Bought a 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan with 30,000 miles. Previous rental, all services completed, in very good condition. My only gripe so far is the fuel economy. I'm 2/3 through my first full tank of fuel, and so far the onboard computer says that I'm averaging 13.8MPG. I reset the average when I filled up. This is mainly city driving, with only about 35 miles of highway use (70MPH). The rest is suburban city driving. That 13.8MPG is a far cry from the sticker estimate of 17MPG city.

The van runs very good. Based on oil on dipstick and inside of the filler cap, the motor is clean. No signs of sludge, fuel or coolant contamination. Air cleaner is brand new, and tires are aired up to 1PSI above factory recommendation. No diagnostic codes to indicate any sensor problems.

At this point, I don't know if it's just our driving style or if it's a mechanical concern. My wife and I are not heavy footed either. Up until this, I was excited with the purchase (as excited as a middle-aged man can get when buying a minivan), as I got a great deal on it with good financing and the Maximum Care ESP. But if I'm only going to average 13MPG, I may have to look to offload this for something else. We traded in our Ford Escape (non-hybrid) for this. I didn't expect the fuel economy to be as good as the Escape (22MPG same driving), but I was expecting to get something in the vicinity of the 17MPG that was advertised.

What do you guys think?

 

Sounds about right. If you only get 22mpg out of a Ford Focus, I thought the Focus have 26mpg local on sticker.
it is normal for your driving style to get 14mpg in a Minivan. Take into account where the Minivan is A LOT heavier, and an engine almost twice the size.

My Uncle has a 2011 Toyota Minivan, his Trip computer reports 14-ish MPG, mostly local driving.

 

Duh! I just caught that I said Ford Focus... I meant to say that we had a Ford Escape. Corrected my post.

Thanks for your input as well regarding my MPG's.

 

Still, a GC is at least twice as heavy and has a bigger engine. More weight = less MPGs. It's also part of the deal when you have all these new V6s making around 300 HP. My 2001 Durango has a 4.7L V8 and I only make 235hp at the engine.

 

Yes, I completely get that it's much bigger and heavier, plus has a bigger engine. That being the case, I still thought that I would get somewhere near the lower of the advertised MPG figures. I thought that the EPA revised their methodology to more accurately mirror real world driving. Maybe not so much after all.

 

No, they still test in conditions that are the least likely to occur. The EPA is nothing but a joke.

 

Ok, I looked at the EPA website for my previous 2009 Ford Escape. For my specific model, the EPA estimated 20MPG city / 23MPG combined / 28MPG highway. I averaged 22.

For my 2010 Dodge GC, it estimates 16 city / 18 combined / 23 highway. Using the same logic as my Ford Escape, I should be getting around 17+ MPG in the GC.

I'll wait and see what it averages out to over the next month or so. It could be that we're just doing more city driving right now than we usually do, and we're not even realizing it. I'll keep a close eye on MPG's, and hope to see an improvement.

 

I don't know the algorithm they are using to calculate MPG, but after a reset I've noticed that it seems to take into account the first few minutes as a baseline and then slowly change from there. It takes a while to get a really accurate reading after a reset.

 

Thanks. What I really need to do next tank is manually calculate my MPG's. Total miles driven on a tank of fuel divided by the number of gallons needed to fill it back up.

Or... If I really want to (blindly) feel good about the MPG's, I should drive down a hill with no throttle input and then reset the dash readout. It would probably show HUGE fuel economy. And if that is the "baseline", then it may stay high for a little while. LOL

 

On my 2011 we get from 18-24 mpg..18 city and 24 highway...