bigger tires= better mileage?

[cal]

I don't understand why some people can get good mileage, and others very bad with the same config. You got 23-25mpg highway with 35s and stock gears, yet other people get 12mpg, and they say they don't drive with a heavy foot.

Condition of the vehicle, particularly the sensors, terrain, not being ABLE to accuractly calculate your mpg, and not everyone defines "not a heavy foot" in the same way.

 

[Ecomike]

Your odo and speedo aren't dead on with each other. What I mean is, with my 30" tires, my speedo is dead accurate. Its been verified by them little roadside "Your Speed Is:" signs as well as by GPS. However my odo, when compared against the milemarkers on the highway, is off. For every mile traveled, it only reads 0.8. So, I correct my mileage by:
Trip meter/0.8/gallons pumped=mpg
and get fairly accurate readings based on that. Find out what your odo is off by using milemarkers or some other known accurate mileage reading and then figure your mileage that way. I know if I don't correct, it looks like I'm only getting 14ish. I actually get around 18.

Why would the Odo and speedo not read the same? Bet that issue varies with the year.

 

[ChicksDigWagons]

The ODO and the Speedo are intrinsicly linked. Don't care what anybody says. It all comes from the VSS, or the Speedo Cable.

Most people don't realize that changing gears or tires will affect how many miles your ODO shows. Which obviously will change your calculated gas mileage regardless of whether you actually use more gas or not.

The easiest way to compare is to use a GPS with total miles travelled and use that number in your MPG calcs.

 

[Ecomike]

The ODO and the Speedo are intrinsicly linked. Don't care what anybody says. It all comes from the VSS, or the Speedo Cable.

I agree, but my sons 96 Ford Taurus speedometer works fine, while the trip Odometer locked up and stopped working recently. I need to ask him if the odometer itself died too. From what he said, I suspect it died with the trip ODO. Guessing a gear in between them stripped out, which would indicate a possible mode for one to slip (ODO-?) and the other not slip?

 

[xj92]

mostly highway driving and no hills, just flat ground

Based on this I think 35's will help because the lower the rpm's the better if you're highway cruising on flat ground. No cat might hurt low end a little.

 

[mitsumotors]

yeah, it an auto, and also... for all you cat converter nazi's out there, it wasn't my choice, the guy at the exhuast shop just did it, i told him to replace my exhuast from the manifold back and that i wanted a deep throaty sounding exhuast note and he just went ahead and removed the cat while he was doing it(not illegal here either). so i just left it because he's a freind of a freind and i didn't want to make a big deal about it.

 

[lawsoncl]

The ODO and the Speedo are intrinsicly linked. Don't care what anybody says. It all comes from the VSS, or the Speedo Cable.

Depends on the year. With a digital only speedo, they should agree exactly. With the older setup with the cable driving the speedo they can vary. In that setup, the odo is a gear driven counter and the speedo is basically a spinning magnet making the speedo needle move (not terribley accurate). They shold still be within 5% of each other.

As for the comments on the cat converter - There is some debate that manufacturing a cat converter creates worse pollution than the cat converter will remove in its lifetime. The pollution and environmental impact associated with strip mining six million tonnes of platinum ore each year in the manufacturing of catalytic converters is substantial. That's only one of the rare metals used in converters.

When the cat converter was introduced in the 70s it had a big benefit for carburated and less efficient vehicles. For newer, modern fuel injected vehicles the benefit of scrubbing the exhaust gases may not outweigh the pollution created in the production of the converter in the first place.

As a side note, more pollution is created during the manufacturing of a new vehicle than that vehicle will produce in the first 100k miles of its life. So if you want to reduce pollution, don't buy a new vehicle

 

[mitsumotors]

So if you want to reduce pollution, don't buy a new vehicle

nice:rof:

 

[TNT]

As for the comments on the cat converter - There is some debate that manufacturing a cat converter creates worse pollution than the cat converter will remove in its lifetime. The pollution and environmental impact associated with strip mining six million tonnes of platinum ore each year in the manufacturing of catalytic converters is substantial. That's only one of the rare metals used in converters.

When the cat converter was introduced in the 70s it had a big benefit for carburated and less efficient vehicles. For newer, modern fuel injected vehicles the benefit of scrubbing the exhaust gases may not outweigh the pollution created in the production of the converter in the first place.

As a side note, more pollution is created during the manufacturing of a new vehicle than that vehicle will produce in the first 100k miles of its life. So if you want to reduce pollution, don't buy a new vehicle

I'll agree that the goverment should do more to the reduce the gross polluting companys and the other major causes of pollution. But they get overlooked because they play the game of you help me and we'll let you slide.

 

[chris420]

I have 33" by 12.5 toyo AT's and 4.10 gears and get 17.5 mpg freeway. In the mountains fully loaded I get 15 mpg. I was wondering if I switched to a 33" by 10.5 BFG At's if it would result in better mpg.

 

[mitsumotors]

i would say absolutely yes you would.