So today I had to pickup the completed One Lap engine for the sponsor's Evo X and drove 279 mile to Buschur Racing. After filling up at the Shell gas station down the street from him the dash gauge still read a decent 27.6 MPG but when I went to fill it I could only get 9.314 gallons into the tank for an actual reading of 29.95 MPG. Average speeds were 70-75 mph for the most part so that seems to be pretty good!

I haven't done a refill after the return trip yet but I was hammering on it a bit more so that I could make it back in time to Street Tuned Motorsports before they closed. There was also a headwind so the dash gauge read around 25.5 MPG at the end of the trip. Earlier on in the 55 mph zone where there was some traffic the dash gauge was reading around 32 MPG on flat ground which was great to see.

The only thing that tends to hurt the gas mileage is when there a ton of hills or lots of wind and you are trying to maintain a higher speed, then again any car gets less gas mileage in those situations.

So anyone else have any MPG samples comparing the dash to the actual miles divided by gallons filled?

 

I did a real gallons filled to mileage math this morning and only average 23.XX On previous tanks I've gotten as high as 26.XX. Most of my driving is on the highway, and on the way to work I usually go between 70 and80 MPH (depending on how late I'm running ) and I almost always cruise at 55 MPH on cruise control on my way home. With the K&N drop in my dash will usually display 34-36 MPG @ 55 MPH if I reset is once I merge on and reach speed. If I leave it for the total drive home, city/hwy mixed it will usually display 30-31 MPGs for my trip home.

One thing I have noticed on the display:

55 MPH = ~35 MPG
60 MPH = ~30 MPG
70 MPH = ~27 MPG
75 MPH = ~22 MPG
80 MPH = ~17 MPG

So going from 80 MPH down to 55 literally DOUBLES your MPGs. The Outie Sport is reasonably fuel efficient AT 55 MPH. Any more than 55 MPH and the MPGs drop like a boat anchor

 

Hiboost - those are some real good numbers there. Is yours a 4wd model? And were these numbers after you did the mods and tunes that gave you the 180 hp and better 0-60 numbers? If so the numbers are excellent.

I do a manual mpg calculation each time I fill up. I live in Washington state and we have a ton of hills around here, and my combined mpgs always were between 22-24. I drove my car to the midwest where I got around 30 freeway, 27-28 combined (yeah!) and I got surprisingly good gas mileage on the way over, doing 80-85 on the flat roads with a car packed to the top (no luggage on roof), got around 25-26 mpg overall.

My values used to be about 0.8 to 1.2 mpg more than what the computer shows. I have my avg setting NOT to reset after 4 hours, so I measure it over a whole tank and compare my manually calculated numbers with the computer reading and reset the avg at each fill-up.

I recently got the TSB update for the camshaft position, and the one fill-up I did after that gave me 25.15 average. The computer showed 23.7.

I have observed the same as you did - hills drastically reduce mpgs. The poor little engine works too hard. And so does speeds over 60.

 

It might not be quite that drastic but it indeed is close to that. I guess when they say air resistance increases exponentially they aren't joking and having a higher ground clearance still hurts the car despite it having a good Coefficient Drag rating. It definitely suffers on hills and at higher speeds, but I noticed that after the tuning and mods that it can hold the hills better without struggling as much and fight the windy days. I specifically remember some hills around here that 6th gear was struggling to maintain speed even, and Drive mode would have to rev up more to climb them as I've experimented with both gear methods. Auto Drive mode still returns the best MPG since the revs drop lower.

It is indeed the 4WD model and I had the car running in the 4wd Auto mode which should mean it's FWD unless it encounters tire spinning. The numbers are after the tune although at cruise the car is in closed loop so it is trying to average 14.7 AFR with the O2 sensor. I have found that MIVEC tuning in the cruise RPM range can effect the MPG and any mods that help the engine breeathe better should also have a slight positive effect.

Seems like actual MPG over a week of mixed driving ends up settling at 24 MPG which makes sense factoring in cold starts where MPG is way down for the first part of the trip. Seems like our city driving numbers are higher than most cars of this class where as the highway numbers are probably a bit lower due to the engine having to work harder than expected to fight wind resistance and hills to maintain higher speeds.

Some things I noticed visiting the Mitsubishi site again, they seemed to have dropped the MPG rating from 24/29 down to 23/28 on the 4WD models:

Outlander Sport 4WD 23/28 CVT 2.0
Outlander Sport 2WD 24/31 5MT 2.0
Outlander Sport 2WD 25/31 CVT 2.0

Lancer Ralliart AWD .. 18/25 SST 2.0 Turbo
Lancer AWC AWD ..... 22/29 CVT 2.4
Lancer GT 2WD ........ 23/30 CVT 2.4
Lancer GT 2WD ........ 22/31 5MT 2.4
Lancer 2WD ............. 26/34 CVT 2.0
Lancer 2WD ............. 25/34 5MT 2.0

So it appears that CVT usually helps city MPG but might be slightly less highway MPG overall. AWD is going to hurt about 1-2 MPG but the safety and advantages in slippery conditions seems to be worth that tradeoff. Moving from a 2.0 up to a 2.4 seems to drop MPG a good 3-4 MPG, although on the Outlander Sport I bet it wouldn't hurt as much since then the engine wouldn't have to work as hard. If they made a 2.4L 4WD model with 21/26 it might be worth the extra 20 hp and torque from the factory, but there will still be people wanting a Ralliart version with a 2.0 Turbo.

 

You're damn right I want that 2.0T lol, straight out of an EVO X, please!



Also, Filled up today from roughly a quarter of a tank. 329.1 miles driven, took 11.94 gallons of 87 to fill it up, which equates to 27.53 MPG mixed 30% city / 70% highway (highway speeds are about 50% @ 55mph and 50% @ ~65mph)

The above was accomplished with a K&N Drop in filter and normal driving routines, just simply slowing down and doing the speed limit on the highway.

Seriously, buy the K&N filter. Its $35 with free shipping on amazon. My average economy has gone up over 3MPG! Do the math! The filter will pay itself off in like 5 tanks of gas, which for many people, is roughly 5 weeks. From there its all profit, especially when you need to change the filter, and can just re-use the K&N.

If you want to actually get decent gas mileage, click here: http://www.amazon.com/K-N-33-2392-Ai...2943279&sr=8-1

 

 

I have seen 24mpg on the last 3 tanks. Mostly city driving.

Last fill up was 337 miles and 13.9 gallons.

2012 SE 4WD

 

Bumping this thread..

Just want to share some of my observations from a completely Stock perspective - 2013 O.sport SE AWD, LINK

I'm able to hit ~31.6 MPG on 87 octane gas with 80% highway & 20% city commutes (roughly 38 miles roundtrip) in FWD mode