944guy

how would downshifting instead of braking save on gas?
i think this would increase fuel consumption if anything. shift to neutral whenever you need to slow down - that will save gas, and your clutch/tranny. brakes are cheaper than clutches and transmissions so i wouldnt engine brake unless im on a track (or driving like im on one if you know what i mean).

empirepb210

iTrader: (1)

im getting around 230 miles on a full tank, 11.7 gallons when i go fill up

n789db

iTrader: (1)

Coast to a stop, out of gear and do not use brakes until required.

2LOFD3ATH

iTrader: (3)

Is that 230 till its is completly out or when light comes on? Idk how many gallons are left when the lights on?

empirepb210

iTrader: (1)

i guess till completely empty since a full tank is 12 gallons and i put in 11.7

Xtremist

iTrader: (1)

Downshifting doesn't hurt your clutch if you're downshift at the right rpm, at the rate the X eats pads you'll find yourself replacing them every 20k miles. As for shifting your car to neutral = a bad idea... For one it's illegal in some states and your out of gear. If an accident where to take place and you don't have the proper time to react to the situation, your stuck in neutral. If you shift down you'll be in a lower gear as opposed to neutral or a higher gear which would cause the car to bog and not accelerate properly! Since when dose back pressure = fuel consumption? As for the jerky shifts, it's called loosing boost and a light weight drive-train on an AWD vehicle. You defiantly have to adjust to the X's shifting habits, it's unlike any other manual car I've driven.

P.S. Everyone acts like the X's stock clutch is made of sponge, if you treat her properly she's no different than any other. These are just my driving habits, I have 16k on my stock clutch and she's fine. I manage about 260 miles on a full tank.

BTW When on the freeway make sure to always use cruise control.

EvoSoulja

im getting around 230-240 on full tank until the lights comes on. that is on both highway and city driving. so my mpg is around 20-21

WolvieDC

Evo tank is about 14.5 gal, but the light comes on after you've used 11.5+ and your gauge will read 0 when you still have about 2 gal left.

2LOFD3ATH

iTrader: (3)

Must be a diff in the 8 and x im getting like 50 miles less than you guys, could be my untuned, dirty airfilter or my led foot.

Hiboost

iTrader: (9)

Shifting to neutral like others have said is unsafe, would you shift an auto tranny into neutral and idle down a hill? Coasting down hills where Auto tranny cars have to brake to reduce speed use quite a bit more fuel compared to a manual tranny car that is coasting in gear and just using the engine to control speed.

When you are decelerating with the car in gear it actually uses VERY little fuel and is in lean burn mode since the fact that transmission gears conencted to the wheels are keeping the engine moving. Coasting down in neutral will show that your O2 sensor is sweeping up and down past Stoic where as full decel in gear will show full lean on an o2 sensor. Anyone with an AFR gauge will see that effect very readily.

You could coast down a hill and reset the MPG calculator and often I'll see 60-80 mpg or more. I'll have to test the same with coasting down in neutral but I'm pretty sure even idling uses more gas than that.

Frankiago

iTrader: (2)

I'm confused... where does it say coasting in neutral is illegal in any state? Also, why would you accelerate to avoid an accident? Is it something you see coming up in your rear view catching up to you?

Speeding up to avoid hitting something is very aggressive driving and shouldn't be necessary...

Oh and for the question at hand, you should try to minimize stopping altogether. If you see a light red and the cross-traffic's light has turned yellow, you can usually coast down and creep slowly up to the line and have the light turn green well before you come to a stop so that almost every stop can turn into a rolling stop.

You can also do this at red lights when you're turning right or at a stop sign, but those two are illegal :P

2LOFD3ATH

iTrader: (3)

See, running stop signs and red lights helps reduce this great nations dependance on foreign oil!

944guy

check out the rpm in most modern automatic transmission vehicles. the rpms basically drop to idle when you coast... why do you suppose that is?

in any case. i suggest a trial for the op: on one tank of gas try the shift-to-neutral when coming to a stop or rolling down a hill approach and compare your mpg to your usual average and report back

tipoytm

Before the dealer reflash, I was getting like 240miles/tank mix city/highway miles before the fuel light would turn on. Now I'm getting 260miles/tank. This is usually relaxed driving (easy on the gas pedal) with the occasional spirited accelerations.

Hiboost

iTrader: (9)

I can think of many cases when speeding up to avoid someone colliding with you might be an option that will avoid the most damage. Even if you swerve around someone you sure as heck don't want to be coasting around in neutral if you expect to perform an evasive maneuver like that. I know the car has AWD and AYC with all kinds of driving aids but they weren't designed to be used without the car being in gear.

Once a HPDE instructor posed a question in the classrom wondering what would happen if you approached a 60mph turn at 120mph on a road course and just turned the wheel without applying the brakes. Would the car lower you to the proper speed with the ASC handling aids to complete the turn or would you just roll the car... That's one test I'm not doing!

But back on topic, in general driving out of boost and smoothly applying the throttle while keeping it under 15% should yield the best MPG. Avoid speeding up to red lights or areas where you will need to stop anyways. Lugging the engine in too high of a gear will force the car to build more boost so staying in the 2500-3500 rpm range is your best bet on our cars.