Recent road trip 2.0t Premium MPG

[Dannyar]

Recently went on a road trip to visit my brother. It was about 400 miles round trip, mostly highway miles in cruise control at about 80mph. Was able to average 33.7 mpg which I feel was great considering in my day to day driving I'm able to average only about 24-25mpg. Anyone else get similar results on road trips?

 

[Paul32]

Recently went on a road trip to visit my brother. It was about 400 miles round trip, mostly highway miles in cruise control at about 80mph. Was able to average 33.7 mpg which I feel was great considering in my day to day driving I'm able to average only about 24-25mpg. Anyone else get similar results on road trips?

Was that your Stinger computer's result or your manual calculation? In any case, that's impressive considering 80mph.

 

[bumble bee]

No, I have not drove the car awhile ago, 3,400 miles on it I think.

 

[jboulukos]

Was that your Stinger computer's result or your manual calculation? In any case, that's impressive considering 80mph.

I have the same question and I appreciate this post as I am going to obtain this model as well.

 

[Dannyar]

This was my own calculation, the cars computer actually read 34.4.

 

[jboulukos]

This was my own calculation, the cars computer actually read 34.4.

Right on brother. I was hoping that was the case. Thats great gas mileage. What type of gas did you use? regular 87? premium 91?

 

[Dannyar]

Right on brother. I was hoping that was the case. Thats great gas mileage. What type of gas did you use? regular 87? premium 91?

Believe it or not I used just regular 87 .I had used 91 a few fills earlier but I did not notice a big difference so went back to 87 .

 

[Joseph Spiegel]

I did my first mileage test trip this weekend. GT V6.
I used the trip monitor, this car is essentially missing and old school trip odometer, by resetting it. My trip over three days was 246 miles, mostly freeway some city at my destination. Going was clear sailing, returning home was a lot of heavy traffic including stop and go on the freeway. There were elevation changes as it was mountainous where I went. I used auto cruise and it worked very well for the stop and go. I used Eco for most of the journey, though Sport was fun in the mountains. Speed was 75 where I could and one sprint into triple digits to get past a slow car on the two lane when the passing lane opened up. That was so smooth!

It used almost exactly 10 gallons and by math the car got 24.6 MPG on the tank. The car’s computer read 25.8. More than 1MPG optimistic.

 

[Paul32]

I did my first mileage test trip this weekend. GT V6.
I used the trip monitor, this car is essentially missing and old school trip odometer, by resetting it. My trip over three days was 246 miles, mostly freeway some city at my destination. Going was clear sailing, returning home was a lot of heavy traffic including stop and go on the freeway. There were elevation changes as it was mountainous where I went. I used auto cruise and it worked very well for the stop and go. I used Eco for most of the journey, though Sport was fun in the mountains. Speed was 75 where I could and one sprint into triple digits to get past a slow car on the two lane when the passing lane opened up. That was so smooth!

It used almost exactly 10 gallons and by math the car got 24.6 MPG on the tank. The car’s computer read 25.8. More than 1MPG optimistic.

I'm taking a short trip next weekend to the Cars and Coffee meet. It's flat, not much traffic, mostly highway at 70mph. I'm expecting around 30 using 89 oct. The trip will be around 220 miles one way. I'll fill up just before and check when I get there using the car's computer. I'll just estimate the real number and report back.

 

[StingEm]

My 2.0 has done 29-30.5mpg actual (31-33mpg on the trip meter) a few tanks on my normal driving (85% highway work commuting, but with stop & go some days) on 91 octane. So I totally buy 33-34mpg on a pure highway tank. Nice one!

 

[Joseph Spiegel]

I'm taking a short trip next weekend to the Cars and Coffee meet. It's flat, not much traffic, mostly highway at 70mph. I'm expecting around 30 using 89 oct. The trip will be around 220 miles one way. I'll fill up just before and check when I get there using the car's computer. I'll just estimate the real number and report back.

Why “estimate”, it’s just math.

 

[Paul32]

Why “estimate”, it’s just math.

Because I don't want to fill up again until my return trip. This way I get pure highway mpg. Estimate would be less than 1 mpg off. I'll use my average difference from all my fill ups.

 

[Rufus]

Here's a pic of a readout from an 80 mile round trip, all highway but with some elevation changes:

...and one from a longer, more exuberant road trip along the Cascade loop here in WA:

 

[Paul32]

Here's a pic of a readout from an 80 mile round trip, all highway but with some elevation changes:
View attachment 11375
...and one from a longer, more exuberant road trip along the Cascade loop here in WA:
View attachment 11376

If my math was correct, looks like you averaged around 62 mph.

 

[Joseph Spiegel]

Because I don't want to fill up again until my return trip. This way I get pure highway mpg. Estimate would be less than 1 mpg off. I'll use my average difference from all my fill ups.

Got it. Thought you meant at the end of the journey.

 

[Rufus]

If my math was correct, looks like you averaged around 62 mph.

For the longer trip, there were several vista stops, I believe, and the Cascade loop doesn't really encourage hooning as it's mostly 2 lane twistiness but yes--my right foot has learned to lose weight as I've aged

 

[Paul32]

For the longer trip, there were several vista stops, I believe, and the Cascade loop doesn't really encourage hooning as it's mostly 2 lane twistiness but yes--my right foot has learned to lose weight as I've aged

I know the feeling.

 

[Paul32]

For the longer trip, there were several vista stops, I believe, and the Cascade loop doesn't really encourage hooning as it's mostly 2 lane twistiness but yes--my right foot has learned to lose weight as I've aged

It's still impressive for a car the size and weight of the Stinger.

 

[Paul32]

Just got back from Cars and Coffee, WPB. Said I would do a test on MPG pure highway using 89 and 93 Octane fuel.

Going down: 89 Octane, 200 miles, 70 mph, 1 stop (Rest Area) 31 mpg (Stinger computer), should be about 29.5 actual.
Coming Back: 93 Octane, 200 miles, 70 mph, 1 stop (Rest Area) 30 mpg (Stinger computer), should be about 28.5 actual.
Used Eco mode both directions. So all you premium guys, how do you explain that? I tested a tank fill up earlier and got comparable results. What this tells me is, using premium does not result in better gas mileage. Might get better performance though.

 

[StingEm]

Just got back from Cars and Coffee, WPB. Said I would do a test on MPG pure highway using 89 and 93 Octane fuel.

Going down: 89 Octane, 200 miles, 70 mph, 1 stop (Rest Area) 31 mpg (Stinger computer), should be about 29.5 actual.
Coming Back: 93 Octane, 200 miles, 70 mph, 1 stop (Rest Area) 30 mpg (Stinger computer), should be about 28.5 actual.
Used Eco mode both directions. So all you premium guys, how do you explain that? I tested a tank fill up earlier and got comparable results. What this tells me is, using premium does not result in better gas mileage. Might get better performance though.

The Stinger computer is totally useless for fuel economy comparisons. I have seen anywhere from 4-9% deviation from actual fill to the computers estimate under similar driving conditions.

I rarely get the same fuel economy going out vs. back on a route. Elevation change, wind speed, wind direction, speeds and traffic all play a large part.

Using premium immediately after a lower grade and expecting immediate results is not logical. The fuel and timing trims in the ECU take some time to adapt to an increase in octane.

89 octane is not low octane. 91 octane is considered “Premium” and is what is recommended by Kia for optimal performance, so you were just as close to “Premium” as you were to low octane (87 octane near sea level).

Different ethanol content in the 89 vs 93 octane fuel will impact fuel economy.

And most importantly, a sample size of one is totally irrelevant.

Now hopefully you see why this isn’t a simple question to answer (and you certainly can’t say anything useful on this topic from a handful of road trips, even though every car magazine loves to do just that). This is an incredibly difficult experiment to get right. An engine or maybe a chassis dynamometer would be the best bet I think, but even then you would need to be sure the atmospheric conditions were the same for each test and that the engine management had time to adapt to the change in fuel.

Keep in mind that the Kia engineers recommend that the car runs on 91. The sales & marketing side really don’t like that, so you can bet that if they capitulate and agree to recommend 91 then they mean it.