Gas Mileage with my 2009 Yaris Sedan

[YarisOwnersDad]

I got anxious and couldn't wait until I had less than a quarter tank before filling-up and checking gas mileage. I was running a little early on the way to work this morning, so I stopped and filled-up.

The tank was filled for me by the dealer at 103 miles on the odometer, and when I filled it up this morning, it was showing 394 miles. It took 8.450 gallons of gas for those 291 miles, which works out to 34.4 MPG.

I don't think that is too bad for the first tank. The car is not broken-in yet, and I was purposely driving at different speeds, like you are supposed to to when breaking-in a new engine. Driving different speeds might be good for break-in, but it isn't good for gas mileage. I was up to 80 MPH a few times, but never for very long at a time.

I'll update this thread as I accumulate more data.

Tomster

[SailDesign]

That sounds about right for varied driving.

[Yaris Hilton]

A little better than my first tank. Of course, I don't know how full the dealer filled it.

[BailOut]

Of course, I don't know how full the dealer filled it.

I always wondered about my dealer's fill up, too. Granted I was just learning how to hypermile at the time, but that first tank only netted me 36 MPG using standard measurement techniques. That was the lowest tank I ever had, and one of only 2 under 40 MPG (the other one being my second tank at 39 MPG).

[YarisOwnersDad]

OK, Peeps, I have just taken my first long trip in my Yaris, and I got 40.5 MPG going up to Illinois and 40.0 coming home! I am VERY happy with that!

I set the cruise for 72 MPH going up and 68 most of the way home, then upped it to 70 MPH for the last 50 miles. The A/C was on all the way up there and most of the way home.

Tom

Odom Trip Odom Gallons MPG
103 tank filled by Hudson
394 291.4 8.450 34.49
664 270.0 7.650 35.29
871 206.9 5.113 40.47
1115 243.7 6.094 39.99

This is copied from a spreadsheet I am keeping on gas mileage. The columns are messed up, but you can still read the data.

[Altitude]

^^^ Sweet :thumbup:

[Blowtorch]

I've never kept track of car mileage before. With my new Yaris, it will be fun to start doing that... but I am lazy, so don't be surprised if I do it once, then never again. Maybe coming to this forum will motivate me to keep it up.

[voodoo22]

I've never kept track of car mileage before. With my new Yaris, it will be fun to start doing that... but I am lazy, so don't be surprised if I do it once, then never again. Maybe coming to this forum will motivate me to keep it up.

If you want to do it, but don't feel like making a spreadsheet etc, I suggest joining a site like cleanmpg, gassavers or fuelly so you can keep track easily and also see how others with your car are doing.

[YarisOwnersDad]

OK, this time the odometer reading was 1402, the trip odometer was showing 287.0, and it took 7.907 gallons to fill the tank. Calculated MPG is 36.3 for this tank.

This was my normal driving mix, mostly driving to work and back, 23.7 miles each way, plus my in-town drive to lunch each day of 8 miles round trip.

I used the back roads instead of the parkways for my commute on this tank of gas. It would add 6.6 miles per day to my commute to use the parkways, but I know I would get better MPG. Probably not enough extra MPG to cover the extra miles that I would drive.

Tom

[CKaelin]

Been keeping track since I bought the car about 11 months ago. Check it out if you like.

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/1954?

[YarisOwnersDad]

Been keeping track since I bought the car about 11 months ago. Check it out if you like.

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/1954?

Hey, thanks! I might just have to sign up at gassavers.org myself.

Tom

[YarisOwnersDad]

Hey, thanks! I might just have to sign up at gassavers.org myself.

Tom

OK, I am an official member of GasSavers.org now. I use the same username that I do here, YarisOwnersDad.

Tom

Here's the link to my data.

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/2547

[CKaelin]

^nice!^

[anonymous user]

^nice!^

Hey, i got a question for you. If you look at my gassavers profile should'nt i have a hypermiler status as well? How does one earn that title?

[YarisOwnersDad]

37.4 this time

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/2547

[YarisOwnersDad]

37.0 this time

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/2547

I used the parkways while running out this tank of gas, instead of the two lane roads. It didn't pay off. I have to drive 3.3 miles longer each way for my work commute in order to use the parkways, so that's 6.6 extra miles per day. I didn't do any better on gas mileage, so the extra miles were for nothing.

I set the cruise for 65 MPH while on the parkways, and I drive about 55 to 60 MPH when I use the back roads.

Another bad thing about the parkways is that by driving only 65 MPH I am often being passed by coal trucks and dump trucks, and there's always dried mud with embedded rocks dropping off of them.

I'm going back to those two lane country roads!

Tom

P.S.

The weighted average MPG for my first 2000 miles with the Yaris is 36.98.

[YarisOwnersDad]

Got 37.78 this time. Overall average up to 37.07 now.

Tom

[CKaelin]

Hey, i got a question for you. If you look at my gassavers profile should'nt i have a hypermiler status as well? How does one earn that title?


Maybe the 1.5 xtra mpgs on my 90 average is enough to put me in that category.. =P Must be 20% over and better?

Lifetime Fuel Economy: 40.37 MPG(US)
90 Day Running Average: 39.47 MPG(US)

[chai]

I'll let you guys know how an '09 AT sedan is with the gas once I run my first tank empty... might be a while since I *just* hit 5/8 with 178 miles driven. :thumbup:

[perfecto]

Hey guys, new to the forum and to getting good mileage! That's why I bought the Yaris! I bought mine a week ago and half of the tank was spent without a scanguage and included some speeding on the highway, the other half was around town in 40mph areas with a few number of lights spread around. That first tank netted me 40mpg assuming that the dealership filled it 100%. (409 miles and 10.025 gallons).

Currently I've had some trips in the 50's and today I managed a trip back home at 61.1mpg! A large part of this is due to timing the lights properly and being able to use the DFCO while coasting to red lights that I needed to take a turn at.

Congrats to the OP on a solid first tank! I strongly suggest the SCANGUAGE II because it has honestly made a difference in my driving habits and I hope to continue with some nice numbers. Once I have to do some highway driving, however, I'm sure my average will drop, but I'm hoping to get this second tank of gas into the 50's if at all possible. I deliver pizzas on the weekend and sometimes during the week as well, so if time becomes an issue at work it is unlikely that I will be able to P&G my way to a customer's house.

[BailOut]

You're off to a great start, perfecto. :smile: It sounds like you researched some of the FE techniques before you purchased.

As for pizza delivery, I know time is a factor but no shop gives a timing guarantee anymore, and hypermiling adds so little time to most routes that I bet you could still rock the MPG.

[YarisOwnersDad]

OK, my gas mileage has leveled off and has been very consistent over the last four tanks. I'm still hoping for higher numbers after break-in, but right now it looks like my normal driving is going to yield between 37 and 38 MPG. The range for the last four tanks has been 37.0 to 37.8, with an overall average of 37.3.

I'm still very happy with this little car, and it is a joy to drive.

Tom

[dccurrent]

In tried to relax my driving with my last fill up and yet I am still getting 29 mpg. It's 90% city driving, but I thought I may have been able to do better with all you guys hitting such lofty numbers.

[Cosworth]

29 mpg in the city seems pretty darn good to me... especially in NYC! :)

[YarisOwnersDad]

In tried to relax my driving with my last fill up and yet I am still getting 29 mpg. It's 90% city driving, but I thought I may have been able to do better with all you guys hitting such lofty numbers.

I do practically zero city driving. My normal tank of gas is run out about 90% on two lane country roads going to work and coming home.

Tom

[dccurrent]

29 mpg in the city seems pretty darn good to me... especially in NYC! :)

You would think I would be happy, especially since Toyota themselves listed the Yaris at 29 mpg for city driving, but because I have been hearing these massive MPG accomplishments on this forum I feel like I am either doing something wrong or my car has a faulty part. :laugh:

I do practically zero city driving. My normal tank of gas is run out about 90% on two lane country roads going to work and coming home.

Tom

I wish I had a commute like that. I spend about 120 seconds on the highway each weekday and then it's all local from there. I probably do even more than 90% city driving. But it's never really bumper to bumper, just a lot of lights, which makes me a little disappointed in my numbers.

[YarisOwnersDad]

Well, DC, I hope you will learn to be satisfied with that 29 MPG or that you will figure out some way to improve it. That really is not a bad figure for city MPG at all.

I hope you get a chance to get out of town and see what that puppy will do on the highway.

Keep us posted.

Tom

[daf62757]

You would think I would be happy, especially since Toyota themselves listed the Yaris at 29 mpg for city driving, but because I have been hearing these massive MPG accomplishments on this forum I feel like I am either doing something wrong or my car has a faulty part. :laugh:



I wish I had a commute like that. I spend about 120 seconds on the highway each weekday and then it's all local from there. I probably do even more than 90% city driving. But it's never really bumper to bumper, just a lot of lights, which makes me a little disappointed in my numbers.

Don't worry DC, you are in the norm. I too tried to get the 50 MPG but I am a normal person and I don't hypermile. If you get 29 MPG, you are doing good. The people here who are getting over 45 MPG are not driving normally. That isn't to say they are driving wrong, but they are using techniques that take more attention and if you are the normal commuter who drives an auto with cruise, you will never be able to get their results.

[voodoo22]

Don't worry DC, you are in the norm. I too tried to get the 50 MPG but I am a normal person and I don't hypermile. If you get 29 MPG, you are doing good. The people here who are getting over 45 MPG are not driving normally. That isn't to say they are driving wrong, but they are using techniques that take more attention and if you are the normal commuter who drives an auto with cruise, you will never be able to get their results.

Anyone can break 50 US MPG in any Yaris if they drove 95% hwy, didn't use the A/C non stop and didn't go over 55mph.

If you have a MT you can go faster and use more elaborate techniques, but having an AT precludes me from using any techniques besides driving 50-55 mph and not using the A/C unless I have passengers.

If I drive city stop & go, traffic jam, rush hour over 25% of an entire tank it's virtually impossible to break 50MPG with an AT.

This last tank I drove about 20% city, but didn't get stuck in any jams and barely broke 50 MPG.

[anonymous user]

What is wrong with 29mpg city anyway? Isn't the car rated at 29cty/36hwy?
Just FYI, i drive over a steep mountain daily, have 2deg. neg. camber (raising wind/rolling resistance) and performance tires and can still get 35 mpg. If I drive according to hypermiling techniques, i can occasionally squeeze out a 40 mpg tank. While that may not be spectacular, it blows away the mileage on my other 2 cars i own, and is by far my most FE car ever owned.

[Rick]

Voodoo22,

How many miles between cold-start cycles are you running? I live in the exurbs and commute into the outer suburbs via 2 lane county roads. I'm close to tank averages of 47 MPG but wonder if it can really get much higher with basically a cold-start cycle every 23 miles. As others have noted, the cold-starts are a big MPG killer.

[voodoo22]

Voodoo22,

How many miles between cold-start cycles are you running? I live in the exurbs and commute into the outer suburbs via 2 lane county roads. I'm close to tank averages of 47 MPG but wonder if it can really get much higher with basically a cold-start cycle every 23 miles. As others have noted, the cold-starts are a big MPG killer.

HI Rick,

averaging 47mpg is fantastic. With numbers like that you don't have much margin of error to gain more, but I'd wager you could get it over 50 at least some times. If you aren't already, try accelerating slower and keeping your speed under 55mph if possible. Supposedly 45mph is the sweet spot. I generally go between 50-55mph on the hwy I travel.

My commute is 52kms or about 32miles each way. The cold start is definitely a killer. I've really put a lot of effort into combining short trips udner 20 kms together or not driving all together when possible. When I recently got my best tank ever of just over 55mpg, I had virtually no short trips that tank, like the 2 km drive to pick my wife up at work.

From what I've read written by people with scan gauges, it takes about 23 kms or 14 miles for our cars to warm up into the optimum operating temperature range.

[Woody_Woodchuck]

Voodoo is correct again! Except part of “If you have a MT you can go faster and use more elaborate techniques” We can use more techniques but we can not drive as fast, the manual transmission has higher rpm’s for any given speed.

45 to 50 mph is the sweet spot I found, depending on terrain. If it is flat, 45 all the way! At 40 mph you have nothing to accelerate with and need to downshift. If there are rolling hills you will need to press 55 mph at times, bleeding to 45 or 50, to make sure you have momentum to make it over them. 50 is a good all around cruising speed, you can accelerate if needed without flooring it. I have to do 55 on the highway because of traffic and the speed limit is 65 mph.

It took me 23 tanks to break 47 mpg, you are doing great! How have you accomplished that, what are your driving techniques?

A big gainer for me is in the first part of my 30 mile daily commute the back country roads are free of traffic most of the time. I can shift and let the car ‘idle’ along at the high idle 1,500 rpm’s in 5th gear. Within a mile I can be up to 55 mpg but, there are small rolling hills and in 1.5 miles I am around 35 mpg. Accelerating as slow as you can stand is also a big gainer. There is no need to shift to a higher gear and lug it, the SG actually reports lower mpg’s doing that. I can ‘feel’ when it is time to shift, you will notice no more acceleration in that gear without pressing much harder on the gas than you did to get to where you are (the speed you are currently at). Not sure of the rpm’s at each shift, I just go be feel. But, using the SG2 I rarely go over 3,000 rpm’s on any commute.

Sorry to hijack from Tomsters original post. Give it a couple tanks Tom, my first one was way low as the dealer did not fill completely.

[anonymous user]

From what I've read written by people with scan gauges, it takes about 23 kms or 14 miles for our cars to warm up into the optimum operating temperature range.

If this is true, and most of my driving is under 14 miles per leg, then i must say that i'm getting pretty good results. One could only imagine how i'd do on longer trips, and with less traffic and crazy drivers. There are 597 square miles on this island, only about the size of houston, tx. But our population is close to a million! Traffic, congestion, ahh it sucks.

[voodoo22]

Voodoo is correct again! Except part of “If you have a MT you can go faster and use more elaborate techniques” We can use more techniques but we can not drive as fast, the manual transmission has higher rpm’s for any given speed.

Thanks for correcting me. I guess when AT's started closing the gap on MT's on the FE numbers it wasn't actually an improvement in the AT technology as much as manufacturers gearing MT's more aggressively.

Thanks for posting such definitive information, it's stuff like that which helps out everyone interested in better FE.

[roxy1]

Thanks for correcting me. I guess when AT's started closing the gap on MT's on the FE numbers it wasn't actually an improvement in the AT technology as much as manufacturers gearing MT's more aggressively.

Thanks for posting such definitive information, it's stuff like that which helps out everyone interested in better FE.

as i mentioned in another thread, the difference in rpm's between auto and manual yaris is minimal compare to, for example, the honda fit. i think that is more than offset by parasitic losses in the auto. fueleconomy.gov has a good sampling of real world numbers for yaris drivers. for any given speed the yaris manual is alway running ~200 rpm's higher, yet still averages out 4 mpg's higher than the auto yaris. by the time one gets to interstate speeds, i believe overcoming wind resistance becomes a much greater factor than a couple hundred rpm's.

[smofskra]

I have an 08 sedan with the TRD 18's and I get between 36 and 39 mpg, depending on how much highway traveling. Other than taking the snorkel off of the stock intake, there are no other performance mods.

[Yaris Hilton]

I got a striking demonstration of how much the air conditioning sucks mileage down yesterday. It was a 90° afternoon, and I had the AC turned on full blast when I left the office, something I've seldom done. There's a little stretch of 55 MPH highway before I come into town, and the speed limit drops to 45 near the bottom of a hill just before starting up again. I normally come off the gas before the advance signs that the speed limit's about to drop, and it goes into DFCO, but the hill keeps it coasting near 55 until it starts back up the slope, and the car goes way up the slope before getting down to 45. With the AC compressor maxed out, it slowed to 45 by the bottom of the hill before starting back up. Huge difference! I've heard people complain about the Yaris' AC being marginal, and it is when the car's been baking in direct sunshine in hot weather. But it draws a lot of power off and you really notice that a lot more in a little car with a ~100 HP engine than you do in a big sedan with an American V8 or turbo. I've said before that I'd be happy with the 1000cc engine, but I think it wouldn't be able to run the AC and maintain decent normal driving performance.

[voodoo22]

I got a striking demonstration of how much the air conditioning sucks mileage down yesterday. It was a 90° afternoon, and I had the AC turned on full blast when I left the office, something I've seldom done. There's a little stretch of 55 MPH highway before I come into town, and the speed limit drops to 45 near the bottom of a hill just before starting up again. I normally come off the gas before the advance signs that the speed limit's about to drop, and it goes into DFCO, but the hill keeps it coasting near 55 until it starts back up the slope, and the car goes way up the slope before getting down to 45. With the AC compressor maxed out, it slowed to 45 by the bottom of the hill before starting back up. Huge difference! I've heard people complain about the Yaris' AC being marginal, and it is when the car's been baking in direct sunshine in hot weather. But it draws a lot of power off and you really notice that a lot more in a little car with a ~100 HP engine than you do in a big sedan with an American V8 or turbo. I've said before that I'd be happy with the 1000cc engine, but I think it wouldn't be able to run the AC and maintain decent normal driving performance.

When I stopped using A/C my FE went up by around 10% +/-. It's a killer.

[YarisOwnersDad]

Got 39.29 MPG this time, but there was one trip of about 50 miles each way that was parkway driving.

I guess I ought to try doing without the A/C, but I have been using it most of the time during the last month.

Tom

P.S.

That GasSaver thing is showing me as a hypermiler now, but I don't go to all the extremes that true hypermilers do. I do drive with fuel economy in mind, but I don't utilize all the tricks that true hypermilers do.

[Sodium Duck]

If you're interested, this is the spreadsheet I made for calculating and keeping track of my MPG data.

http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9527

[YarisOwnersDad]

If you're interested, this is the spreadsheet I made for calculating and keeping track of my MPG data.

http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9527

Thanks, Sodium. That's a really nice looking spreadsheet. I have one of my own construction that is not nearly as fancy as yours, but it gives me the info that I need. Good work!

Tomster

[YarisOwnersDad]

OK, Peeps, I just got back from Illinois. ( Locked my front door, oh boy. Got to sit down and take a rest for a while. Imagination sets in, pretty soon I'm singin') Sorry, just HAD to do that.

I filled up the Yairs in Madisonville, KY, then drove up to Taylorville, IL, then on to Springfield, IL, and then back to Taylorville. The total distance was 296.3 miles, and the tank held 6.803 gallons. That calculates out to be 43.55 MPG. Not bad! I had the A/C going the whole time, drove 67 MPH on the Interstates, and I drove 62 MPH on the two lane roads.

For the trip back to KY from Taylorville, I got 42.22 MPG.

I have calculated mileage on every single tank of gas since the dealer filled it up for me the day I bought it, and my overall average MPG is 37.9. I am VERY happy with that.

Tomster