300C Fuel economy

Test drove the 300 and the 300C this weekend. The performance of the 3.5 was quite good and the 300C is a rocket. The demonstrator 300C that I tested was getting 14.7MPG, I'm wondering what people are really seeing for daily and highway driving. My 94 Concorde with a 3.6 still gets 23 MPG in the summer and 21 in the winter, 28 on the highway. Frankly I'd feel a little guilty about driving a car that was getting less than 15MPG, so what are people really getting on the 5.7HEMI and the 3.5?

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph
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New cars are usually lousy on gas mileage for the first few thousand miles.

Reply to
Art

Lower, yes. "Lousy", no. If the demonstrator was getting 14.7 in the first few thousand miles, it certainly isn't going to rocket up to 22 or anything close after that time.

-Stern

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

I presume he was referring to an on-board mileage calculator. Anyone bother to compare their electronic average readout to their manual calculations after a few fill ups?

Also if the demo 300C was used to show off, mileage did not reflect displacement savings when cruising, assuming they exist.

Reply to
Art

Reply to
marlinspike

You have that a bit backwards. EPA numbers are "a little close" and "pretty optimistic".

RP

Reply to
RPhillips47

A demonstrator is definitely worst case because test drives are short and everyone stomps on the gas pedal to see what it can do. That's why I'm asking about real world experience. The car weighs two tons so you wouldn't expect it to get great mileage but I would like to know what to expect. So anyone who has one, what are you getting in every day driving and what have you gotten on a long highway trip?

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

Well, but the demonstrator probably gets "performance tested" about 8 times per day (every time someone takes it out for a test drive....) and never does more than 3 miles at a time of steady highway cruising.

Reply to
Steve

My experience with cars purchased since roughly 1990 (4 vehicles in the extended family) and with a few rentals is that I can usually EXCEED the EPA highway mileage by a pretty good bit. The most outstanding example was a '92 5.2 Dakota that my father bought. I forget what the EPA sticker was, but I think it was under 20 mpg highway, and he used to routinely get 22-23 mpg with it. Measured mpg, not computer-calculated mpg, too.

That's completely opposite to my 70s and 80s experience when EPA mileage was often a good 30% optimistic on both numbers.

Reply to
Steve

Anyone bother

calculations

reflect

short and

Haven't had mine long enough for a highway trip but I'm getting close to the EPA estimate for combined mileage. With that much power under the hood, I frankly don't care what mileage I get since it's still better than my Kia Sedona minivan and the driving pleasure is light years ahead.

Reply to
Peter A. Stavrakoglou

I guess you don't have the fortunate pleasure of having to buy the required, mandated California "reformulated" gasoline that does improve the air we breathe (?) but doesn't fare well on mileage - at least not on our Pacifica AWD that my wife drives, our '96 T&C LXi that I drive, our '93 GC Laredo that my newly licensed daughter drives or our '91 Honda LX that my son drives (of course, we ARE California drivers so that could also have something to do with it!).

Reply to
RPhillips47

Er, we do in NJ and all it does is use more gas which puts more pollutants back in the air. So, how is this helping?

Ken

Reply to
NJ Vike

Obviously you DIDN'T see the question mark in parenthesis after the word breathe (it wasn't to question my spelling of the word!)??????? And your gasoline in NJ is oxygenated and has MTBE (which, of course, is outlawed in California but is used anyway) added? The story we get is the gas for California is formulated just for California but maybe NJ and others have decided it is worth the scam to say so to charge more. I can say, though, that our air is considerably cleaner than years ago and we do not have many Smog Alerts anymore, but the mileage DOES suffer.

RP

Reply to
RPhillips47

Reply to
mic canic

Art wrote: > Anyone bother

1995 Eagle Vision Tsi, 3.5L engine with the trip computer.

On 2 seperate occasions, I compared the trip computer with manual calculations, and both times the trip computer was off by .1

Trip computer: 22.5 My calculation: 22.4

Reply to
N.Cass

Pretty amazing accuracy.

Reply to
Art

I think you misunderstood the post as I did see the ? in your post.

My point was that our gas mileage suffers when we're forced to use this garbage and that I can't see how it helps when we are putting more pollutants back in the air. Or, at least that's the way it appears to me. This isn't directed to you as it's a question for anyone who may offer an opposing view.

Ken

Reply to
NJ Vike

3.6? Is there such a thing? Thought they only had 3.5's then next was the 3.8?

Just wondering.

-NG '04, '03 Neon SXTs

Reply to
NG
94 Concorde came with a 3.5 just like my 94 LHS.

Reply to
Art

Your right it's a 3.5.

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

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