We’ve been tracking the gas consumption on our 2006 Pontiac Vibe since we bought it over 3 years ago. It’s now a habit for both of us to write the distance traveled on each gas receipt we get. The only problem is I seem to forget to collect all those receipts on a timely basis so they pile up in the console of the Vibe until we run out of space.
I finally got around to spending some time with all of the gas receipts we’ve been collecting for the last year or so. I’ve pulled it all together into a Google Doc which is magically translated into the interactive chart you should see below. Enjoy!
How will this help anyone?
The chart gets magically updated any time I get around to adding more data into the associated Google Docs spreadsheet. This will allow you to see real world gas mileage numbers for a 2006 Pontiac Vibe. To be able to make any sense out of what you’re seeing, you’ll need to know some basic information:
- The car is a normal 1.8L automatic transmission Vibe.
- It has air conditioning and cruise control, both of which are used relatively often (we don’t avoid using either for any reason).
- The car is typically driven over 100km/day on secondary highways where the average speed is a pretty constant 90km/h.
- The car averages roughly 80% highway and 20% city driving, based on the definition of “highway” driving.
- We put winter tires on the car. Usually we try to go as late as we can before putting them on (late November or early December most years) and I’ll take them off as soon as the night time temperature stay above freezing.
Is this gas mileage typical for the Pontiac Vibe?
That’s sort of a tough question. Based on the fueleconomy.gov website, the 2006 Pontiac Vibe gets 9.4L/100km city and 7.6L/100km highway (revised numbers). We’re averaging closer to the combined number of 8.7L/100km for the year.
If I can figure out how, I’ll get this page to live update the high/low gas mileage as well as the running average for some arbitrary period of time.
Perfect! THANK YOU!
I’m glad to see that your real world numbers are close to what I’m getting I’ve been reading about the Vibe’s fuel economy and some people are reporting in the sub 7L/100Km. I have a 2009, 1.8L 4-sp automatic. Over the 5000 Km I’ve driven so far my average is 8.04 L/100 Km (75% city). On the one occasion I did a trip of only highway driving (~1500 km) on the 400 series highways with the cruise set to ~110 I only obtained 7.4 L/100 Km, which I didn’t consider close to the published 6.2 L/100 Km. I’m a conservative accelerator, so I had expected my highway mileage to be closer to the reported value.
Thanks for posting your mileage!
I’ve already posted this but for the record I got 42.6 and 42.7 MPG (CDN) or 6.6 L/100K in summer time this year on mostly highway driven trips. This is a 2006 with a 1.8 L base Manual transmision.
A couple months later now with new winter tires (Nordic) and a colder climate I get 34-35 MPG (around 8.2 L/100km)