phanjo33

I recently bought 2017 ES 350 base model, and have been driving for the past 3 weeks.
The car is excellent. First, I thought that I will not like the drive as I'm coming over from BMW, but suddenly I find myself enjoying the smooth and quiet ride.

The only thing that bothers me at this point is the actual MPG that I'm getting from the vehicle.
I believe that the advertised MPG for city is 21 and for highway, it is 30.

My commute is 9 miles each way, and I don't do any highway driving for that 9 miles. I get that I stop quite a lot as there are many signals and the traffic can back up, but it's only 9 miles and it usually takes me about 25 minutes. But the MPG I'm getting from the car is about 15.5 in average. That's just terrible.
There was the only one instance I got on the highway last weekend, and even on the highway, my trip computer said, I'm averaging only 17.7.

I don't think it's my driving as I don't drive aggressively at all. My wife sometime complain that I drive like 80 year old grandpa. No intention to insult grandpas.

Is this going to get better? Or I'm an outlier and it's just that my car has some problems with the gas consumption.

At this point, I'm just baffled that I'm getting a horrible mileage from my new ES 350.

Any idea anyone? What's the MPG you're getting from your 2017 ES350 or any 6th generation ES? BTW, I've only used regular gas, octane rating 87, for my car so far.

Coulter

I think it's because you clearly have heavy traffic as it taking close to a half hour for you to go 9 miles.
Usually if something were wrong a code would be thrown.

What sort of MPGs were you getting with your previous car?

Mike728

There are a few threads on this subject already, but not all that recent.

1 - Make sure your tires are properly inflated.
2 - Don't use the on-board computer for actual results. It's more of a guide.
3 - A 9 mile commute taking 25 minutes will not yield great MPG results in the 350.

My average was around 26 mpgs when I used to drive about 20 miles each way to work on rural roads. That was for a year. Now that I've been driving much less (~1k miles/yr) I average around 20 mpg's. I did just take a 700 mile round trip last month and averaged right at 30 mpg's. That was mainly highway going up to 80 mph. All my calculations are done with math. The computer in my ES was pretty accurate for the first year I owned it driving pretty much a routine route. The past few years it's been horribly off, except during the 700 mile trip.

JDR76

Two questions:

1) Are you reading the MPG on the display for the overall average MPG or for your mileage "After Refueling"? If you are on the average and it hasn't been reset, that will count all the idle time the car was on but sat around, effectively getting 0 MPG. Reset that if you haven't already.

2) If you are reading the mileage for "After Refueling" I'd simply ask if you're still on the first tank from the dealer. That may also include lots of idle time so I would give it a refill, reset all meters, and go from there.

phanjo33

I've reset my MPG on the display twice so far. Based on the comments you guys provided, I'm surprised to find out that taking about half an hour for 9 miles on local is heavy traffic.
In LA standard, that's pretty good as I'm not on highway. Yes, I do get through congested area for about 5 to 10 minutes, but for other parts, it's pretty much the normal traffic.

I used to drive BMW 328i on premium gas. With the same commute, I used to average 21 mpg.

chromedome

I guess using lots of AC would also bring down fuel economy. I'm driving the hybrid but I also see my fuel consumption go up in the middle of summer, especially with the AC cranked up in slow traffic.

hypervish

I’ve been incredibly impressed with the mpg from my 2014. I’ve only really driven it on the highway thus far, since I took it on a 2200 mile road trip to Atlanta. You can see my trip mpg breakdown below, and no that’s not a typo...I did get nearly 39 mpg in a non hybrid. All highway driving was around 72-75 mph with the occasional burst of speed.

33.02 mpg
38.77 mpg
32.77 mpg
32.62 mpg
34.02 mpg
36.45 mpg

How many miles on your 2017? MPG should get better as it breaks in.

Poppa

Phanjo33.. I agree with the post above. I can tell you in my 2013 ES, I average about 24.5 mpg with a mix of highway and city driving. On a fairly long highway run I will average 30mpg.. and if it's a really long highway drive I've seen it get up to 32.5 mpg.. and thats with the A/C on and driving approx. 75 mph. Make sure your tires are inflated properly and you might want to try a test tank of a different gasoline. I've always had good luck with Chevron / Texaco..

Poppa

Eolafan

By way of comparison, I have a 2015 ES350 with about 7,500 miles on the clock. My driving is about 95% "neighborhood" city driving and 5% highway. My average MPG is just a hair under 20 mpg, which (considering the high percentage of city driving I do) I don't think is bad at all. Once or twice I drove about 50 miles or so on the highway non stop and averaged for that trip just under 40 mpg (after resetting the car computer)...that I consider superb.

lesz

The two main factors that are going to have an effect on variations between the fuel economy that some get and what others get are where people drive and how they drive.

I do very little driving in stop-and-go conditions, and my driving style tends toward being conservative. With the 2013 ES that I had for 3 1//2 years, I consistently got between 31 and 32 mpg, and, on extended drives on county highways with flat terrain, I could average as much as 36 mpg. With the 2017 ES that I currently own, I've been averaging between 30 and 31 mpg. I'm not sure whether the slightly lower mpg with the 2017 is caused by more power being used by the various safety features and other power options or whether the 2017 UL with the pano roof might be a bit heavier than the 2013 Luxury ES, but the mpg on both is close enough and good enough to satisfy my desire for fuel economy. On the other hand, on the rare occasions that I do have to do some stop-and-go driving, my mpg can drop down to about 23 or 24 mpg. And I'm sure that those numbers would be even lower if my driving style was more aggressive.

Note that the mpg numbers that I stated are all numbers that result from actually calculating mpg and not those gotten from the car's computer, but I usually find that the car's computer is within about 1 mpg of what I actually calculate.

Kijug

I have a 2014 ES/UL (gas) and did some experiments a while ago. On long road trips, up to 80 MPH (gotta love TX!) I get 30 quite regularly. Stop and go traffic is the biggest factor to impacting MPG. Between 50 MPH and 80 MPH, so long as I can cruise, it doesn't seem to make a difference.

In the city, driving about 15 miles to work and 15 back, a little on surface streets and some highway, in ECO mode for an entire fuel tank, I got 25 MPG. That includes stepping on the pedal a few times when I needed to. Then I switched to SPORT for an entire gas tank and got 24 MPG. The 1 MPG difference is probably how I drive because simply cruising should not make any difference. Probably me on the surface streets. =)

My previous car took 91 octane and got 21 MPG (i.e., $0.35 higher per gallon)...although it was a sports sedan.

So with the ES using 87 octane and gasoline at roughly $2/gallon, I'm not complaining at all...I'm saving a small chunk of money on gas having upgraded to the ES.

tm14930

I have a 2017 ES that I bought in early April. For the first 2 months I did 18 mile trips to work, and another 18 from. Evenly split local (50 mph) and interstate(80 mph). the one way trips take about 20 minutes each, and include 2 traffic lights.
When I first got it the mileage was poor, but notched up with every 18 mile trip. after 2 months and appx 2800 miles, mpg was up to 23.6 mpg.I consider that my local mileage. Calculated mileage and dashboard mileage did eventually match up later on.
Then we drove from N J to Fl, 2100 miles, all interstate, and being summer, the air was on for the whole trip. Average speed 80 mpg and I was getting 28.3.The only takeaway from that was that we inched forward for 1.5 hours below D.C. This was on regular gas - 87 octane.

mss1234

I have mix of city/highway drivng (60/40), and my 2016 ES 350 gets around 23 to 24 MPG. (less in winter, it was around 21)
on my long highway trip of around 400 miles, i saw the on-board MPG of 29.

WNC

2008 ES 350, 200,000 miles. I live in a rural area. I have consistently gotten 28-30 mpg for tha past 9 years. Use only 87 octane. Occasionally throw a bottle of Royal Purple gas additive in it.

jaredsc

I have a 2014 ES350. Most of my driving is highway driving. When cruising at 80-86 mph for over a hundred miles, I averaged 32 mpg. Traditional logic would say if I lowered my speed (again, that's a lot of miles not really slowing below 80 mph ever and usually not exceeding 86 mpg) I'd average more, but that's plenty good for me... a bit of a sweet spot, if you will.

When doing my normal driving, which is a combination of semi-rural roads that aren't busy and don't have lots of stop signs but some turns and some highway driving, I average around 27.3 mpg over a relatively long time to consider (at least 2,500 miles).

I also have a 2015 C300, which requires premium. That averages 28.6 mpg in my "normal" driving (seen over maybe 3,500 miles), and anywhere between 30 and 32 mpg when doing the 80-86 mph cruising.

I'd be very interested to see how the car does at 55 mph when cruising, 65 mph when cruising, and 75 mph when cruising, all for 100 miles. Honestly, I'm probably never going to find out! Maybe I will one day, if I feel like driving slowly.