What kind of mileage are you getting on your Encore?

[KSDeputy]

I never had a tune up, but early on discovered that the engine has more power using 91 octane gas. So that is what I use, and I get 29.8 overall.

 

[u600213]

2014 AWD 2500 miles on it, I don't drive much/far. Avg trip is 2 miles on local streets I get 20.5MPG which sucks but to be expected for such short trips.

 

[Foursoors]

Just took a short trip -- around 35 miles -- on a 2 lane highway with significant mid town traffic lights, and got 35 mpg round trip. Around town -- 2-3 miles at a time-- getting between 27-28 mpg. Pretty happy overall. I have. 2014 FWD with about 3000 miles on it.

 

[lparsons21]

2014 AWD 2500 miles on it, I don't drive much/far. Avg trip is 2 miles on local streets I get 20.5MPG which sucks but to be expected for such short trips.

Yeah, when I do just short trips like that I only get about 24mpg on my 2015 FWD Encore. But if I go to one of the other towns close by and back, I get a combined 28 or thereabouts. Up on the interstate I get 33.1mpg @73mph average. I can increase all of those with a MPG boost tune and just haven't got around to doing it yet.

 

[amharney]

I have the 2013 AWD Encore. Just took my first road trip since buying it used. Got 33.2 on highway and that was with a Thule bike rack and two heavy bikes on the back.
I live in Chicago city limits so driving locally is full time stop and go unless it's 2-4am. If I'm careful I can get 20 in the city and am very happy with that. In the suburbs I can get 25 if I'm careful and annoy the drivers behind me.

 

[EncoreEncore]

Just curious, how do you folks measure your fuel consumption?
Are you being accurate, or the results are based on estimated distances, rounded gas prices, "quite full tanks", etc.?

As much as it sounds trivial, there's really only one way to do it:
1. You fill up the tank as much as possible.
2. Take a note of your initial mileage, let's call it M1.
3. Keep the receipts of ALL your next gas purchases by credit card (recommended). If you pay cash, take a note of how many gallons.
4. After 5 or 6 thousand miles (and MANY times at the gas station) and once you decide to end the observation, fill the tank as much as possible again.
5. Take a note of the final mileage right after the last filling. Let's call it M2.
6. Divide (M2 - M1) by the total number of gallons (decimals included, there's 3 decimals in the receipts!) that you have put in since the beginning of the test, *excluding* the first filling.
7. The result of the division is your MPG.

It takes patience, but it's the only reliable way.
Anybody who's actually done that with the Encore?
And sorry if all of this sounds so obvious, but I can ensure you there's a lot of people who has no clue about it.

 

[lparsons21]

I'm sure your described method would possibly be more accurate. But I'm not interested in all that folderol for little benefit. Especially since I only drive about 5K miles/year.

A simple, yet accurate enough method that I use works for me.
1. For a road trip, top off the tank as you get ready to leave town. When you fill, top off again and calculate the MPG. That's a PRACTICAL MPG value. Maybe not 100% accurate, but then who actually cares? 🙂
2. For around town I fill up about every other month and do the same calculations. That gives me my around town/between local town mileage and again is as accurate as it needs to be.
3. For my short in town only trips I just use the vehicle's readings and they are again as accurate as they need to be.

All that said, now that I have the baselines for each that are good enough for me, I'll most likely not actually check very often other than the vehicle's display.

I'll be filling with 93 Octane next time and then just keep using that and put the Boost Tune on it. Gain some performance and might lose some mileage but what the hell, with my low annual mileage it won't make much of a difference.

 

[EncoreEncore]

I'm sure your described method would possibly be more accurate. But I'm not interested in all that folderol for little benefit. Especially since I only drive about 5K miles/year.

A simple, yet accurate enough method that I use works for me.
1. For a road trip, top off the tank as you get ready to leave town. When you fill, top off again and calculate the MPG. That's a PRACTICAL MPG value. Maybe not 100% accurate, but then who actually cares? 🙂
2. For around town I fill up about every other month and do the same calculations. That gives me my around town/between local town mileage and again is as accurate as it needs to be.
3. For my short in town only trips I just use the vehicle's readings and they are again as accurate as they need to be.

Your method and my method are the same! 🙂
The difference is in the statistical sample.
If you apply the method at just one tank of gas, the outcome may be inaccurate for a variety of reasons.

To give a reasonable estimate of the real MPG of a car you need to apply this method for a longer time. And when it comes to calculate the division Miles/Gallons, it's important that no data is missing - especially at the denominator.

 

[pwhited]

I bought a Ruby Red 2015 two weeks and 4 days ago. Last weekend I took a day trip, about 250 miles overall. Filled up before I left town, and on the way home the trip meter was showing 189.7 miles when I stopped to fill up. The gas gauge looked like it might be down by 3/8's of a tank, which I guessed would be 5 or 6 gallons, depending on the accuracy of the gauge. It took 5.01 gallons for a pretty nice 37 + mpg. After driving a 98 astro since 1999, even 25 would have made me happy, but 37 mpg was amazing to me. The trip was half freeway, half state/county roads with hills..

 

[Foursoors]

I don't need total precision. I have found that mileage driven divided by the number of gallons is a good rough total, and so far the readout matches it. I'm just using regular gas and am getting 28 mpg almost every time in around town driving ever since summer gas and warmer temps are here. Really happy with the mpg. I get nearly 33-35 mpg on a highway trip. This is FWD with just over 4k on the clock.

 

[EncoreEncore]

I bought a Ruby Red 2015 two weeks and 4 days ago. Last weekend I took a day trip, about 250 miles overall. Filled up before I left town, and on the way home the trip meter was showing 189.7 miles when I stopped to fill up. The gas gauge looked like it might be down by 3/8's of a tank, which I guessed would be 5 or 6 gallons, depending on the accuracy of the gauge. It took 5.01 gallons for a pretty nice 37 + mpg. After driving a 98 astro since 1999, even 25 would have made me happy, but 37 mpg was amazing to me. The trip was half freeway, half state/county roads with hills..

A perfect example of why people should make this exercise on a much longer span of time / larger quantity of gas used.

37 mpg means 5 mpg more than the official number by Buick, a 15% difference.
It is not the free freeway or the county road with no traffic. It's a measurement error. Most likely, your tank at the beginning of the trip was slightly more full than after you refilled it.

The incidence in % of this kind of inaccuracies decreases as you increase the time/distance/amount of gas used for your observation.

 

[EncoreEncore]

I don't need total precision. I have found that mileage driven divided by the number of gallons is a good rough total, and so far the readout matches it. I'm just using regular gas and am getting 28 mpg almost every time in around town driving ever since summer gas and warmer temps are here. Really happy with the mpg. I get nearly 33-35 mpg on a highway trip. This is FWD with just over 4k on the clock.

Total precision is unachievable. Much better precision is.
Pwhite here got 37 mpg, you get 33. That's quite a discrepancy, and it's not because he has a more environmental friendly engine than you. 🙂

 

[Foursoors]

That's probably because that person took a long trip. My longest one has been an hour drive! I get 35 mpg on the highway then so no reason to think it wouldn't be better if it was a longer highway drive.

 

[The Pool Man]

I have just over a 1000 miles on mine. It seems the more I drive... the more mileage I see.

 

[pwhited]

When I fill up, I pull the pump handle out when it clicks off, I don't top it off with *click, click, click*.. If I topped off, I could see there being a difference in fuel volume, but by letting it stop on it's own I think it's fairly accurate.. Today I made the same trip and got 36.27, so a bit less than the last trip. But this time I had a passenger. I've read of Encore owners getting 40 mpg, so what about them? Let's put it this way, it used 5.17 gallons of gas today, over a 180 + mile trip. I also checked after a week of city driving, 25 and some change, not so good, but the pedal seems to find it's way to the floor fairly often going from light to light.. Are these numbers subject to variables? I have no doubt that they could be, but when I'm looking for freeway mileage, I don't want city driving added to the mix which is what your method of figuring mpg would do. This photo is less than 5 gallons used.. Also, the dot gov shows this method.. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=calcMPG but it occurs to me that the best way to figure freeway MPG is to fill the tank (14 gallons, right?) zero the trip meter, and drive the freeway until you run out of gas... Then do the math, pour in the two gallons in the gas jug you brought (please tell me you didn't forget the gas jug) and find the nearest gas station...

 

[EncoreEncore]

When I fill up, I pull the pump handle out when it clicks off, I don't top it off with *click, click, click*.. If I topped off, I could see there being a difference in fuel volume, but by letting it stop on it's own I think it's fairly accurate.. Today I made the same trip and got 36.27, so a bit less than the last trip. But this time I had a passenger. I've read of Encore owners getting 40 mpg, so what about them? Let's put it this way, it used 5.17 gallons of gas today, over a 180 + mile trip. I also checked after a week of city driving, 25 and some change, not so good, but the pedal seems to find it's way to the floor fairly often going from light to light.. Are these numbers subject to variables? I have no doubt that they could be, but when I'm looking for freeway mileage, I don't want city driving added to the mix which is what your method of figuring mpg would do. This photo is less than 5 gallons used.. Also, the dot gov shows this method.. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=calcMPG but it occurs to me that the best way to figure freeway MPG is to fill the tank (14 gallons, right?) zero the trip meter, and drive the freeway until you run out of gas... Then do the math, pour in the two gallons in the gas jug you brought (please tell me you didn't forget the gas jug) and find the nearest gas station...

I think I already tried to explain what about the Encore owners who claim 40 mpg. It's a measurement inaccuracy. Your 5 gallons, 180 miles are the reason why you get 36+ mpg. The statistical sample is too small. Try over a few thousand miles, and you will likely get a different result.

Also, please be logic. Buick claims 32 mpg on the highway. 40 mpg is 8 mpg more or, if you prefer, 25% more. Do you really think Buick wouldn't claim this amazing fuel consumption, if it was the case?

There is NO way to make a perfect measurement, but there is a way to reduce the % incidence of the error, and that is running the observation for a longer time and over a larger quantity of fuel / driven miles.

 

[Foursoors]

Yes, but it has been true for us that we are getting better fuel economy than the EPA numbers by about 2-3 mpg. I agree that 40 mpg doesn't seem reasonable over a long haul, but I am happy that I'm getting better than I expected as a general rule. a nice benefit to the Encore I didn't expect!

 

[pwhited]

There are other considerations as well, such as driving habits, humidity, winds, many factors affect fuel mileage. When I get time and my Encore is low on gas, I will put 2 full two gallon gas cans (with 2 gallons ONLY, as measured by the pump) in the back and run it out of fuel on the freeway west of town, a nice flat stretch of highway. Then I will pour in two gallons and drive until it stops running. Then we'll know, won't we? I'll take photos and video as well, wouldn't want you to think I was cheating..

 

[Foursoors]

No ones accusing anyone. The point is rather that short run fuel economy (I.e. 2 gallons of gas) is not a meaningful figure. There are times my readout says "99 mpg" but obviously that isn't sustainable over an entire tankful of gas. What's meaningful is the mileage you achieve on a consistent basis over time. So far for me my mileage is somewhat better than EPA figures, especially around town where I do the majority of my driving. I'm pleased with that. I have the FWD Encore.

 

[gralm]

There are other considerations as well, such as driving habits, humidity, winds, many factors affect fuel mileage. When I get time and my Encore is low on gas, I will put 2 full two gallon gas cans (with 2 gallons ONLY, as measured by the pump) in the back and run it out of fuel on the freeway west of town, a nice flat stretch of highway. Then I will pour in two gallons and drive until it stops running. Then we'll know, won't we? I'll take photos and video as well, wouldn't want you to think I was cheating..

That practice may be also dangerous for your car, particularly for a fuel pump.