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City Mpg?


blockisle9

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Sorry if I'm confused. not sure if you mean Instant or Average MPG readout. All I know is I got this readout thingy that tells me the MPG I'm getting. I have filled up my tank four times and the electronic readout versus dividing how many gallons to full into how many miles driven have always been within 4/10ths of a mile of each other.

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Sorry if I'm confused. not sure if you mean Instant or Average MPG readout. All I know is I got this readout thingy that tells me the MPG I'm getting. I have filled up my tank four times and the electronic readout versus dividing how many gallons to full into how many miles driven have always been within 4/10ths of a mile of each other.

 

You have AVG mpg which is calculated since the last time it was Reset. Instant is a feature that some vehicles have that shows you the real time mpg calculated several times per second.

I've had it on a couple of Fords in the past and it was neat to play with to see how high you could get it (99 was my record - going down a mountain) or to tune your driving style for more mpg but I never used it after the first month or so.

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You have AVG mpg which is calculated since the last time it was Reset. Instant is a feature that some vehicles have that shows you the real time mpg calculated several times per second.

I've had it on a couple of Fords in the past and it was neat to play with to see how high you could get it (99 was my record - going down a mountain) or to tune your driving style for more mpg but I never used it after the first month or so.

 

I always have my average up, and if I had instant, that would be up too. Its a mental reminder to drive economically.

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Before buying the Escape, I drove a rental Flex (2013, I think?) w/ MFT for a week, and it featured Instant MPG in the Driver's screen.

So I assumed Escape MFT would also offer the feature, but it doesn't.

The Flex version of MFT, BTW--in particular the quality and range of features/displays on the driver's LCD--was a lot nicer than the Escape's, which seems to be a stripped-down version.

That may already be common knowledge on this Forum, but I'm new.

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Instantaneous MPG is virtually worthless. It is mildly entertaining at highway speeds with the cruise set and you can watch how grade changes affect your MPG. In town the numbers swing so wildly depending if you are on the throttle or coasting, that it is pointless information, to say nothing about it being another distraction when you should be looking out of the windshield. If you go long periods without resetting your trip odometer, getting the average to change is hard to do. MPG seems to be something a lot people focus on the older they get, along with gas prices (I'm thinking of my dad and older brother). I fill it up when it needs gas...what am I gonna do, walk? I know there are cars (mostly little $h!t boxes) that are gonna get better fuel economy than what I drive, but why do I want to be reminded of it all the time by staring at the average MPG display?

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^ Yep. It is fun to watch the readings, but it will wear off and I will go back to "driving it like I stole it". My MPG are exactly what was advertised. If I wanted better gas mileage I would have bought one of those "alternative lifestyle" vehicles. But by golly, this is my mid-life crisis vehicle and I'm gonna have me a little fun and look good do'in it. I told my wife my mid-life crisis is either a new car or a girlfriend. When I calmed her down and explained that a car would be a lot cheaper everybody was happy. ha-ha, just kidding, sort of. :angel:

Edited by Escapism
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While I'm certain a lot of people that ignore or grow 'immune' to their own Instant MPG, I still watched it fairly consistently in each previous vehicle I've had with that feature; even after years of driving: both as a self-challenged game to drive more economically, and also to learn the 'mpg personality' (am sure there's a better term) of different cars.

 

Drive yours however you want: no judgement. I'm not above putting mine through its paces either. I'm just surprised that this fairly ubiquitous feature is missing, especially since I used it in another MFT of the same year (different model).

 

BTW: if you want a challenge, try keeping that Flex's Instant MPG gauge above the halfway point!

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My grandfather kept a "Little Black Book" sized, leather-covered notebook (with a golf-scorecard sized pencil, and wrapped with a real rubber band) in the glove compartment. Whenever he bought gasoline (ethyl) he recorded the gallons and the odometer. Even without a calculator, he mentally subtracted the current odometer from the previous entry and then divided the mileage difference by the gallons and arrived at a miles-per-gallon number that he also recorded in the notebook. Then he stuck the pencil into the book, wrapped it with the rubber band and replaced it into the glove compartment. He then forgot all about it until the next time he bought gas. He had a separate notebook for each car he bought.

 

I thought my grandfather was a pretty smart guy. So when I started driving, I also kept a little notebook – I also recorded all the numbers. I must admit that I couldn’t always compute the MPGs in m y head – I sometimes needed to use a blank page and do the math with paper and pencil (and I still remember how to do that!)

 

Sometime in the 1980’s, I switched from a paper notebook to a Palm Pilot. One thing remained consistent from what my grandfather did, and what I did with all of that recorded information - we did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with the data, or the notebooks.

 

One day while I was transferring the data from my BlackBerry to my desktop PC (via Bluetooth), and importing it into an Excel spreadsheet with macros, color graphs and pie charts, I finally came to the realization that I’d wasted minutes of mental sweat, needlessly used up several ounces of dried wood pulp, polluted the world with the lead dust from my #2 stubby, and forever become the scourge of the landfill where I threw the 1.44 MB floppy backups – I stopped recording my gas mileage data. THE WORLD DID NOT STOP TURNING! (Sort of had the same value as this 4 a.m. drivel)

 

My Accords had numerical instant MPG, my Fusion has a dynamic bar graph, complete with up/down arrows to indicate better/worse at current throttle pressure. But I’ve got to agree with PillBoy, after you deduce that the harder you press on the gas pedal – the lower your MPG is, and when you press less, the MPG gets higher. Therefore, keeping an eye on the gauge/meter/readout instead of watching out for the 16 year-old airhead, driving her daddy’s Mercedes, and yapping on her cell phone as she drifts into your lane – has about as much value as Grampy’s little black book.

 

My Escape is being born today – yippee! :headspin:

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I think PJ and me might actually be the same person.

 

Except I still keep that damn little book up to date (carry over from my old man, not my grandfather).

 

And I too don't do %$#@ with the info. I do use ink rather that pencil...I don't play golf. No rubber band either - I swore when I started to put one of those around my checkbook I was going to start shopping for a nursing home.

 

I got tired of seeing 3 and 4 point somethings on the instantaneous MPG readout in my Legacy (turbo).

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well I've only mine a month so it's still in the 'break in' period....however.......just went on a road trip this past weekend and did a gas mileage test. It used the exact same amount of fuel that our 2001 Pontiac Aztek AWD with 195,000 used for the exact same trip 2 weeks earlier. SAD indeed

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I admit I was not a fan of the Aztek when i first saw it but it's still by far the best SUV I've owned....and I'm a Ford guy....well older Ford anyways. I highly doubt this escape will last as long as the Aztek will (which we still have as it's great in the snow). Have never had any probs with the pontiac either....the escape has already had several electrical issues

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well I've only mine a month so it's still in the 'break in' period....however.......just went on a road trip this past weekend and did a gas mileage test. It used the exact same amount of fuel that our 2001 Pontiac Aztek AWD with 195,000 used for the exact same trip 2 weeks earlier. SAD indeed

 

OK, lets be fair. Since you didn't post in your profile the trim level of your Escape I can only guess. Do you have the 2.5, 1.6 or 2.0 engines? What is the HP of your Aztek?

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  • 2 weeks later...

2I have the Titanium 2.0 FWD. I live in the hills in the San Francisco Bay area. Probably 1/4-1/3 of my miles are in the hills (both up and down). I mostly do short trips. Mileage has sucked since I got it--about 15 to 16 mpg. The dealer and Ford says that the first 2000 miles the car is adjusting and that everything resets after that and mileage should go up. Do I believe them? Not really but am at 1100 miles right now. Will see what happens in another 900 or so.

Edited by Ford Escaper
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If you guys are looking for a good iPhone app to track mileage...I highly suggest GasCubby. I use it for all my vehicles and track the all maintenance, etc. It's easy to log then info while your pumping gas and you don't have to waste paper, lead, etc.

 

In regards to my MPG, My current calculated MPG is 23.1 as 10/22. I'm really hoping that we are still in break-in but things haven't changed. This is very sad since I drive 65% highway and 35% city. I'm going on a long road trip tomorrow for work and will log about 250 miles on the highway. Hopefully I can eke out something close to the stated 33mpg city that the 1.6L is "supposed" to get.

 

The more i have this car, the more I believe that Ford made a couple of 100 handshakes with the EPA people.

 

P.S. I have 1500 miles on my Escape and average fuel mileage has declined over the past weeks

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