mmartin061

Well here it is. My gas mileage suffers greatly the colder it gets. Have done a lot of hwy driving and I park in a heated garage when at home but I am at about 180 miles and am at almost the second line after half way. It seems the colder it gets the worse my mileage. I know cars run rich when warming up but this beast on a cold day can take up to 7 mins to get to half way on temp gauge. It isn't uncommon for me to post 16mpg in cold weather. How bad would it be if I didn't have heated parking and didn't drive some hwy? Summer time it seems just back to normal. My GS400 was the same way. Mileage bad in the winter time. I just am beginning to think this is the way Lexus' are. Any options opinions. I did search the threads here.

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

Temperature, warm up times, are all a part of it, but I believe you will also find that many gas stations use a higher percentage of ethanol in the winter (sometimes year round too), and a higher percentage of ethanol will lead to reduced fuel economy as well...

7 minutes to warm isn't terrible, depending on how cold it really is...

One other thing - are you checking tire pressures? with the cold, pressure can drop in a tire, causing higher rolling resistance...

mmartin061

A week ago we just had 3 days between 25 and 45 below with wind chill. It is what it is. Price you pay to drive this car. Either way I will never get rid of this car u until it blows up haha. Guess I really never paid attention on other cars I owned. I recently had an 02 Q45 that was stored driven in the same way and the gas mileage never suffered as bad. That is why I think it has something to do with Lexus engines and warm up times. Thanks for the reply