Winter = Poor FE. How do you combat the drop?
There is a lot of great information on this forum on how to achieve the best FE possible. I'd like to start a thread here that deals with cold weather/winter FE techniques specific to the FEH.

Please provide the following:
1. Year of FEH
2. FWD or AWD
3. Winter MPG
4. What techniques you found work best.

I will then list them all in this first post for easier reading.
Sound like a good idea?

 

I will post but there are many variables involved:
2005 AWD Escape
Winter MPG can range from mid 20's to around 35 mpg's depending upon how far I drive from a cold stop, how fast I travel, fuel, traffic and weather conditions. Snow and rain can induce my AWD system to kick in thus dropping my mileage. I also utilize Goodyear Triple Tread Tires (@42 psi) December thru sometime in March for traction purposes. These tires will also deflate rolling resistance and impact fuel mileage. This is a trade off I am ok with because I value my ability to travel safely in real winter condition over a loss of a few mpg. I do and have driven in below zero temperatures. On the same day I can obtain different mileage readings. An example would be driving to a ski area from "warm start-use of engine block heater". After five/six hours of skiing and the vehicle sitting out in the cold, one will experience a change in fuel efficiency until the vehilce is "warmed up". A general statement of losing 3-6 mpg on the highway during the winter months could fit.
I do use an engine block heater, FIA winter grille guards for the upper grille opening and I currently have 12 inches of the lower grille opening blocked with a heavy weight and laminated sheet. I use zip ties to hold this sheet in place. One has to initially drive slowly.

 

2007 FEH FWD

In my experience, there is approximately 1 MPG change in fuel economy for every 10 degrees change in the temperature. This relationship can be clearly seen in the graphs of high mileage vehicles on the database. For example, take a look at Blue Leader's mileage graph on the FEH FWD database.

 

2008 AWD
Typical winter MPG is 25 from summer value of 31. No special techiniques used ever.

By comparison, my 2003 Saturn Ion gets 27 MPG in the winter and 31 MPG in the summer.

 

All I know with my new 08 (had since may) - this current tank is going to be my worst non-highway tank. I might not even get 500 miles on the tank. It has been very cold 30s in Vegas the last week. My inital estimates are the 300 miles driven so far on the tank have used about 10 gallons of fuel (30 mpg) - from what would normally (in the summer) be only 7 gallons (39-41 mpg).

 

Now that you've said that, you have me wondering. If you were moving from state to state (let's say Florida to Michigan). Would it be better to reset the computer once you got there or let the computer adjust the fuel maps/trim on it's own? I know it would eventually adjust on it's own but would a reset be faster/more efficient?

Robert, do you guys have E10 gas there in NV?

 

One can reset the "computer" ie engine control module to default by disconnecting the negative terminal from the 12V battery and waiting 10 minutes or so before reconnecting.

 

According to: http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/new-fuel...heet060117.pdf we use it in the winter. Whenever that is.

It can't make that much of a difference can it?

 

In my opinion, YES!

The last time I got a tank of 100% gasoline, I achieved 38MPG over 300 highway miles. I followed that with a tank of E10 and got 30MPG over 405 highway miles. All this was over a three day period with similar temps, road conditions and in the heat of June.

There's a gas station that's advertising 100% gasoline near where I'll be over the holidays. I hope to get some of it and see what happens. I also wish I had a way to do a side by side comparison of their gas and another station's E10.

 

Interesting comment about the difficulty in finding "100% gasoline". I was a bit surprised and my initial reaction was "What's he talking about? LOTS of stations have 100% gasoline."

So this prompted a little digging because, here in Michigan, if a station sells gas/ethanol blend, there's a sticker on the pump that says something like "Contains 10% Ethanol", right? Wrong! <sigh>

http://www.fuel-testers.com/state_gu...anol_laws.html

Turns out, back in 2007, Michigan apparently passed an update to the gasoline labeling laws... stations no longer have to tell us if the gas has ethanol in it as long as it doesn't exceed 10%. Here I thought I was running with 100% gasoline... apparently not.