Fuel economy

I've only ever had one Subaru, a 2008 Outback 4-cylinder. Indeed, the gas mileage is nothing to brag about. Driving as gently as possible on the highway I've never gotten much over 28mpg while accelerating gently and sticking to the posted limit. Average over mixed driving is closer to

Fuel sippers have many tricks. Light weight, low-drag, low-friction tires, low-friction drive trains, 2-wheel drive only, cylinder disable on larger engines, start-stop, modified run cycles, direct injection, variable valve timing, smaller displacement with forced induction. Name it and somebody will be found using a few of them on every economical engine.

The advertised mpg ratings certainly look poor on the tribeca. What was the op thinking?

So far I see useable readings on my 1999 outback I just got. 25 on a hilly terrain trip. That would have been 16 on my avalanche. 28-29 on my 2001 cavalier. I can get 19-20 on flat roads on my avalanche, 34-35 in my cavalier. That's old technology. Small engine, light weight, 2wd, low wind friction. It also like to stay in overdrive as long as possible. No down shifting like the outback.

My avalanche would be worse without 4 cylinder mode.

Greg

Mainly, it's got a lot of space, and it was pretty cheap compared to original price.

Does the Avalanche's 4-cyl mode make any difference to the mileage?

Yousuf Khan

It's around 5 mpg difference minimum. The funny thing, I can't get good milage unless I'm going 40-50 mph minimum. The 5 mpg is going at slower speeds. If your up to speed on level flat road, it can get max about 22-23 mpg. Kick it into 8 mode, drops to about 17.

Greg

So it's a nice noticeable kickup in fuel economy, but not a radical one?

Yousuf Khan

That's awful. I just returned from a round trip from the Washington, DC suburbs to Durham, NC in my 2011 Infiniti M37. It has a 330 HP V6. On the way down I took the scenic route, most of the way on two-lane highways, but some limited access highway. I got 27.9 MPG for 300 miles. On the return it was the Interstate all the way and I got 26.7 MPG for 260 miles, most of the time at above 70 MPH. This was mostly flatland driving in cool weather.

Around home I average about 20 MPG. Since I'm retired I don't have to commute so seldom get into stop-and-go traffic; most of my mileage is put on going 12 miles each way to and from the golf course.

I've had a 2.5l 1997 Legacy Lancaster Grand Wagon (i.e. early Outback) for = just on two years, bought with 107,000 km on the clock and about 130,000 no= w. It's got the 10 speed manual box (5 plus hi/lo range) you usually find i= n the Forester.

It consistently uses just under 8 l/100 km on the open road, and 8.5 - 9 wi= th "around town" driving, depending on the mix. I use the brakes seldom and= accelerate with a good bootfull of throttle. If no one is in front of me t= hen I change 1st to 3rd and 3rd to 5th at around 2500-3000 RPM (which usual= ly leaves everyone else far behind), otherwise it spends 99% of its time be= tween 1500 and 2000 RPM (unless already in 5th and 80+ km/h).

I also use it to tow gliders. On a typical "away" weekend with a 2 seat DG1=

Previously I had a 2.5l automatic 1995 Legacy 250T for ten years, from 98,0=

I get as high as 34mpg on 1.8T A4 B6 (if I REALLY) feather the throttle and go about 55mph(90 kph or so) If you drive it normally at 65-75mph you get anywhere between 28 and

You either lose weight going down from mid size crossover forward to an outback or you lose cylinders. I see no other way short of cylinder deactivation which is a very backwards way to avoid having a turbo imho. Going back to outback I believer you do get a choice between the turbo and that anchor tailored to the american who-gives-a-f*ck-if-we-start-another-war-for-oil tastes engine

given that you are in canada i'd advise against a diesel

soo, I gotta ask: wrx was too small for you?

Now, that's an idea. I remember with my old Outback that I went to mid-grade gas for awhile, and the mileage did seem to increase. I didn't have the instantaneous mileage computer on the Outback, that I do with the Tribeca, so I might be able to get some instantaneous feedback to see if it makes a difference here. I might try it soon, if the gas prices keep going down, and regular gas goes below $1.00/L, then mid-grade and premium will become somewhat affordable.

Then it's simply a matter of comparing the price/volume against the mileage/volume and see if it's worth staying there. If you say you lose

The new Outbacks (2010 forward) are based on the Tribeca platform, though it's a little lower than the Tribeca. Even use the same 3.6L engine as the Tribeca. But I do think the Outback might be a couple of hundred pounds lighter (not sure about this though).

Just checked it, the listed curb weights of the 2013 model years of both models is:

Outback: 3316 lbs

That's a huge difference! I suppose the Outback's curb weight is based on its base 4-cylinder engine, rather than the 6-cylinder. But I doubt that the six by itself would be 750 lbs heavier!

I wish I knew what you were talking about.

Why?

Well, going from an Outback to a WRX would definitely be too small for me. I was looking at nothing lower than a Forester. The 2009+ Forester is probably pretty comparable in interior size to my old 2000 OBW, but the price of the Tribeca was lower than even a 2009 Forester, when I was purchasing! Initial price was too damn good to pass up.

Yousuf Khan

I find the higher the gas price, the octane differential is less significant. If it results in better milage, well worth it.

Greg

Exactly.

Today at Mobil in Auckland the prices are:

On 98 my 2.5l 1997 Grandwagon (Outback) uses about 8 l/100 km on 98 octane, and can travel 700 km (435 miles) on a 56 liter (14.8 USgal) fill up.

If 95 uses more than 8.45 l/100 km, or travels less than 660 km (410 miles) on a tank then it's a false economy.

I believe that to be the case, and more, and furthermore the car drives like poo on 95.

yep, around here - it's less than about 9% more to run prem over reg. In the 'old days' the differential could be 20-25% !

Here, taking a sample of my nearest station, it looks like the upgrade from regular to mid-grade is approx. 6%, and from regular to premium is approx. 11%.

Yousuf Khan

I tried to google image search some old gasoline prices. Some are not extreme, but some others were, for example, $1.09 reg - but $1.39 prem. Hard to tell what time-period they are from.

if subaru specifies regular for tribeca pouring premium gas is money down the pipe.

i pour premium strictly cause that's what audi wants me to feed to it's engine AND the savings in mileage offset the cost difference

The regular/premium fork is also about 11% and we have no midgrade around here. Well, if you consider 95 euro a midgrade then 98 euro "uberpremium" around here costs about twice as much (assuming you can find it, it's about as rare as diesel in the states)

you were asking about diesel: i was advising against it merely to avoid getting standed in the middle of the country in the middle of the winter, that's all. The diesel we have around here solidifies at around -24C. your diesel freezing point might vary (YDFPMV) :-)

I do remember this (got my first car ever then):

Late summer 1993, South WI, regular gas going for $1.1-$1.21/gal That didn't last long and prices approaching $2 were more of the norm in the decade that followed.

DK

Well, I have some preliminary data on this experiment to report. I switched from regular to mid-grade. I waited until the tank was nearly empty before putting the new gas in. The price differential between regular and mid-grade was 7.8%. However, the mileage differential between the two grades is not there at all!

So I called the dealership and asked them if they thought it made any difference. The guy on the phone seemed to think that it would, and as a matter of fact he said that I should be running premium gas on this model. I told him that I was told that this model runs on regular gas, but he said that only 2010+ models had that feature. He told me that if I looked at the sticker placed inside my fuel filler door that it would tell me that it required premium unleaded gas. So I did look at that sticker, but it only talked about "unleaded gas" but nothing about premium or any octane ratings. So the guy at the dealership may have been misinformed about this.

Anyways, once this mid-grade gas runs out, then I'll try out the premium, which might be at least 10% higher cost than regular, around here. I see no reason that things will get any better with premium than it did with mid-grade, but at least for completeness sake I will have all of the data that I need.

Yousuf Khan

My daughter had a twin cam Neon - which is a premium fuel engine. It ran on regular - but not well - and it pinged. If she ran mid-grade the pinging was fairly well controlled - and the car ran pretty well - but on premium it got about 15% better fuel mileage than on regular - and about 5% better than on mid grade. The car definitely ran better to the point premium was worth running in it.

The little 1400cc Colt also had a distinct preference for premium fuel

- or at least mid grade.

The 3800 TransSport couldn't care less. The 1996 Mystique V6 liked premium better too, but adjusted itself to run OK on regular - which we usually ran it on. Around town the difference in mileage was insignificant - and our highway driving with that car was also insignificant.

Thanks for sharing. My gas cap says nothing even though I can use e85. My old Dakota used to ping going up hills. I never measured mpg although I would sometimes put in better gas for hauls.

Greg