Mileage comparison

[bsedwebt]

The higher the pressure the less the rolling resistance and the better the mileage. 44psi was what it was at when I received it new from the dealer and I REDUCED it to 40psi. The ride is quite good - not harsh at all to me - but of course I am used to rough riding cars - v-8 5spd Mustangs, 4x4 truck, 4x4 Jeep Wrangler, etc.... I am watching the tread on the tires as well as well as my other cars and so far at nearly 4000 miles it is wearing normally. I keep all my tires on the high side for better mileage and have had no problems - my high performance 5.0 Mustangs have seen 27.2mpg with 3.73 gears. I am still hoping that I will top 32mpg once I get the full synthetic in all the fluids and the car is fully broken in.

[james789]

This is my first posting in this forum.

On March 8th I bought my wife a new '07 red SX-4, with automatic transmission. She added the carbon fiber look hood protector and the roof rack cross bars and had the windows tinted and the body undercoated by the dealership. We live inside the city limits of Joplin in South West MO, and the car is mostly driven in town, it has 1450 miles on it now and it has only traveled maybe 50 highway miles, the rest being in town driving. While the car had less than 500 miles on it we drove it in auto mode to "wear" the drive system in along with the engine. At this time we were relying on the trip computer to show fuel mileage. After we got 500 miles on the car we switched to FWD mode and decided that the trip computer was highly inaccurate and started keeping track of gallons used and miles traveled.

We burn Shell regular unleaded gas, 87 octane, we use Lucas upper cylinder lubricant and injector cleaner in every tank of fuel, run 44 psi of air in the tires, drive in 3rd gear instead of Drive at speeds under 50 MPH and right now our fuel mileage is 28.55 MPG for in city driving, with little use of AC and little warm up time needed before driving due to weather conditions right now, whereas the computer has shown MPG to be between 19.5-23.5 per tank since it was new. I am fixing to change the oil for the first time and I will use 3.4 quarts Castrol Syntec Blend 5W-30 and 1 quart of Lucas pure synthetic oil stabilizer. I believe that this combination will increase city mileage another 2.5-3 MPG if not more. Future planned upgrades include a Road Race short ram intake and filter and their under-drive pulley system. Currently I have sent an email to Road Race Motorsports and Aero Turbine Exhaust to try to find a muffler/ resonator combination that reduces exhaust backpressure and is still quiet. I believe that once I finish making these mods, and get over 5,000 miles on the car the fuel mileage should increase to 36 city and around 40 highway when driven in a reasonable manner.

I looked at the engine specs and we drive this car in 3rd gear most of the time because the engine develops its peak torque at 3500 RPM and peak torque is where the engine is operating at its most efficient RPM. Running in 3rd gear at speeds between 30 and 50 mph keeps the engine closer to its peak torque, we do this because I have read that these engines do not work efficiently at low RPM’s and I believe that my 28.55 MPG’s during city driving backs this theory up.

I am an OTR truck driver, I own 1 truck and I have been using Lucas products in my trucks for over 6 years, I have done uncompensated nationwide magazine advertising for Lucas in the past and I use several of their products in and on my diesel truck, my car and my lawnmower and trimmer, I mix the upper cylinder lubricant 1/4 oz to 1.5 gallon of gas for the lawnmower, 1/4 oz to 1 gallon for the trimmer, I don‘t drain either fuel tank for winter and come spring, 5-6 pumps on the primer and one pull on the rope and I‘m mowing grass again.

If you really want to see your vehicle shine like never before you should try Lucas Slick Mist Paint Gloss Intensifier, you wash your car like usual, then spray this stuff on paint, plastic and glass while the car is still wet and wipe the car dry with a shammy. Then you lightly rub the dry car with a micro fiber towel and you end up with a shine that will hurt your eyes in bright sunlight and a protective coating so slick your cat won’t be able to stand on the sloping hood of your SX-4, very quick and easy, $7.49 for a 24 oz spray bottle. The down side of Lucas products is finding someplace that sells their full line of products because they are mostly sold at truck stops and truck parts places and to people in the racing industry. The only Lucas product I do not use is their transmission stop slip and that is because I found out the hard way that the only thing you use in a Chrysler automatic transmission built since 1993 is ATF # 3 or #4. Since doing this I have not tried it in any other brand of automatic transmission, this Suzuki having the second non Chrysler automatic transmission I have ever owned. I highly recommend Lucas power steering stop leak, nothing is better or quicker at stopping an oil leak, or more permanent.

For the car I use 3 oz per 10 gallons of gas, I buy Lucas fuel stabilizer by the case for use in my Freightliner, also used in every tank of diesel, 3 oz per 10 gallons, and I keep one gallon at home for home use. Because I buy it by the case I pay $19.95 a gallon instead of the regular price of $23.99 per gallon and one gallon treats 400 gallons of fuel which is about 42 tanks of gas so it works out to about 48 cents per tank of gas when purchased this way instead of the 5.25 oz bottle from O'Reilly's which sell for $4.49 and treats about 1 1/2 tanks of gas.

I just bought gas today and paid $2.639 per gallon of gas, so doing the numbers for this tank I bought 9.9 gallons of gas at $2.639 a gallon, $26.13 cents for gas plus another 48 cents for the Lucas fuel treatment, total price $26.64. Then divide total miles driven, 282.6 by cost of fuel and fuel treatment, $26.64 and you get a fuel cost of 9.4 cents per mile of city driving. Compare that to getting the EPA city mileage of 24 MPG city driving for the same 282.6 miles driven. 282.6 miles divided by 24 MPG equals 11.77 gallons of gas purchased at $2.639 a gallon, $31.06 or a CPM fuel cost of 10.9, over 1.5 CPM more using untreated fuel. $31.06 for 11.77 gallons verses $26.64 for 9.9 gallons of fuel to drive the same 282.6 miles.

Lucas Oil

[james789]

Changed the oil today at 1474 miles, used 3.4 quarts of Castro Syntec Blend and 1 quart of Synthetic Lucas, drove it a couple miles around town afterwards and even the wife noticed the difference in the way it gets up and goes. I will be posting what the difference in fuel mileage is probably next week as we don't drive it much. The weather has warmed up enough that we are now using the AC starting with this tank of fuel.

[bsedwebt]

Just got back from a weekend trip with the wife, luggage, etc... Got 32.5MPG US with 40psi, full synthetic oil, add on ground wire, automatic in 2 wheel drive the whole time, running a/c half the time, 65mph for 90 miles and 50-55mph most of the rest of the time with cruise control on with 10 minutes going nowhere in a fast food drive in, 5 miles of stop and go, etc... My guess is that if I kept it steady at 50mph with no a/c in 2wd with no stopping it would have gotten 35mpg. Mileage keeps getting better with wear - now has just over 5000 miles

[Ken2007]

I got 29mpg on my first tank of gas driving in 50% highway and 50% suburban traffic. This is with a basic SX-4 AWD with stick shift not using the airconditioner.

[terbe]

I have my sx4 jlx automatic model for about a month now, I am getting 13L/100 which translates to approx 22mpg on the Automatic i-drive mode. Does this number sound normal? Should I switch it to 2 wheel mode.

[ammphil]

I think I made a wrong decision buying SX4. Im getting 14.4 L/100KM. its too far from the brochure. And I dont really enjoy driving it...

[terbe]

Hi ammphil, are you from Canada? I noticed that you posted in L/100km. The sx4 is a good solid car, I got it because it has awd. Because of this, the vehicle's weight is much heavier therefore the fuel economy suffers. I put about 1000kms on it and it avg 12.8 L/100km which translated to approx 22mpg. Lets' try to figure out why other drivers seemed to be getting much better mpg......sx4 owners out there, any suggestions?

[dtzackus]

I bought my 07' SX4 last March 07. Up until end of December, I was enjoying 26.4 mpg city and 34 mpg in the highway. I normally drive it in 2wd and only place in auto in snowy weather. Since January of this year, my mileage went way down to a 22.3 mpg regardless of city or highway traffic. I drove it two hours on turnpike traffic to only get 22.3 and that was via the dash, when I hand calcuated it, I was only getting 19.6 mpg.

I just got gas last night and I got 209.9 miles and 9.47 gallons of 87 octane gas for a suck ass mpg of 22.16, but my dash computer is showing 22.3 mpg.

I took it to the shop to tell them my mileage has dropped and they gave me the line to put a tank of high test octane in it and see what I got, foolishly I did this to only get the same mpg and pay .40 cents more a gallon. (gee thanks) The shop had me bring it in to inform me that the 30 mpg highway is only an estimate and they tested the computer and found no error codes and recheck my tire pressure and they were ok. BUT the greatest thing was instead of them trying to see what I have lost over 10 mpg, they tired to sell me nitogren to help solve the problem...

I have called 1-800-lemon law and I am going to take my car to another Suzuki dealership and see what they have to say. I did not spend over 17K to have a compact car get horrible gas mileage. I have put 9300 miles on the car and can honestly say this is the cheapest car I have ever owned and it looks it, the interior's carpet and plastic is showing signs of wear and tear for only being less than a year old.

I traded a 96 Outback on this car and I was getting better gas mileage on a car that had over 136K and was over 10 years old.

I would not recommend this car to anyone!

Dan

[salituro64]

Fot the size of the engine, the HP and the size of the car, the mileage could be much better. As for your drop in mileage during the winter, it is probably related to the 10% ethanol they add in the winter time.