Gas Mileage

I just got new tires on my 2002 ll bean outback(this is when it seemed to start happening). I used to get 27-28 mpg on the highway and around

18-20 mpg in town. Now i am lucky to get 18 mpg on the highway and 14 in town. The tires are the same tires that were on the vehicle and the car has around 57000 miles on it. Any ideas why the sudden severe drop in mpg? Thanks,
Reply to
aolson
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Same tire or same size & model? I doubt tire pressure could account for that much difference but check them anyway.

Reply to
Edward Hayes

Reply to
paul

Hi,

Even if they ARE supposedly identical, 'tain't always so! I had a set of OEM Michelins once that went ~84k miles. Replaced them with the SAME tire (I thought! Only visible difference was country of origin--Michelin builds tires in a lot of countries, maybe materials vary from plant to plant?) Same car, driver, driving conditions: they barely went over 40k miles! Oddly, gas mileage remained almost identical.

Like most here, I've seen pretty wide variations in fuel economy when switching brands, styles and/or sizes. But since the OP's using the same "everything," I'm wondering out loud if maybe he replaced his tires about the time his area went to "winter" gas, which I think we all agree doesn't return the best economy????

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

Only other thing I can suggest is if he got a *really* dodgy wheel alignment at the same time and the front end walks like Charlie Chaplin! Cheers

Reply to
hippo

Would you post the countries of origin and which had the better mileage? TIA

Reply to
QX

Thanks for all of the replies. I apologize but I don't that much about cars in general but as far as I know the tire model, size, etc was all the same and is the same tire from what I can tell on the vehicle now. I am not sure if the tire came from another country or not but if it did, what do i do about it? I would love to get back to my 27-28 mpg as this car is now no better than a lot of SUV's and was one of the main reason i purchased it. I have had the car for about 3 years and was fine before i switched out to these tires. If it were the alignment wouldn't the car pull one direction or the other or how do i tell? Would you suggest getting them aligned again?

Reply to
aolson

You have a problem other than tires bud!!!! I lost 1-2 mpg after swapping OEM bridgestones for Kumho KH-18's . Kumhos are good in the rain and snow so mpg loss is no biggie

Reply to
bigjim

I'm inclined to agree with BigJim, you have something else besides new tires happening. A change of 10% might possibly be attributed to the new rubber, maybe, _maybe_ 20% if you switched tires at the same time your favorite station switched to the oxygenated fuel. But you're talking more like 40% here. No CEL? No gas smell? No trips to the local track? ;-)

27-28MPG highway is fairly typical for an OB, 18 is not. How many tankfuls of gas have you run thru with the mileage coming out that low? If only the most recent one, suspect bad gas. Or numerical errors . . .

ByeBye! S. Steve Jernigan KG0MB Laboratory Manager Microelectronics Research University of Colorado (719) 262-3101

Reply to
S

How do you measure your gas mileage?

Reply to
Edward Hayes

Thanks again for the responses. I have probably run upwards of 15 tanks with this kind of mileage. I put about 600 miles on it this weekend and got between 19-21 mpg. I don't have one particular place i fill up I fill up here or there. How i calculate the mpg is each fill i set the odometer to 0 and on the next fill take the amount of fuel i placed in the tank and divde that miles went by the amount of fuel consumed. Is there a better more accurate way of doing it? What other things could cause the sudden loss in gas mileage do you think that I could check or is it best to bring it to a mechanic to have them take a look? Thanks again.

Reply to
aolson

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