2000-2005 LeSabres - What MPG do you get in town and on the highway?

[Apollo]

I'm asking because I have my doubts about what the electronic readout is telling me.
According to the readout I'm getting about 17 city and 24 highway, but it seems to be using more than that even though I don't drive it hard.

Has anyone gone old-school and figured mileage by dividing the number of miles driven by the number of gallons used? Somehow I think that'll yield a more accurate figure.

If you have done the old-school method, what were your numbers?

 

[Razzfox]

After some crunching, and owning about three Lesabres so far, an 01 Custom, an 02 Limited, and an 05 Limited, I've come to the conclusion that on average I'll get about 15-18 in-city driving depending on weather conditions, and if I'm going all highway/freeway miles, I average anywhere from 29-32.

Really it all depends on the terrain and your driving conditions and habits. I know around here I'll tend to get slightly less overall cause a lot of northern Minnesota is driving up hills and such, but that's at least from my personal experience.

I've also learned to not take what the Average MPG readout on the dash is giving you unless there's specific conditions. For example, when I went on my 5000 odd mile road trip in my 02, it told me I was averaging about 32 miles to the gallon. and after crunching through the like 15 or more odd gas reciepts to calculate my actual mileage vs what I'd actually traveled, it average out to within like .3 off of my number crunch work.

It seems though that for shorter usage, like if you reset it every time you fill up the tank it seems to be quite less then accurate overall

 

[gnhbodyguy]

03 Limited gets 24 mpg average. About 28 if all highway at about 70 MPH. Never worse than about 22 all city.
04 Custom 26 mpg average. About 30 if all highway at about 70 MPH. Never worse than about 24 all city.
I drive with a light foot on purpose. My son gets way worse mileage with the same cars because he drives with a heavy foot.

 

[oldschool]

My wife's car (LeSabre) gets 29mpg on the highway in the summer if I stay close to 60mph. That's usg. When I do the calculation I get 7.9l/100km but the DIC says 7.2l/100km. That's very optimistic, not really accurate at all.
My '07 Allure is very accurate. Anytime I do the calculation it is the same as what the car is telling me.

 

[JohnnyH1012]

In the city, my best hyper-miling attempt turned up an incredible 26 mpg, although when I drive normally my average is more like 20 mpg. On the highway, I'll easily see 30 mpg in my 2000 Ltd.

 

[jerreich]

I can't go by that, my fuel level sending unit never worked since I had this car. I travel to Chicago, mostly via freeway and toll way quite frequently (266 miles each way) and have consistently gotten 30+ MPG with the air con running. It really depends on the wind, with the wind I have gotten as much as 34 MPG per trip. Bucking a pretty strong wind, I once got just under 28 MPG without the air con. (It was quite cool then) I am really quite surprised that a large car with a 231 CI engine could get this good mileage. It is mostly due to the transmission/differential gear ratio. My wife's car (98 Neon twin cam) gets 28 MPG at the same speed, with the engine RPM much higher at any given speed. I usually go 70-75 MPH, depending on the other traffic.

 

[DonP]

Around 27 MPG on I-95 at around 65-70 MPH, a bit better with speeds held to around 55-60.
More like 21 by the spouse driving around town in the Northern VA burbs.

 

[gmfugitt]

I have gotten as low as 23 city and as high as 32 for long road trips according to the computer in my 2000. When I calculated it manually the comtuter was about 1 mpg higher.

 

[krglorioso]

Using the old fashioned method, keeping all data in a small spiral notebook for the last 7K miles, I record an average of 22-23 in mostly city driving and 30 or a bit over on highway at 65mph. I drove the '04 LeSabre from Madison WI to Santa Rosa Ca last Summer and averaged 30.6mpg, always cruising within the posted limits. I am in awe that such a large, heavy car can do this. Fuel economy is not the sole province of tiny, Asian cars.

Ralph

 

[Glenn W]

'01 LeSabre, the readout is usually within 5% if I don't reset it over 2-3 tank fulls and there's a good average of city highway driving. It'll tell me I averaged around 26 mpg overall and the actual math will be closer to 25.5 mpg. I regularly do a 200mi round trip run with maybe 20-30 miles city driving in between the 100mi highway runs when I'm there. Actual mpg used to be 29.5, then the max speed limit on much of the 100 mi portion was raised from 65 to 70 and my actual mpg has dropped to 29 😉

 

[Rapala]

Most of my driving is hiway. I live 25 miles from town and speed limit is 70 and 75 (I love Texas). I average 27 with pen and paper, and the DIC backs it up.
I recently took a trip to San Antonio ~ 170 miles one way at the same speeds using cruise control most of the way, squeezed 29 out of it.

 

[Fuelman]

Using calculator,mixed driving I usually come out around 26 mpg. My fuel gauge is a bit flakey my 300 mile fill ups usually take 11.5- 12 gal 185,000k
still going strong.

 

[lilpoindexter]

This weekend I took my car from Los Angeles to Ventura....from 76 to 106F...really hot. On the way there, i had no AC. I couldnt take it. so I bought a can of r134 at a walmart...i charged the system, AHHHH i was soooo happy and cool on the way back. I got stuck in typical socal traffic in spots, other times I went up to 70mph. My car has out of round tires, so I couldnt go too fast. 27.5MPG...i was stoked. I think im gonna keep working on this thing...its comfy on the highway, its roomy, (sure, it has overboosted GM power steering with no road feel, but who cares). Tell me again why they dont make cars like this anymore? That 3800 has plenty of power too.

 

[John Canon]

... tell me again why they dont make cars like this anymore? That 3800 has plenty of power too.

Everybody had to have an SUV, so every car company started making them, including Porsche, Lexus and Mercedes Benz.

I blame the Cadillac Escalade, an upscale SUV that sat very tall. That way Cadillac owners could look down on people while they were looking down on people.

 

[G-339106]

Most of my driving is hiway. I live 25 miles from town and speed limit is 70 and 75 (I love Texas). I average 27 with pen and paper, and the DIC backs it up.
I recently took a trip to San Antonio ~ 170 miles one way at the same speeds using cruise control most of the way, squeezed 29 out of it.

Yep and you don't have to worry about those CVT transmissions I mean I know LeSabre's transmissions have their quartz I had to replace a transmission solenoid at 128,000 mi but it's not the 7800 replacement for some of those mid-2010s to mid 2020s Honda's Toyotas Subarus etc