Hello all EMs.
 

Great website. I want to improve the FE of my 2007 Pontiac Vibe with autom. transm. I tought those small vehicules were a little better on FE. My other car was a VW Jetta 1.8T (manual) with an Upsolute fuel efficient performance chip and the FE was as good and sometimes better than the
small, weak and light Vibe.
Anyway i really think all small cars with small engines could do at least a little better right out of the dealer.
I'm doing around 35mpg on highway at 60mph, i may be a little optimistic but i would like to reach 45mpg. I don't want to make major mods like body jobs or transm. gearing but maybe with several minor mods and driving habits i could reach this goal maybe more (??).
I just received my new ScanGauge, it will be very helpfull.
Cheer

Welcome aboard, but I don't really think you have any hope of seeing 45mpg especially with an automatic transmission. I used to own a 2004 Toyota Corolla S (same engine, transmission, chassis - different exterior). Given that you have a Vibe (essentially a Corolla wagon) you are carrying slightly more weight than the sedan.

When I had my Corolla I noticed minimal MPG improvements with a cold air intake (Injen's worked best for me) and light weight rims.

In your case, I'd try over inflating the tires.

Hopefully you can utilize your scan gauge to prove me wrong. :thumbup:

Welcome to the site, I'm fairly sure that you can get there with a little bit of work, the SGII will help out a lot!

Hi thebrad and SVOboy, thanks for the welcome.

I know it's now gona be easy to get 45mpg but little by little i may be surprised.

I already increased the tires pressure a bit and i think i will start with the acetone trick, like 3ozs in 10gal of gas, i will see if it is worthwhile.

Salut Loory -

Welcome to the site. The ScanGauge is the perfect place to start. I think you'll be wasting your time with acetone.

If you drive mostly on the highway, reducing your speed, modulating the throttle (called "target driving" or "driving with load" - you'll understand this when you plug in the SG and watch the "instant" MPG), and aerodynamic mods are where you'll find gains. EG: does your car have roof racks? I can't tell from the avatar.

cheers-
Darin

Loory -

Welcome to EM! Yeah, the auto-tranny will make things tricky, but the round Vibe nose should be amenable to a subtle grill block behind the honeycomb grille. I would spend some time here to see what other Vibe afficionados have done to their cars :

http://www.genvibe.com/

The emphasis will probably be performance, but you should be able to rummage around and find mods that fit MPG needs also.

Unless the Canadian Vibes are different, you must have roof-racks. Here is my "Hot Wheels Kammback" design :

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5...backmq7.th.jpg

You'd need a HUMUNGUOUS Post-It to make it work for your 1:1 scale Vibe, though, :D .

CarloSW2

MetroMPG,
Thank you for your thinking on acetone, i'm not so enthousiast about it to say the truth,
it seem like it's not as popular as i tought.
I do 75% of my driving in town and about DWL or "target driving", i don't know what is the most economical speed on my Vibe but in order to not bother the traffic too much, i will have to keep a steady economical speed like not less than about 55mph.
Yes there is a roof rack on it and also a FM antenna and a satelite radio antenna as well.

CFG83,
Thanks for your welcome and the link, i sometime go to the Genvibe site it's a good one.
Good job on your Hotweels POST-IT mod lol ! Would this "flat back" shape mod realy work for better FE, i'm just curious ?
Loo

thebrad
What is the magnitude of the improvement you had with a cold air intake on your corolla ?
Loo

With your 4-cylinder engine, I'm betting the most economical cruising speed is just after your highest gear engages / torque converter locks up. Just guessing, but it's probably fairly close to 75-80 km/h or 50 mph. So if 55 is the minimum you feel you can safely cruise, it's probably not too bad. Your ScanGauge should help you answer that question pretty quickly.

+2-3 mpg to the lifetime average.
I can forward you my Excel sheet if you PM me your e-mail address.

Hello Loory. I own a 2003 Toyota Matrix 5 speed. In my route back and forth to work I have achieved 47 mpg just from driving techniques (without any physical modifications) according to my scangauge (my mileage log doesn't reflect that as the wife drives it normally). I would recommend against a cold air intake. Instead, a warm air intake would be much better suited to getting you better gas mileage, especially with an automatic transmission since you can't pulse and glide.

Is the '07 Matrix drivetrain the same as the '06 Corolla? I think it is.

If it is, I may be able to get some figures to compare to my dad's car (ie. torque converter lockup speed & mpg, etc.)

03 - 08 Matrix/Corolla/Vibe all use the same engine and trans (except Matrix/Vibe had optional awd).

MetroMPG
The slowest speed i can engage the the fourth speed lock-up is at 37mph. I installed the SGII today and went on the highway for a few milles and at 55mph the gauge say i'm doing 45mpg (US), pretty good, i said to myself "i must be going downhill a little" and i tried the same route back and it was the same. I normally go at 65mph for 35mpg but i'm convinced... As soon as i go further than 55mph FE start to degrade, thanks to the SGII. At 50mph it's even better, good to know!

thebrad,
Thank you for your answer on the CAI. Was the car much louder with it than with the original air bowl below let say 3000rpm ?

Hello Daox,
Great to ear from a Matrix owner.
Ya 47mpg is pretty good, what speed are you going to get that number ?
I'm pretty convinced i will hit the 50mpg target on all my trips on highway pretty soon! As long as i keep going very smooth on the gas pedal all the time (bellow 50mph).
I'm surprise to ear that some are getting a better FE with P&G cause i always tought P&G was worse in FE than cruising at the same constant speed, that's good to know.

Daox,
Have you done the warm air intake mod on you Matrix ? How can we explain that this mod could bring a better FE ?

Hello H4MM3R,
What king of car is your avatar? The shape must be pretty good for FE. Is it yours?

:thumbup: welcome from noob 2 noob. wow ur lucky u can use a scangauge. my car is a 92 and obd1, so it's not compatible.

Wow, I really lost track of this thread. My daily commute is 95% highway. Half of it is in a 65 mph zone and half is in a 55 mph zone. I pulse and glide from 65-55 in the 65 zone and 60-50 in the 55 zone. I leave early to go to work (usually arrive around 30 minutes early) to avoid traffic.

I'm highly considering the warm air intake for the Matrix as my wife does not pulse and glide like I do. However, I haven't actually done anything as far as installing it yet. Here is a thread that explains the warm air intake: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php?t=529

Hi Nden, thanks for the welcome.
Yes i like the ScanGauge very much, i have it since a few weeks already and three things i like in particular is the MPG, the GPH (gallons per hour) and the TPS (throttle position sensor).

Daox, your millage is great ! 47 MPG at speeds above 50mph, great.

Thanks for the link about WAI ? Maybe i will try it in the near futur, i also wonder if a fuel heater could make a difference. I also want to try a Protium gaz optimizer but not totaly decided yet, they have great testimonials from their clients.

Are you pushing the clutch or shift to neutral every time you glide with your manual Vibe ?

I'm in the same situation, my wife doesn't use the ScanGauge and also not much driving techniques, she run the car 50% of the time but its ok she may learn later hopefully.

Well welcome fellow Vibe owner, my vibe is an '04 auto and I have similar goals for my vehicle as I commute hwy 51 miles each way every day.

Here is an unofficial update on acetone as I just went through my first tank using it. I saw a jump of nearly 3mpg to a new high of 36mpg.

The changes I made with this tank were; inflated tires to 44psi, ran the a/c only on the morning commute, ran the fan with windows up on the night trip home. I'm sure all three contribute to the gain, but hopefully the next fill up will support or debunk this change.

As far as how much acetone, I am using 1mL/Gal

I'll keep you posted on the changes and I can't wait until I get my Scangauge.

I wouldn't spend a lot of time on that. You can find testimonials for just about every kind of gimmick out there!

trikkonceptz: I'm glad you recognize that it's impossible to definitively say whether or not something contributes to a change in fuel economy when you change multiple items at once. Generally, an A-B-A test is the way to test.

trikkonceptz
Hi and happy to ear from you (auto. Vibe owner).
Thanks for you input about acetone and things !
Frankly, i didn't know it was that hard to get the Vibe (autom.) much more fuel efficient, i would have made all i could to convince my wife to learn manual if i knew it.
By the way she was quite unhappy when she saw the roof rack remove the other day but it's ok finally, my father n mother laugh at me too but it's ok too, it's not that i spend alot of money on gaz i'm doing that, it's just that i can't understand and accept that a so small car and engine like this is not much more FE mainly in town, my heavy 210hp 2003 Jetta 1.8T (manual) was better in town, on highway it was about the same but i do it mainly as a game because we use about one tank a month with 90% in city driving.
ScanGauge is a great device, i think it should be standard equipment on all cars.
For your mods, if you want a great n easy one, it's the upper grill block, the two grills can be unpoped by the inside very easily and what i did is to install a double sided tape all around them and i used some window insulating plastic film (the one you can shrink with hair dryer) and you just pop it back in n that's it, but the lower part grills and fog ereas in the other hand seems quite difficult to get flush blocked.
Good luck and see you later.


MetroMPG,
Thank you for your input about the Protium Optimizer, i hope it will help for FE because i ordered it a week ago and they said there's about 4 weeks delay before they ship the device. I'm quite desperate to see that it's so difficult to get my city FE much higher with my autom. transm. that's why i decided to try the Protium.
Where i work, two guys told me they had great result with the "Tornado" or "Vortex" device, you know the one you put in your air filter piping ? One guy said about 5mpg(imp) beter on a V6 Escape and the other one said a few mpg on his GMC V8, i said to myself wtf could this be true! (???).
Also have you heard about the TunerPro before at http://www.tunerpro.net/
it's a free, donate-if-you-like-it tuning platform aimed at making tuning easier and cheaper for DIYers, when i found this page i said maybe some hypermillers are using or could use this to modify or enhance the engine parameters (fuel map, advance ...) in the ECU, it's quite technical but maybe it's not that difficult to learn.
I would like to thank you btw for all the advices and tricks you give to all of us on the WWW about FE. and congrat. for your great FE results.

Loory, I wouldn't bother with a fuel warmer on the Vibe. The fuel rail is really tucked in close to the engine and already gets quite warm I'm sure as there is an engine cover (plastic thing you see when you pop the hood) that has insulation on the backside of it. I'm sure the fuel rail stays nice and warm once the engine is up to temperature. Here is a picture that shows how close the fuel rail is to the head. As you can see, the bottom side is surrounded by the intake manifold. In the second picture (not my engine) you can see that the engine cover goes completely over the top of the fuel rail and pretty much touches the intake manifold where you see the step in the intake manifold. It really seals in that area. The boys at Toyota are a smart bunch. :)

http://www.tercelreference.com/downl..._fuel_rail.jpg

http://www.tercelreference.com/downl...gine_bay_1.jpg



When I pulse and glide in the Matrix I always use engine on and I shift to neutral 95% of the time. On rare occasion going up a steep hill I won't take it out of gear because I know I need to pulse again soon.

Hi Daox,
Thanks alot for these infos, i'm quite convinced now that the fuel warmer is not necessary.
I will use the P&G too with my auto. transm. realy soon as i'm out of town for a while, i intend to pulse and shift the transm. to Neutral to the next stop sign or traffic light.
BTW what should i do to display my FE at the bottom of my replys at Ecomodder like you all do, you know your "34.5MPGus for Matrix and 43.2 MPGus for Paseo" blue and green window ?
Good day.

trikkonceptz
Hi again. About your 44psi tire pressure, from the door sticker i'm supposed to inflate them all at 32psi and i tink this 32psi is there in order to wear them evenly, not too hard (center wear) - not too soft (sides wear). I have them at 34psi now and i'm afraid to go higher than that because of probable uneven wear.
Am i wrong on thinking like so or would i be able to make as much miles with them at 44psi than i would at 32psi ?

I'm sure there are others than can chime in with better advice, but 44psi is the max psi listed on the tire and I am going to assume that is the max pressure we can use before we start to see uneven wear in every day use.

I have read many here using 55 psi+ but have to assume that is hell on the tires, at 44psi I can already see a difference in how the car rides.

BTW how hard was it to remove the roof rack? Thats coming off this week.

I had my brand new winter tires set to 50 psi (35 max sidewall) all winter long. I just took them off and they still look brand new. Increased tire pressure will not wear tires unevenly, the steel belting inside them holds them so they do not ballon out like you would think. You'll actually get more miles out of the tires if you pump them up further. I also run my summer tires at 50 psi on the Matrix. However, they are rated at 51 max sidewall pressure. The factory recommendation is simply to give a nice soft ride.

trikkonceptz
All right for you tire press.
About the roof rack, there's a post about it somewhere, let me see, it' at:
http://www.giantmosquito.com/vibe/roofrackremoval.html
It's the only page i found.
anyway i found it quite easy finally i poped up the 4 corners by pulling in a upward direction (for the rear caps, i firstly disengaged the small tab from the front exterior side, see the yellow circle at the link page above in step 1.
After that i unscrewed the two bolts per sides and at this point a had no choice but pulling the rack up to unsnap the 3 fasteners in between (they broked for me but we can purchase some more) and that's it.
Good luck.


Daox
Thanks for the infos ! I will get my tires harder pretty soon, i will without a doubt get a better FE because of that.
Great that your winter tires are still in great shape, how many milles have you done on them at 50psi ? What is the model and size tires you have for winter and summer, just curious.
Thank you for the "How to setup your mileage signature" page link, i didn't know it was a signature.

I'd say my wife put on about 7k - 10k miles (11k-16K Km) on the winter tires. She drives a lot for work during the day.

Daox
Gees, she drives alot more than we both do my wife and me on the same car.
BTW great pages you have about the Paseo and Matrix, nice grill block too.