zicogold

Low temps will impact gas consumption. How many klicks have you put on the car?

GM11

You get similar to me. In winter about 18 or 19L/100km normally. We're in downtown Toronto with lots of fairly short trips. If you're in Alberta I'm not hugely surprised at 18L. It really depends on the length of your journeys and your speed. In summer on the highway I get 8L/100km driving at 120 km/h.

zicogold

No, just Canada, but it gets up to 38 C in the summer. Do you love extremes?

zicogold

Must be because of the street cars.

dagwag77

You're not the only one with bad gas mileage. Down in NY its not quite as cold yet, mixed highway/city driving, but only 700 mi on the car so I guess I'm still in the break in period. I haven't tried calculating it myself, and only fill with 93. Been trying to keep it on eco to see what happens...

Afrosheen

Dagwag and others, reset your trip meter when it's dead on E, like you're scared to go further without refueling. Record the number of gallons you put in. Next time you refill, take note of the trip meter. Do some math and there's your mileage. I got 340 to the tank last time, refilling 15.5 gallons, roughly 20mpg, mostly highway on 93 octane.

One thing I noticed about my old Infiniti is that feeding it 93 was worse than 91 even though 91 is considered "super unleaded" and 93 has higher octane. That car didn't like to drink the most expensive blend, it did best on 91. I wonder if this engine is similar, and if 93+ octane hurts mileage.

Right now is kind of a bad time though. Winter blend sucks and is geared towards quick burn off and low pollution and lacks btu's I believe. I read some mind-boggling dissertation about it once from someone that works at a refinery and forgot it 5 minutes later.

mshmsh

You have the same case as mine when I purchased my car new last year. when it was under 1k miles I was getting very low miles per gallon. Its very normal I guess since so many of us are getting low mpg in the break-in period.

jj14

Warming the car up (letting it idle) for 5 minutes is not going to help the mileage in any way. Modern cars do not need anything over 30 seconds of warm up. After that, you are just wasting fuel.
Even in cold weather, you don't need to wait that long - just remember to not floor it as soon as you start. Drive gently with with low acceleration for the first few minutes and that will warm your engine up a lot better than idling for 5 minutes. (idling = 0mpg)

From http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/...e_myths/3.html
"It's true that running cold is harder on an engine than running warm. The oil is thicker, and it takes a little time - very little, really - for it to flow to all the parts of the engine that need it.

But letting the car sit while the engine is running doesn't help anything. It just wastes gas and pumps out needless fumes. You might as well get on your way.

All you need to do is drive your car gently until the engine is warmed up. No smoky burn-outs first thing in the morning. Just go easy and keep those engine RPMs down until everything's toasty, and you'll be just fine."

ECL

I do not understand these postings. I have had my GS4 for a year and a half. Clearly, Tucson is a bit warmer than the country to the north. Driving in town, a mixture of city and suburban driving, I have never had under 23 MPG. I average 26-27 MPG here in town. On the road, with the cruise control set at 75, I get 28-30 MPG. I have an F-Sport GS350, not the hybrid.

yardie876

I average 17mpg with mostly city driving. Down here is mostly in the mid 80s too. I could see how he might be getting 13 mpg when combining the factors of cold temperature, winter mix fuel, break-in period, city driving, and warming up on cold starts. These all contribute to lower fuel economy.

SW17LS

We've established ad nauseum that your MPG figures are like 30% more than anything anyone else has gotten from the car. I don't get 27MPG on a highway trip, let alone "in town".

I get about 19MPG in 50/50 highway/suburban-city driving. On a highway trip with cruise set at 75 I get 25...26. In my ES350 I got 20 maybe mixed and could get 30MPG on a highway trip in warmer weather.

When the car is new the MPG from the readout is going to read real low. It idles a lot during transport, and theres not much data from which to compute the average. Calculate it yourself and see, it'll be way higher.

To the OP, if you're getting 13MPG city in -30 to -40 deg C temps...I think thats excellent. Thats REALLY cold.

jtrue28

The car also idles high when the temp is below 50* F and the temp of the engine is low. That is standard on all Toyota/Lexus vehicles. Once the engine temp warms up, the idling lowers to 600-650 rpms.

jj14

With purely highway driving (uninterrupted, with cruise control), I get 29mpg or better - see https://www.clublexus.com/forums/7744643-post40.html

But with purely city driving (stop and go, city streets), I average about 18-20mpg.
With a little bit of highway driving (but still primarily city stop/go), I average about 22mpg or so.

This seems to match up to EPA ratings too - 19 City / 28 Hwy (I have the RWD)

City driving for me means stop and go - with acceleration/braking very frequently. Maybe in ECL's town, city driving means 45-50mph driving, with no traffic signals and very less traffic - dunno. But I can't ever get 26-27mpg in city driving here.

SW17LS

Not surprised you can get 29 highway, yours is RWD mines AWD.

zicogold

I had posted this bulletin from Natural Resources Canada in another thread but maybe worth reposting:

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/idling/14743

Key point from the bulletin is, "the wheel bearings, steering, suspension, transmission and tires. These parts also need to be warmed up, and the only way to do that is to drive the vehicle. Until the engine temperature begins to rise"

I do average 12l/100km = 19mpg, do get on the highway 8.5l/100km = 27 mpg and have gotten 7.6l/100km = 31 mpg. But if it is a new car, at better than 1/2 km above sea level and operating at -30 C to -40 C on short trips, then 18l/100km maybe the norm. But then the dealer in the area should be able to advise so would the CAA. Would be interesting to know what the gas consumption for this poster in the spring and summer is.

GM11 concurs that he gets 18 to 19l/100km in his downtown driving on short trips. My consumption jumps to 14.7l/100km driving from my suburban location to that same downtown area and back.