Not yet - but just give us a little time!!!

(J/K of course)

My mileage will suffer most of the winter - during extreme cold periods, but I fully expect it to return to the 39-42 range after the winter months.

 

Just wait, our turn will come again in the summer... I remember reading all those posts about keeping the A/C off back in Aug/Sep. Obviously some of those posters didn't have to contend with a typical Gulf Coast summer, as in high 90's with +80% humidity

 

Same issue here. We live in Des Moines, Iowa and my office commute is 5 miles each way.
My first tank gave an avg of 26.4. Winter here has arrived and the temperature is a harsh 18-25 F (excluding the windchill). Not been on a very long drive yet. A 12 mile drive gave us comaparitively better mileage.
I do not worry too much, but is there a way to improve mileage further?
Here we use 10% ethanol fuel.

thanks.
Anand.

 

I stopped by a pizza place today to pick up dinner. While stepping in for carry-out, I saw several very large SUV's idling in the parking lot. Coming out 10 minutes later, those large SUV's were still there, still idling. I think I'm not gonna worry about a few MPG drop on my TCH. Obviously, I could be doing much worse.

 

Same here in sunny San Diego. It has been in the high 30s in the morning. I've noticed a slight MPG drop as well.

 

Had a kinda interesting thought just now on the MPG.

I took delivery of my magnetic gray TCH November 30 in Detroit. Although it was supposed to come with a full tank of gas, it had maybe a quarter tank. It only had 6 miles on it so my guess is it didn't start with a full tank, but it only held what the factory put in, possibly in Japan.

I drove it about 20 miles to a mall to pick up some salad dressing (wife's order) before making my long 730 miles track home to Atlanta and I was very happy with the mileage I was getting -- around 42 MPG. Drove it for another 10 miles to a gas station to fill up, thinking maybe I can make it home in one tank. I filled up while still in Michigan at a BP I think, although I'm not certain... I filled up once more at Knoxville, KY because I didn't want to look for a gas station when I neared home at 2 AM.

On my drive down, my mileage gradually went down until it settled around 35 MPG. Since then, I filled up once more at Costco station and mileage has dropped further to 34 MPG.

And my semi-interesting thought is: is this because of winter blend of gasoline? Maybe 10% ethanol? I've driven hybrids before. I think I know how to drive carefully and to maximize gas mileage. But the significant drop off when other conditions seem comparable appears to point the finger at fuel blend. It was relatively balmy in Detroit when I left and it's gotten colder than usual in Atlanta now so temperature difference would not account for such a drop, I think.

 

The sag in my winter MPG seems to be related to the fact that the ICE gets kicked off to generate heat to warm the cabin.

Heater on while not moving = ICE running, which is killing my FE.

We had 10% ethanol all summer long, and my FE was in the high 30's. The cold temperature over the last week had yielded FE in the low 30's. And this is just cold air without any snow/ice on the roads.

 

I've seen the same thing.

One thing that seems to work is to change to ECO (if not in ECO) or change from ECO (if already in ECO) if the ICE is running while I'm not moving. For some reason, the ICE will shut down when I do this. I can't say it does it all the time, but often enough for me to notice.

 

Also, after the warmup period is over, turning the heater off seems to turn the ICE off as well.

 

This thread has been highly amusing to me. The definitions of severe or winter weather are quite humorous.

Here in Alberta we have recently had temperatures ranging from -30C (-22F) to -36C (-33F) now that is severe. The suggestion to turn off the heater in order to save a somewhat miniscule amount of gas would be considered extreme in this part of the world.

I don't know what all of you have your cabin temp set at but perhaps you could reconsider that in an attempt to improve your gas mileage. Just a thought.

Before our current cold snap I was getting 39 mpg (imperial) and currently am getting 34 mpg (imperial) so I'm not complaining.

Cheers