[9986mkoh]

So, I just got a 2002 Forester S a few weeks ago and I've gone through a few tanks of gas in it. I've averaged right around 22 mpg, and of course its been pretty cold here in Ohio. I do about 40% highway driving 60-65mph, 40% country roads about 50 mph with minimal stops, and the rest is some mild city. I drive very lightly and expected a little better than this. Also, I've seemed to be right at or below 22 mpg on highway only trips, which kind of bothers me. They're long, so being cold shouldn't be an issue. I got 25 mpg only once out of 4 tanks. The others were 21, 22, and 20.

Also, I noticed the car doesn't coast well at all, even down fairly steep grades. I just figure this is probably because of the auto trans and fairly steep gear ratio these come with. Any input on that? Can you manual guys coast well, or is it just mostly AWD system losses? Also, I do have on 17s with 225/55/17 tires, so about the same overall size as the stock ones. I run about 2500 rpm at 65 mph.

I'm looking for some input just to see maybe what's going on, or if it's possibly just winter. I see some of you guys take a big hit in the winter. Just for driving style reference, with just a little more city driving I can average around 38mp in my manual cobalt. I know completely different car, but still well above the ratings.

 

[adc]

You should be doing a bit better than this. Check your air pressure. If somehow you are running with the maximum bias shifted to the back wheels that could affect it. But that would be very abnormal. You could try installing the AWD fuse which should cut torque to the rear wheels.

But winter time and ethanol gas are death to subaru mileage. 40% highway may not be enough to see good mileage.

 

[9986mkoh]

Thanks. Yeah I've got the right air pressure, a couple pounds high actually. And all the fluids just changed, running synthetic everything. And as a side note, the other 40% are probably even better for mileage than the highway(mostly flat-ish and consistently 45-50 mph).

I guess I'll see when summer comes around.

 

[Amber Foresty]

Actually... I get really low MPG as well. Sometimes less, like around 17 MPG if I'm reeeally unlucky. Then again, my car is mostly worn out, at just over 427,000 km's on the odometer, so perhaps this isn't the same thing, but I don't think that my style of driving a standard is all THAT terrible. But I can put like 50 litres in the tank and can't really expect anything more than 350 to maaaybe 400 km out of it. It's probably the winter, because I was getting slightly better figures in the summer, but my gas mileage is poor regardless. Sigh.

 

[9986mkoh]

Well, just an update I thought was interesting...I switched to a station that has no ethanol (no sticker on the pump, and a driver I knew said they didn't have any), and throughout the same driving a got 25 mpg under very similar conditions. Also, the difference in tire size accounts for about 7 miles a tank, but that figures to about .5 mpg.