So I've been reading a lot of MPG threads and I was wondering if Chevy has fixed the MPG issue? I say that because reading through the threads it seems that the MPG's are drastically different. Some people are getting 17-19 while others are getting close to 40. Before attacking me for asking this question, read some of the threads and you'll understand why I ask. I decided that this is the car I want come spring of next year. I want the hatchback LT with the turbo and 6 speed. I'm coming from a Jeep that gets 14-15 average and I want to make sure I'm going to average at least 30 with mixed driving.
Improved MPG's
- Thread starter Coastie05
- Start date
Here's my thoughts:
1) There is no "mpg issue." I can think of maybe two members (out of 5,000) that have reported something that I would deem to be a genuine issue as regards mpg. This is hardly an epidemic. Even if there were such a widespread issue, which I don't believe that there is, it has not been addressed by GM/Chevrolet.
2) Reported MPGs are drastically different because they reflect a variety of drastically different driving styles. City/Mixed/Highway driving can be very difficult to differentiate and doesn't mean a whole lot of anything in the end. There are simply too many variables to take into account.
3) There are no guarantees that you will get 30 mpg. I would be a little surprised if you did not, but I have no idea what your commute is like. I feel comfortable saying that you will get considerably better mileage with a Sonic, turbo or otherwise, than you are getting with that Jeep. The lowest number I ever got out of a tank was 32 mpg last winter when I was letting the car warm up for 5-10 minutes every morning. I normally get 36 or so out of my "mixed driving" and mid 40s out of purely "highway" driving.
4) Perhaps you should take a Sonic for a test drive, simulating your driving conditions as accurately as you can within the relatively short duration of a test drive. Reset the average mpg readout on the dash before you start the car. Drive around for a little bit. Try to hit some traffic lights. Drive on the freeway for a few minutes if you can. When you get the car back to the dealer, look at the results. Such a short drive is not going to be truly representative of what you would get out of a whole tank, but it should give you some indication of what to expect.
1) There is no "mpg issue." I can think of maybe two members (out of 5,000) that have reported something that I would deem to be a genuine issue as regards mpg. This is hardly an epidemic. Even if there were such a widespread issue, which I don't believe that there is, it has not been addressed by GM/Chevrolet.
2) Reported MPGs are drastically different because they reflect a variety of drastically different driving styles. City/Mixed/Highway driving can be very difficult to differentiate and doesn't mean a whole lot of anything in the end. There are simply too many variables to take into account.
3) There are no guarantees that you will get 30 mpg. I would be a little surprised if you did not, but I have no idea what your commute is like. I feel comfortable saying that you will get considerably better mileage with a Sonic, turbo or otherwise, than you are getting with that Jeep. The lowest number I ever got out of a tank was 32 mpg last winter when I was letting the car warm up for 5-10 minutes every morning. I normally get 36 or so out of my "mixed driving" and mid 40s out of purely "highway" driving.
4) Perhaps you should take a Sonic for a test drive, simulating your driving conditions as accurately as you can within the relatively short duration of a test drive. Reset the average mpg readout on the dash before you start the car. Drive around for a little bit. Try to hit some traffic lights. Drive on the freeway for a few minutes if you can. When you get the car back to the dealer, look at the results. Such a short drive is not going to be truly representative of what you would get out of a whole tank, but it should give you some indication of what to expect.
Yea, I'm definitely going to do that. I didn't think of driving the car the way I would normally drive from home to work. I'll definitely do that when I'm going to buy. I'm just doing all my research before hand. My normal drive is usually 2 miles city and 11-12 miles highway. That's all I use my Jeep for because it's a pig on gas. We drive my wife's CRV everywhere else.
sx sonic
New member
There's literally hundreds of reasons for the variance in mpg.
Idling, commute time, driving behavior, temperature, traffic, tire selection, altitude, city or hwy, A/C use, tire pressure, wheel weight (heavier= worse mpg), transmission, shift points, hard or soft acceleration, speed, vehicle load all affect mpg.
Even the way people observe there mpg.
-There's the accurate loggers that do hand calculation for each tank (miles driven / fuel pumped in). The best way is to use a full tank between fuel ups.
-Then there's the DIC loggers. And the display is at best, sorta accurate; and the most accurate way to use it is reset at each fillup and not touch it until refueling..... The least accurate way to use it is to reset it while moving (rolling reset), it only gives a brief and incomplete snap shot of real world mpg.. Never resetting it is marginally accurate for awhile but based on the way averages work, ends up being very misleading.
So not only is there a huge variance based on actual conditions but also variances in the way gas mileage is reported.
I keep a detailed log of my gas mileage and my best has been a hair over 55 mpg and my worst was around 33 mpg, hand calculated and after burning thru a full tank of gas. The only difference was the way I drove the car and the commute I had to make. Usual gas mileage for me bounces around low to mid 40s.
If you want the best mileage get a 1.4t manual LT Sonic
Keep the tires properly inflated, don't drive like a schmuck and you should be good for atleast 37+mpg barring a crappy commute or lots of short trips.
Idling, commute time, driving behavior, temperature, traffic, tire selection, altitude, city or hwy, A/C use, tire pressure, wheel weight (heavier= worse mpg), transmission, shift points, hard or soft acceleration, speed, vehicle load all affect mpg.
Even the way people observe there mpg.
-There's the accurate loggers that do hand calculation for each tank (miles driven / fuel pumped in). The best way is to use a full tank between fuel ups.
-Then there's the DIC loggers. And the display is at best, sorta accurate; and the most accurate way to use it is reset at each fillup and not touch it until refueling..... The least accurate way to use it is to reset it while moving (rolling reset), it only gives a brief and incomplete snap shot of real world mpg.. Never resetting it is marginally accurate for awhile but based on the way averages work, ends up being very misleading.
So not only is there a huge variance based on actual conditions but also variances in the way gas mileage is reported.
I keep a detailed log of my gas mileage and my best has been a hair over 55 mpg and my worst was around 33 mpg, hand calculated and after burning thru a full tank of gas. The only difference was the way I drove the car and the commute I had to make. Usual gas mileage for me bounces around low to mid 40s.
If you want the best mileage get a 1.4t manual LT Sonic
Keep the tires properly inflated, don't drive like a schmuck and you should be good for atleast 37+mpg barring a crappy commute or lots of short trips.
Thanks for the response. I do the hand calculated fuel average in my Jeep, that's how I know my crappy mileage. You named the exact car that I want. I want the blue topaz. These cars are the best looking in the class, so I've decided that next spring I'll be getting on.
Swordsmith
242hp/252 ft-lbs BNR EFI
Look, I love my Sonic and think that yes, you should get one, and that you'll love it.
But if you're looking to save money, you should really sit down and do the math.
You own the jeep free and clear, so your only expense is keeping it running.
Your commute is... lets say for easy math it's 15 miles, or 30 miles per day, 5 day a week.
In the jeep, you're going through 2 gallon per day. If your Sonic gets 30 mpg, you'll go through one gallon per day.
50 weeks per year, 5 days per week, you'll save exactly 250 gallons. At (lets say things get worse, just so the math is simple) $4 per gallon, that's $1000 saved per year.
In 15 years the car has paid for itself...
Also, your commute is too short to get good mpg, startup and the first several minutes of driving are all bad on mileage. I'm not saying you can't average 30mpg... but you'll do it by getting 20mpg half the trip and 40 mpg half the trip. Except... those highway miles, are we talking 60mph highways, or 80mph interstates? Because "highway" is really going 60ish, as your speed goes up over that, efficiency drops.
Too, cold weather will reduce your mpg, and hot weather will too (assuming you run the AC in hot weather).
You've selected the best make and model for maximum mpg, the LT is the lightest Sonic with the turbo engine, which allows you to drive gently and reap the most rewards (it also allows you to drive harder and get Worse mpg)
But the biggest factor in your mpg is your own driving habits. I normally drive somewhat senselessly, accelerating hard from stops, exceeding the speed limit by a good amount. In a test last spring, I drove an entire tank as I normally do, then went back and drove the same route, which was 80% highway 20% stop and go city, sensibly, and increased my mpg by a whopping 50%. That's not driving under the speed limit, not accelerating so slowly that folks were piling up behind me on the on ramps or at lights, just taking it easy and staying in the right hand lane. There are people here reliably getting over 50mpg... they are doing a much better job of driving gently than I will ever do.
But if you're looking to save money, you should really sit down and do the math.
You own the jeep free and clear, so your only expense is keeping it running.
Your commute is... lets say for easy math it's 15 miles, or 30 miles per day, 5 day a week.
In the jeep, you're going through 2 gallon per day. If your Sonic gets 30 mpg, you'll go through one gallon per day.
50 weeks per year, 5 days per week, you'll save exactly 250 gallons. At (lets say things get worse, just so the math is simple) $4 per gallon, that's $1000 saved per year.
In 15 years the car has paid for itself...
Also, your commute is too short to get good mpg, startup and the first several minutes of driving are all bad on mileage. I'm not saying you can't average 30mpg... but you'll do it by getting 20mpg half the trip and 40 mpg half the trip. Except... those highway miles, are we talking 60mph highways, or 80mph interstates? Because "highway" is really going 60ish, as your speed goes up over that, efficiency drops.
Too, cold weather will reduce your mpg, and hot weather will too (assuming you run the AC in hot weather).
You've selected the best make and model for maximum mpg, the LT is the lightest Sonic with the turbo engine, which allows you to drive gently and reap the most rewards (it also allows you to drive harder and get Worse mpg)
But the biggest factor in your mpg is your own driving habits. I normally drive somewhat senselessly, accelerating hard from stops, exceeding the speed limit by a good amount. In a test last spring, I drove an entire tank as I normally do, then went back and drove the same route, which was 80% highway 20% stop and go city, sensibly, and increased my mpg by a whopping 50%. That's not driving under the speed limit, not accelerating so slowly that folks were piling up behind me on the on ramps or at lights, just taking it easy and staying in the right hand lane. There are people here reliably getting over 50mpg... they are doing a much better job of driving gently than I will ever do.
94383Z71
New member
Well I bought my sonic used, so my initial investment was lower than most, but I came from a truck with slightly worse mpg than OP's jeep, and my car will pay for itself in about 6 years without even selling the truck. FWIW.
On the MPG note, I get 25 city driving it pretty hard, 30 when I'm not, and 38-42 hwy. I think it's worth mentioning that the lower numbers OP saw could be from people running corn, which OP may not be aware of that factor.
On the MPG note, I get 25 city driving it pretty hard, 30 when I'm not, and 38-42 hwy. I think it's worth mentioning that the lower numbers OP saw could be from people running corn, which OP may not be aware of that factor.
RaceThisLTZ
New member
I know each persons driving habits are different but I have two kinds of tanks in my LTZ turbo.
Tanks for work. My company pays me per mile so high fuel economy can actually pay my car payment if I have enough driving to do. These tanks I drive very conservatively and only 60 on the highway max. Usually net 45 to 55 mpg depending on how much highway.
"Dont care" Tanks. My personal time I really dont care about fuel economy and Enjoy my car. I like twisty roads in the valley
I struggle to get under 36 mpg and this is in sport mode not being nice to the car. 50 50 highway/city
If you cant get 30+ in your commute you described. Its you, not the car. Great investment in my mind.
Tanks for work. My company pays me per mile so high fuel economy can actually pay my car payment if I have enough driving to do. These tanks I drive very conservatively and only 60 on the highway max. Usually net 45 to 55 mpg depending on how much highway.
"Dont care" Tanks. My personal time I really dont care about fuel economy and Enjoy my car. I like twisty roads in the valley
I struggle to get under 36 mpg and this is in sport mode not being nice to the car. 50 50 highway/cityIf you cant get 30+ in your commute you described. Its you, not the car. Great investment in my mind.
Swordsmith
242hp/252 ft-lbs BNR EFI
I didn't take selling the jeep into consideration.
I'm also assuming that you drive substantially more miles than OP, it's the idea that the car will only be used to drive about 30 miles per day, in two short (and thus less efficient) trips, that really makes it hard for the math to pay off.
I went from an F150 getting 14 mpg to my Sonic, but I also went from driving 10K miles per year to driving 30K miles, because I love to drive the Sonic and will take anyone anywhere at the drop of a hat just to be able to drive it some more. This means I haven't actually saved any money on fuel at all!
I didn't mention my specific numbers for exactly this reason; I drive a mix of highway, interstate, and city, short and long haul, and I get a whopping 22mpg much of the time... on corn. On gasoline, I get around 33 mpg with the same driving pattern (but driving slightly more gently, because without corn kicking me in the butt I'm not quite as eager to gun it), and as high as 44 if I am similarly careful.
Thanks for all the replies. I basically drive like a grandma, so I should be able to get some decent MPG's. The main reasons I want to get rid of my Jeep is the horrible fuel economy and something is always breaking. I can't seem to catch a break with it, so I'm ready to move on. How much did y'all pay for y'alls HB turbo LT? Down here they are going for 18K-19K. I'm wanting to pay about 16,500-17,000.
sx sonic
New member
I paid $17k something out the door for my brand new 2012 LT, Turbo, manual, in orange (I believe that's extra $$).
I personally wouldn't pay more than $18k for one, BUT I also don't know what car prices are like in your area.
KartRacer
Member
Well I have approximately $20 in my RS manual with sunroof.
I love the Sonic. Just turned over 5000 miles and have been averaging 32 overall on 87 octane, all stock. The RS is rated at lower MPG, 33 I believe and mileage does drop at 80 mph going across Ks, speed limit 75. Get about 28/29 at those speeds. Traded 6 ltr Silverado and am enjoying the huge fuel savings and having fun driving it also.
I love the Sonic. Just turned over 5000 miles and have been averaging 32 overall on 87 octane, all stock. The RS is rated at lower MPG, 33 I believe and mileage does drop at 80 mph going across Ks, speed limit 75. Get about 28/29 at those speeds. Traded 6 ltr Silverado and am enjoying the huge fuel savings and having fun driving it also.
Chevrolet Customer Care
New member
A lot of car owners don't realize that there are many easy things that they can do to improve their MPG. Driving a few miles slower (observing the speed limit) can increase gas mileage and will only add a few minutes to your commute. Not having a heavy load or a trunk full of stuff can increase gas mileage as well. If you want to see more tips to increase MPG you can check out the Fuel Economy Website. I hope you all enjoy your Saturday!
Jackie
Chevrolet Customer Care
Jackie
Chevrolet Customer Care
KartRacer
Member
Larry
You are correct, the main fuel economy trick is to be able to keep moving. Getting the car in motion is the least fuel efficient thing you can do. There are also advantages to ex celebrating when possible before a incline ( within reason). It takes less fuel to increase speed by 2 or 3 miles per hour going down a incline then up.
Larry could not agree more that you have to try to get poor fuel economy with the Sonic.
joe truck driver
New member
opcorn:I seem to be at the top of the grade for fuel economy on this forum. I averaged 52 for the summer, and I am still getting 50 at times before the snow. I am driving 60 mph and 90 percent of my drive is highway with rolling hills. didn't think it was possible to get over 50 mpg until i did it. I lose 2 to 3 mpg in the rain. Two or three days drops me from 53 to 46 quick.
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