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Pontiac Vibe real world gas mileage

Another update on our 2006 Pontiac Vibe real world gas mileage. We’re now over 24000km (damn, 24000km/8months = 3000km/month or 36000km/year and that’s pretty much just the Boss driving it back and forth to work.) and the gas mileage is getting better. Of course, it’s near the end of the summer now and the car doesn’t have to heat up, etc. Surprisingly, even with the air conditioner on it still gets about 7.4L/100km (or about 31.5mpg).

Oh yeah, in case you were reading my previous 2006 Pontiac Vibe gas mileage post, I goofed on my conversions from metric to US mpg. I was actually converting to imperial mpg. That’s what I get for not paying attention to the online tool I was using. I’ll be going back to that post to update the numbers so they make more sense since not many people in North America use imperial mpg as a measure.

Just for the record (and so I don’t have to go searching for them again) the conversions are as follows:

US mpg –> L/100km = 235.215/US mpg
Imp. mpg –> L/100km = 282.4809363/Imp. mpg

Anyways, the best gas mileage yet was 6.96L/100km (33.8mpg) just last week. It wasn’t super hot, low 20s Celcius, and the car was only really driven to and from work. Again, it’s pretty much highway driving according to what the car manufacturers use as the definition of highway driving. Average speed is just over 80km/h with a few sharp curves/turns and some slower driving through town.

The Pontiac Vibe just doesn’t do well on what I consider real world highway driving – about 110km/h with the cruise control set and straight, relatively flat roads. That’s my commute and I was getting much worse gas mileage than the Boss. Maybe I should give it another run here for a week and see what it does now that the weather is more pleasant than when I was driving the Pontiac Vibe back in February.

3 thoughts on “Pontiac Vibe real world gas mileage”

  1. Pingback: Ivany » Blog Archive » 2006 Pontiac Vibe Gas Mileage

  2. Hi, we have a 2006 vibe, 1.8 litre engine, automatic. We have checked the hiway milage on 3 occasions and we are getting 4.8 to 5.2 litres / 100km. This is at 100 km/hr on a reasonably level stretch on the 401 hiway in canada the driving conditions were good with little or no wind, and there were 2 adults with a combined weight of 300 lbs. i have done it in both directions with each trip being a little over 200 kms in distance. (between toronto and london)

  3. @Jim: Any chance you were following a lot of trucks? I’ve noticed an improvement in fuel economy when we are behind a large truck. Not close enough to be drafting or anything like that, just a reasonable distance behind (2-3 seconds). I’ve never seen anything around 5.0L/100km though. That’s pretty fantastic. Anything special you’ve done with your car? Different tires? Synthetic oil?

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