yay! 40 mpg! Chevy Aveo :)
 

I'm really excited that I hit 40 mpg. I got 39 on part of a commuting tank with no seats, new oil change, new filters (well, engine, oil, cabin), no passenger or rear seats, max sidewall fill in tires, and going 55 mph-ish. I also got 39mpg to and 41mpg back from a family visit. I jumped 10 mpg, and I'm not sure which thing had the most impact. I'd assume going 55mph. My slushbox shifts gears later than I'd like, especially in that range. And I'm not often going that speed.... The seats are pretty light, but I think all of them together are about 100 lbs. I also was able to do some coasting since it was quite hilly. But I've never gotten such good mileage on that trip or on a commute! I saved 4 gallons this weekend! I would've saved 16 if I hadn't gone anywhere though lol

I'm hoping to eventually get at least 50mpg *crosses fingers* with some aeromods. I'm nervous that I won't be able to get anything better than that though. I can't EOC. I'm driving an automatic, and I'm not a hybrid or diesel.

Great job. The Aveo rates at around 28 mpg, so 40 is a 43% gain.

Losing all the weight, no doubt, reduced the fuel used to get up to speed.

A little bit of over inflation of the tires, if you're comfortable with that will give you a boost.

A grill block and smooth wheel covers are great projects that will get you some gains as well.

Keep it up!

On the highway loosing that weight has a negligible effect. if you are doing a lot of stop and go and you are using your brakes a lot it likely helped a bit. If you are coasting down to a stop, or nearly so, most of the energy you invested in getting up to speed was turned into distance traveled when you slowed back down.

nice job! hypermiling an auto is tough! good luck with your future mods!of to a great start!

Are you coasting in neutral or in drive?

As I've mentioned elsewhere I can get 37 MPG with the A/C on at 65 MPH - but the FE goes to hell once it's no longer in lockup mode. But I'm not about to remove the seats (it's my wife's car). So 40 MPG is believable if you are driving above 45 MPH. :)

I coast in neutral usually since I can get juuuuuust a bit farther!

When I entered my gas and miles in the fuel log in the "garage" though, the thing said it was 39.8 mpg! Waa! I guess my phone calculator rounds up.... That's what I based my 40 mpg brag on. But I'll get it this tank!!!! I will!

Keep practicing, you'll get it.

Neutral coast so that you are around 25 mph or less before applying brakes. Sometimes you can "manually" shift simply by letting off the gas while accelerating and let it shift up earlier. If you are stop light to stop light, keep the acceleration light and time the greens so you don't have to stop. If you are traveling 4 miles or farther between stops, then 70 to 75% throttle on acceleration. Hills are subject to argument, but I tend to use steady throttle up them (no acceleration), off the throttle before peaking, coast over the top, then easy acceleration downhill to gain momentum for the next hill. If no "next hill" then coast down then resume target speed near the bottom. Steady manual throttle beats cruise control for MPGs. Just some tips (probably preaching to the choir!)

I believe the Aveo replaced the Metro, so the potential is there!

Very nice job! Not many with automatic Aveos have hit that high.

I agree that a top grill block would be a good addition.

Do you ever shift from neutral back into drive at higher speeds? It's questionable as to whether that might damage the transmission. OTOH, coasting to a stop or an almost stop is known to be OK, and I do that whenever possible.

I do do that and I've wondered now and again if I'm damaging the trans. It's been okay so far, and isn't making any nasty noises or showing anything on my RPMs that would indicate it's real bad..... It feels like it gets itself back up to the right gear in about the same time it would if I floored it. I figure that that wouldn't be too much different :confused:

If it was a new car, I probably wouldn't do it except for a few situations that I can think of: there's this great series of steep hills for like 80 miles where you can coast in neutral the whole way; coasting to a stop at a sign or light. I shift to neutral in bumper to bumper traffic too, since I sit in it enough that I figure it's gotta add up!

Euro-Aveo has a 1.2 engine and makes 50 MPG (imp) on the combined official consumption.

I've noticed that companies tend to make vehicles bigger when bringing them over to our market in the US. In SOME way. My engine is 1.6L. I was looking at the Fiat 500s that just came over here and they're not as impressive in mileage as I was hoping, based on reviews of them in Europe and Top Gear not thinking it was too bad ;) VW has been teasing us about their BlueMotion for some time and bringing over the Polo and that stuff. The smaller engines seem to get so much better mileage and the last ones of those seem to be the Geo Metro in the US! :(

I suggest you do the prudent thing: go to several independent transmission repair shops and ask them whether it will incur damage or not. All repair facilities (including Chevy dealers) farm out their A/T repair work because nobody fully understands A/T's as much as those who actually repair them.

Most people won't actually go and seek this advice, being afraid they might be advised against it. You might possibly be told it will damage the clutches or wreck the torque converter. If that were to happen, would anyone admit to false economy having saved $4 per tank of gas, but resulting in a $1500 transmission repair bill?

If I were you I'd ask some transmission experts. You'll have nothing to lose but a few minutes of your time, and you might have some interesting conversations. And if you do, please let us know what they say. ;)

They do seem to either miss out the little cars entirely (Ford Ka, GM Agila etc.) or only sell them with larger engines - e.g. the Yaris.

When I mentioned this elsewhere (*cough TTAC - aka "w@nking about cars" *cough) the replies all seem to suggest that Merkins 'NEED' all that performance compared to us poor Europeans. Yet when I have driven in the US (prior to EM stylee driving) I was passing on the freeways far more times than I was passed and I was doing more or less average European speeds. I did MN Airport to Alexandria in what was to my friends who lived there a record time - again, I was going slow for a European to enjoy the scenery.

The 500 has a really bad standard engines IMHO, not typical of European cars at all. You either have to get the TwinAir or the MultiJet Diesel to get anything with decent mileage or a decent drive neither of which are in the US I think. The Abarth is decent but not an FE machine.

I hadn't really thought about that for some reason! :D When I get around to it, I'll ask and report. Thanks for the suggestion! It'd be nice to see what people around here say and then maybe even get some reports from other people in other areas. ;)

Meh! I think it's a mindset we've adopted. Bigger is safer (for the person IN the bigger vehicle) and faster acceleration is safer. But I've gotten along fine without either. Along with that thinking, hot cars are fast. Fast cars are hot and purr. I have to agree that I find myself going, "Ooo!" Seeing a Maserati or other 400+hp beast on the road, but it's not something I want. :p

Yes! It made me sad when I went to the Fiat dealership to see what the ones were like that came over here!

I feel like we're so slow to adopt deisel, but it seems awesome, especially since it's so much cleaner burning and quieter now! At least in non-trucks. I'm hoping a car will come out soon that's a diesel-electric hybrid. Trains have been doing it for, like, ever. Why not cars?? :turtle:

Sweet, another aveo!

I'm creeping up on you with my last tank, and after I get my maintenance taken care of my numbers should improve even more. I'm glad I'm not one of the only aveo drivers on here :)

I have a certified mechanic friend, I'll ask him about the shifting. He also has other mechanic friends so I'll get their opinions on it as well. I know for a fact that they do transmission work.

Good luck to you and I hope your mod ideas work out in the future. I'm planning a few myself but can't do anything to it till I do the timing belt, hub bearings, valve cover etc.

Oh and btw, I do EOC in mine and it seems to be fine. Don't know if you have the same year, but any 2004-2006 should be the same. As long as you're careful to have the car in neutral, you can EOC safely. You'll still have a few good pumps on the brakes left, and the steering doesn't get difficult until under 25 mph. Of course if you don't feel safe doing it, don't do it, but it is possible.

Hi, I've got an Aveo, I've seen the thread about the grille block, do you have any information about smooth wheel covers and how to make them for an Aveo?

I think that if you go this route you will find that 99.9% of the answers will be its bad for the box! The techs might know how to repair but don't necessarily know how they work :confused:

The best advice I have found on coasting in neutral was here Corolla 07 Coasting on Neutral? - CleanMPG Forums

Try and find info on how your slush-boz works and then make up your own mind.

I'm happy to coast in neutral in my '06 Scion and am getting 40mpg with the seats in :D

This shows that engine size really makes the difference. I have an 1.2L Aveo that makes 53 MPG, without any modd (except removing the radio antenna, and over-inflate the tires from the recomended 2,3 to 2,5 BAR).

Don't know if the gasoline RON also makes a big difference. For example, here in Portugal we only have 95 and 98 RON. From what I know, in the US there is from 85 to 91 RON. I've been told that the more RON the gasoline has, the more efficient it is. So it's supposed to give a better mileage.

The octane rating of fuel in the US and Canada is actually pretty close to what is available in Europe. We just for some reason use a different octane rating system than you guys do. You use RON where as we use AKI. You can read about it in this wiki:

Octane rating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically though, regular 87 octane gas in the US is the equivalent of 91-92 RON. Premium 93 octane gas in the US is the equivalent of 97 RON. So Europe has slightly higher octane fuel available.

I highly doubt this has any sizable effect on fuel economy. The gains are mostly from your engine.

ron+mon/2=aki

98+88/2=93

mon is 8-10 points lower than ron

or 4-5 points lower then ron
97-98

we only have 91 in winterpeg

Hi everyone, I know this is an old thread but I've got an Aveo and I wanted to know whether alloy wheels could improve my fuel economy. I'm on 14" steel rims with 175/65R14 Michelin's - I'll need to buy new tires soon anyway so I just wondered whether replacing my wheels with 14" alloys would make any difference, or what brand of LRR tire is rated highly at present.
On the subject I read an article at caranddriver.com about how larger alloy wheels onto a VW Golf worsened fuel economy, is the opposite true? Could I fit 13" alloys onto my Aveo or would this just be stupid, hoping someone on here could tell me, thanks.

I haven't touched an Aveo in years, but I'm pretty positive you can get 13's on the rear, not sure about front. Be mindful of changing the revolutions per mile if you go that route though.

Alloys vs steelies: if you can get a set of miata Daisey wheels on there (I believe they are both 4x100) you'll have a decent weight savings, and then just pizza pan them (or the steelies) for added aero gains.

I'm unsure of the best LRR tires out there now, but I know when I switched over from some stickies (falken azenies) to a used set of Michelin harmony's I noticed a 2-3mpg improvement, but I also noted crap poor rain performance too.

New wheels will never pay for themselves if saving money is your goal. I'd probably just stick with the steelies and get a good set of LRR tires. Tirerack seems to have a good selection of tires as well as articles compairing the different tires out there. However, a quick search finds only 1 LRR they offer in the stock size, and its a snow tire. You might have to mess around with the size to get something that works for you.