| [GMCnet] Cross country adventure - fuel and mileage [message #89796] |
Fri, 25 June 2010 06:41  |
Gerald Work
Messages: 102
Registered: June 2010
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In an earlier post I said we had removed the pod and changed the old original high AC to a low profile unit. We were interested to see how much difference that would make on our mileage. We have driven our coach a lot, but mainly in the west. There we find the fuel is relatively consistent. We buy mostly from Costco or Fred Meyer. The fuel quality changes a bit from location to location but don't often find much difference in mileage - always 8 to 8.5.
As we started out on this trip and headed east we were always going basically up hill and then once at the top of the Rockies and started down the other side we experienced a lot of wind from all the storms that have pummeled the mid west. So, we could not tell for sure but it seemed like our mileage was up 10% to 15%.
Once on the east side of the Rockies we found wide variation in the fuel offered. In some places 85 octane was "regular" and was laced with ethanol. 87 was the mid grade. Our coach runs fine on 87 and so long as the ethanol is less than 10% it seems fine. Our mileage goes down by a bit more than the % of ethanol added. In some places the regular is 87 and no mention of ethanol while "super premium" is less expensive, rated on the pump as 88 or 89 and seems to contain much more than 10% ethanol. In parts of NE and IA the 85% ethanol "fuel" is more common than any other grade.
Anyway, based on a lot of different weather and road conditions, allowing for variations in the shut off threshold of different pumps, and always trying to burn 87 octane fuel with as little ethanol as we can find, I think we can conclude that removing the pod does, indeed increase mileage by about 1 mpg which is a significant increase on an 8 to 8.5 base. Yesterday and the day before for example, our runs were close to 10 on flat land and little or no wind.
That said, we did have one seeming strange tank about three of four days ago where mileage dropped to around 6.5. We did have some head wind, but our guess is we picked up a tank of unmarked high % ethanol fuel.
Jerry
Sent from my iPad
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