 4banger was barely getting 20mpg around town now that the garbage gas is no longer present in the tank i'm getting normal mpg of 35 around town in the same 4 banger?...

I thought I lost 7% of my mpg when I filled up with winter fuel which seemed abnormal.

I did some reading and found some citations suggesting "typical" winter gasoline is 10% butane while summer gasoline is only 2% butane. Liquid butane has about 14% lower volumetric energy density than gasoline, so that's only supposed to be a 1% difference unless the butane content is abnormally high or butane disproportionately lowers the density of gasoline.

This chart is completely unrelated to butane but it seems like gasoline's density could possibly vary a lot depending on the blend...that's a 4% difference right there from adding this "hydrocracker naptha"!

https://www.researchgate.net/profile...n-Gasoline.png

So maybe that winter Nevada fuel really is 7% lower energy than summer California fuel. Drats, I thought I was getting a good deal since it was slightly cheaper, guess not.

Could be but most fuel here for sale in Reno is imported from the San Fran APCD refiners via pipeline and meets that spec, except for Maverick which has quality control issues. Drive 20 miles to Carson and they get their fuel elsewhere (modesto?) By truck.

Vegas and surrounds are pipeline from LAAPCD via 14" pipeline out of san berdue which is prone to leaking when trains derail onto it.

No unusual changes for me.

Oh interesting, that's why Carson City has much lower prices I guess?

I started off with a full tank of Costco summer fuel that sat around for a while, then I added a little E85 to it to boost the octane. Then I filled it with some winter fuel at a 76 and it seemed like the mpg dropped a bit.

Then I went up to Reno, filled at a Costco on the way. Seemed like I lost more mpg but it could have been the wind.

Finally in Reno I had a full tank of Raley's fuel and at that point I was extremely sure the gasoline was lower density because I could go downhill and still have less mpg than before.

All I know for sure is that I'm getting 10% lower mpg compared to the summer despite diluting my motor oil with some 0w-16 to reduce its viscosity. I still have the same piece of tape covering the oil cooler to keep the oil hotter, and I pumped the tires up more to compensate for lower temps.

we had all ready been on winter gas FOR A LONG time so it's not relevant
:rolleyes:

I mean they do put fresh gas in 2-3 times a day it's not like it still had summer gas in it from 5 months ago


the switch is done in oct 1

CC has lower tax rate on the fuel and their sources are cheaper because it isn't SFAPCD fuel. Still CALI fuel, however, so it gets "oxygenated" after September.

If you bought left over summer fuel, it would be so full of water as to be almost unusable.

Reno is technically "up hill" but mostly the prevailing wind through Washoe valley favors southbound travel with a tailing portside flow. 70 posted with a 20mph headwind...........

this is a new gas station the product is moving fast they have a weekly deal on gas so yes it's moving fast

maybe a miscounting faulty pump?

The fuel in my tank was summer fuel because I filled the tank in July and didn't drive the car for a few months (I put a few ounces of Lucas fuel stabilizer).

I too noticed a drop in mpg with the switch to winter gas this year, new to me car so cannot compare to other years. However, it was a bigger drop than I ever noticed in my Geo Tracker and Chevy S-10 going back 30 years in memory collectively.

I unfortunately used twice a Shell gas station that was selling something else than Shell, just as bad as other gas stations.

If your car(s) use premium like my two cars (45 old Porsche, 10 year old Infiniti) the nitrogen additives in Shell make just as much of a difference as between summer and winter blends of gasoline.

i replaced both o2 sensor on bank2 it had a bad sensor causing issues with the DFCO and showing like 0.1volts randomly on sensor 2. when it should be 0.8v

I don't think additives affect mpg, they are very miniscule in concentration. I don't think the difference can come from ethanol either, because E10 is capped at 10%. However a lot of lighter aliphatic hydrocarbons do have much lower density and can be blended in to produce gasoline that has lower energy density, but they would need to keep the RVP down, so there are limitations too.

Based on our fuel changes in Wisconsin I'm losing 3-5mpg even with my all season tires . I thought that maybe my winters had effected my mpg but it has to be fuel. My driving hasn't changed , my commute is the same and since right around late October my mpg has dropped significantly.

Same. I can barely push 50 mpg average on my Ioniq right now with dry sunny roads and ambient temps of 45 degrees and hyper milking techniques.

I don't seem to notice a difference over whats explained by thicker air resistance. Tahoe Hybrid you can measure ethanol content of fuel. If ethanol content goes too high on normal vehicles they will just run lean and die. They won't get worse gas mileage they just wont run or will stall out 24/7 at first fill up on e85.
From what I've heard toyota ecu's will compensate +/- 20% on afr and all of that. Maybe a toyota would run up to 20% e85 (whatever total ethanol percent that would get you). I won't test it though. lol

Still seeing a steady drop in my MPG in my 14 Spark. Even driving at or below the speed limit. No additional warm up in the winter I'm seeing 30-34mpg fairly consistently. I've had one long trip to IL that I seen 40s again . But it's been terrible for mpg and minus a grill block I'm not molded heavily like many here. I'd love to see 40mpg all year or close to that but this is horrible .

Hmmm now that I think of it, I was comparing mpg between what I thought were "basically the same" temperature (~60F vs 47F?) but the air density difference is actually a non-negligible 2% ish. So the car needs ~1% more power to move and the fuel has at least 2% less energy, so I'm only missing 4% (7% loss)...slightly colder transmission and engine oil might account for that but I have my doubts as the coolers all have thermostats built in and I blocked off much of the grille.

I'm too cheap to go fill the tank at a Shell just to see if cheap gasoline has lower density alkanes to make it cheaper, but it still feels like the gasoline is making more than a 2% difference to me.

I think it could be the winter gas blend. I did a trip down to Arizona and filled uk with their gas, and it was around the same temp as here in Portland the week I went, but my mpg increased dramatically. Even with snow tires still on

I've thought this for so many years but yeah you'll have warm days and the gas mileage will be back. That's why I usually prefer to do my interstate voyages when it's the warmer part of the day in the winter

Tire pressure also goes down with temperature drop. I think it is 1 psi drop per each 10 degree F drop. I can see a 40 degree drop could easily be seen on the gas gauge if the tires were not topped off.

Around here they put 10% ethanol in the gas from November until the end of March, they say it is for emission reasons. BS. I would normally see a 8 - 10% drop in mileage when I was driving a gas vehicle. I went from 320 mile tanks to about 287 mile tanks before the fuel light would come on. How is burning an extra 1.5 gallons of fuel good for the environment?

Isn't it 10% ethanol year-round? By the BTU numbers, adding 10% ethanol reduces the energy content of fuel by around 1.5%, so ~5 miles of your tank range reduction is due to the ethanol.

This is worth a watch. It gives a nuanced view on adding ethanol to fuel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-yDKeya4SU

If anybody is wondering you can test for ethanol you don't have to guess. You just get a graduated cylinder with clear markings basically and dump a bit of water on the gas. The ethanol will separate out and join the water at the bottom and you can do the math and see the percent. We get E10 year round here.
The above is why old boats ran E0. Sometimes since the ethanol boost would fall out with the water in the gas tank issue and the motors wouldn't have enough octane left in the gas to run without pinging. The new ones can pretty much run on piss though they are pretty good at pulling timing.

I found a better gas station I swear though the gas went to poor quality at the other stations...


the drive is further away but for sure it's far better Yes it's filling up correctly as well.

the car is getting 40-44mpg and the SUV is in the mid to high 20s with a 6.0 liter engine on the highway

<<<< -------- as you can see on my fuel log what a difference it made 10MPG difference