tips for better gas mileage with my manual transmission car?

desura

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2013
4,627
129
101
i have a 2008 chevy aveo.

filled up the tank tonight. on 9.8 gallons i travelled 243 miles.

under 25 mpg in a car that looks like this:

chevy-aveo-08-manu-01-1024.jpg


now, i do live in a fairly hilly area.

but generally i drive conservatively i think. i always switch to the higher gear around 3000 rpm. i am light on the pedal. i do engine brake but in my research the fuel intake is shut off during engine braking and so should not use up any fuel.

so how is it that such a tiny low-powered car gets such bad gas mileage?
 

Kelvrick

Lifer
Feb 14, 2001
18,422
5
81
What goes up must come down. Unless you're doing a trip one way up or down a large incline I don't think you'd see huge swings.

Going down isn't going to be efficient enough to cancel out how inefficient it is to go uphill. I would think the little engine in that aveo has to work pretty hard to go uphill, too. I think that is decent in a hilly area with city traffic.

Does it have an MPG display to help you on your quest, or is it a all a manual calculation on fillup? How many miles and what kind of maintenance have you done? How long have you had the car and has it always gotten that kind of mileage?

I usually move over to the slower lanes on uphills and sit behind a slower moving semi or other large car and then move back over to accelerate back to speed on the downhill. It takes a lot more planning to do it right without being a jackass and cutting people off and sometimes it just won't work out.
 
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tortillasoup

Golden Member
Jan 12, 2011
1,977
4
81
i have a 2008 chevy aveo.

filled up the tank tonight. on 9.8 gallons i travelled 243 miles.

under 25 mpg in a car that looks like this:

chevy-aveo-08-manu-01-1024.jpg


now, i do live in a fairly hilly area.

but generally i drive conservatively i think. i always switch to the higher gear around 3000 rpm. i am light on the pedal. i do engine brake but in my research the fuel intake is shut off during engine braking and so should not use up any fuel.

so how is it that such a tiny low-powered car gets such bad gas mileage?
Try 2000 rpm instead, 3000 is awfully high. You can shift even earlier if you accelerate gently. Go drive an automatic transmission car with a very light throttle input and watch how low of an RPM it shifts at, you'll be incredibly surprised to find that with a light throttle input on a 6-speed transmission, you'll see shifts in the low 1000 range. On my ES350, with a light throttle/cruising, the car @ 20mph is at 1000rpm. When cruising @ 45mph on level ground, light throttle, I'm in 6th gear with the torque converter locked up @ 1200rpm.

Don't worry about "lugging", if you hear the car make awful noises, then sure back off the throttle but otherwise it's a non issue. People who drive manual transmission vehicles don't seem to understand than an automatic version of that car would be shifting far far earlier with a much taller ratio (lower RPMs per given speed).
 

DougoMan

Senior member
May 23, 2009
813
0
71
Try 2000 rpm instead, 3000 is awfully high. You can shift even earlier if you accelerate gently. Go drive an automatic transmission car with a very light throttle input and watch how low of an RPM it shifts at, you'll be incredibly surprised to find that with a light throttle input on a 6-speed transmission, you'll see shifts in the low 1000 range. On my ES350, with a light throttle/cruising, the car @ 20mph is at 1000rpm. When cruising @ 45mph on level ground, light throttle, I'm in 6th gear with the torque converter locked up @ 1200rpm.

Don't worry about "lugging", if you hear the car make awful noises, then sure back off the throttle but otherwise it's a non issue. People who drive manual transmission vehicles don't seem to understand than an automatic version of that car would be shifting far far earlier with a much taller ratio (lower RPMs per given speed).

According to fuel economy.gov 25mpg is what you would expect in city driving.
 

tortillasoup

Golden Member
Jan 12, 2011
1,977
4
81
If you follow the recommended shift points... However the recommended shift points are usually performance shift points, not fuel economy shift points. You can easily shift earlier if you accelerate gently and or drive with a light load. 25mpg for a tiny car like that is atrocious, I get that with my ES350. With a 5spd civic I drove, on flat ground I could average 40mpg due to the early shifting into 5th gear by 30mph.
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
14,278
89
91
Its the hills.

I would just stay in the same gear you used to go up the hill in the first place.
 
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DougoMan

Senior member
May 23, 2009
813
0
71
If you follow the recommended shift points... However the recommended shift points are usually performance shift points, not fuel economy shift points. You can easily shift earlier if you accelerate gently and or drive with a light load. 25mpg for a tiny car like that is atrocious, I get that with my ES350. With a 5spd civic I drove, on flat ground I could average 40mpg due to the early shifting into 5th gear by 30mph.

Most civics are rated around 30 for city driving. This guys car is not.

From a review of this car: "Disappointing fuel economy"
 

kitatech

Senior member
Jan 7, 2013
484
3
81
Unfortunately the Aveo doesn't have DFCO, Deceleration Fuel Cut-Off....at least a quick Googling seems to indicate so...

So....try adding more air in your tires over the door jamb specifications, @ 10% increments, testing the tires for braking and wet road traction at each step to make sure you're not OVERinflating them....another test is looking at the road contact patch and if the dirt goes from shoulder to shoulder you should be "good to go."

As usual, all recommendations put forward on the internet should be taken at your own risk, knowing that no one offering said advice accepts any responsibility for the results you experience.
 
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thedarkwolf

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 1999
9,014
114
106
How many miles are you traveling at a time, lots of short trips? I live 3 miles from work and take my dogs to the dog park everyday again about 3 miles away. Driving like that will kill your mileage.
 

sontakke

Senior member
Aug 8, 2001
895
11
81
How many times do you have to accelerate from standing still? Every single time you have to press the accelerator, the mileage takes a nose dive. You should buy UltraGauge and set it to show you the instantaneous gas mileage. It will be quite an eye opener for you.
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
106
There is some good information and some misinformation here already. Hills, if used well, can actually improve your economy. Engines are most efficient when loaded, it's when you're cruising at low load that you have a poor thermal efficiency, because at low load your cylinder pressure is lower at part throttle and you're creating a lot of vacuum, both of which are wasteful. It's only when you add stop signs to hills that you have a recipe for poor economy.

My first recommendation is to get some instrumentation to monitor your gas mileage. An MPGuino will be most accurate for determining miles per gallon but is a little more difficult to install than just plugging it in, and it lacks the ability to read things like the temperature sensor, AFR and percent load as the computer has calculated it. Your other options are an Ultragauge or a Scangauge, which will plug directly into your OBD port.

Add a bit more air to your tires. Don't go over max sidewall (for safety reasons!) but if your tires say "42", put 40 in them, not 30 like it says on the door jam. Higher tire pressure generally improves wet weather handling (raises speed at which you hydroplane, for one) at the expense of a slight grip loss in dry weather, which I'll take any day of the week. Underinflated tires are a hazard in poor conditions and may rob you of a few MPG.

Saving fuel in a city environment is largely an art of slowing down efficiently. Sometimes it's good to DFCO (if your car supports it) and sometimes it's not. When you're accelerating up a hill it's generally good to keep the load higher and the RPMs lower (say, 2000-2500), but not load it so high that the car's computer begins to enrich the mixture. You're not going to know when this is by feel, but a safe rule of thumb is "50-75% of the pedal position at which you don't get any more power". If you're in a gear that is decelerating you even at WoT, you're in too high a gear. When you get to the top, if you see you're going to need to stop at the bottom, DFCO down the hill and take advantage of getting to the bottom with zero fuel used. If you won't need to stop, coast in neutral and take advantage of that potential energy you put into your car getting it to the top of the hill. Using the engine to brake down a hill is like riding your brakes, you're turning all of that good energy you burned in getting up the hill into heat and brake dust (or friction and vacuum inside the engine). If you need to get to the top of the hill going a little slower, so you're not speeding too much from coasting down, do so.

Try to pick routes that won't have you stopping a lot, even if they're just a little longer. You may find you'll burn less fuel taking those.

When on the highway, your only real tool for improving economy is by slowing down. I've found that in my car (before I did any modifications) I can get 37MPG at 65mph, 33MPG at 70, 30MPG at 75, and 28MPG at 80.

Other than that, know that when your car hasn't warmed up, it's going to deliver worse economy. Don't be surprised if you find trips of under 2-5 miles with a cold engine will net you less than 20MPG, regardless of what you as a driver do. I find it's better to take a bike if the weather is nice for short trips.

You can find some other fuel saving tips over at Ecomodder.com, they have a "Ecodrivers Ed" section for talking about things like this. The Aveo isn't actually all that great a car for saving fuel, but I can think of two members right now that are averaging about 35 and 40 (mixed driving) without using any weird techniques or doing anything dangerous like drafting.

Using these tips, the best I've seen is 51MPG city in a car rated for 23:

1jiZcNX.jpg
 
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Zenmervolt

Elite member
Oct 22, 2000
24,512
22
81
Try 2000 rpm instead, 3000 is awfully high. You can shift even earlier if you accelerate gently. Go drive an automatic transmission car with a very light throttle input and watch how low of an RPM it shifts at, you'll be incredibly surprised to find that with a light throttle input on a 6-speed transmission, you'll see shifts in the low 1000 range. On my ES350, with a light throttle/cruising, the car @ 20mph is at 1000rpm. When cruising @ 45mph on level ground, light throttle, I'm in 6th gear with the torque converter locked up @ 1200rpm.

Don't worry about "lugging", if you hear the car make awful noises, then sure back off the throttle but otherwise it's a non issue. People who drive manual transmission vehicles don't seem to understand than an automatic version of that car would be shifting far far earlier with a much taller ratio (lower RPMs per given speed).

Shifting at 2,000 RPM with the tiny engine in an Aveo? Bullshit.

Cruising on level ground is not the same as accelerating (I guarantee you that if you press the gas to accelerate at 20 mph the automatic doesn't keep it at 1,000 RPM), and it's damn sure not the same as driving up a hill.

Also, the ES350 has a 3.5 liter V6 with around 270 horsepower and 250 ft-lbs of torque. An Aveo has a tiny 1.6 liter engine with 107 horsepower and 106 ft-lbs of torque. Peak torque for the Aveo doesn't happen until 3,800 RPM. Shifting an Aveo at 2,000 RPM is just stupid.

ZV
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,142
5,089
136
That generation Aveo isn't known for sparkling fuel economy to begin with.

With conservative driving (easy on the gas and the Clarkson technique of braking aka - never brake) and a properly broken in engine you could probably expect mid to high 20s in mixed driving. Remember the car is rated fo 23\33 with the manual and the gear ratios in that car are horrid for that drivetrain.

However, you are driving a 6 year old Aveo.
GM allowed Daewoo to use the cheapest, crappiest parts available to satisfy the bean counter. I wouldn't be surprised if you have some sensors getting lazy or filters being clogged.

As for shift points, I think 2500rpm should be the normal shift point on that car. Combine that with easy on the gas and drive italian style. MAINTAIN MOMENTUM at all cost.
When it comes to hills, you need to find the lowest engine speed it takes to maintain your speed so it will vary by hill.

Unfortunately you drive a small crappy car known for crappy gas mileage, crappy reliability and poor quality control.
 
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tortillasoup

Golden Member
Jan 12, 2011
1,977
4
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Shifting at 2,000 RPM with the tiny engine in an Aveo? Bullshit.

Cruising on level ground is not the same as accelerating (I guarantee you that if you press the gas to accelerate at 20 mph the automatic doesn't keep it at 1,000 RPM), and it's damn sure not the same as driving up a hill.

Also, the ES350 has a 3.5 liter V6 with around 270 horsepower and 250 ft-lbs of torque. An Aveo has a tiny 1.6 liter engine with 107 horsepower and 106 ft-lbs of torque. Peak torque for the Aveo doesn't happen until 3,800 RPM. Shifting an Aveo at 2,000 RPM is just stupid.

ZV

The engine isn't tiny, it's 1.6L and it's modern. You seem to forget that they've made 1.0-2.0L engines since the 1960s that were put into actual cars and those engines were far less powerful than they are today. It's true cars have gained some weight but they have also gained some power and it's safe to say the power to weight ratios have improved considerably even from 15 years ago, let alone 40 years ago. Shifting early in an Aveo will improve fuel economy. As long as OP can accelerate smoothly without any racket and isn't flooring it (after about 85%+ throttle input, depending on make/model) so the car doesn't enter into Open loop which ignores O2 sensor output, he will be fine.

As for OP driving up hills, he will have to play around with the shift points and see what works for him so that the engine doesn't ping/knock/make horrible noises. I live in the SF Bay area so I'm familiar with hills and so I know what shift points work and don't work on the lower displacement cars. The only time I hit 3K RPM+ is when I'm purposefully wringing out the engine, not just to "drive normally" whether that be a 1.6L engine or a 5.7L engine.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
3,067
121
Get a hybrid so you can recuperate some of that energy used climbing hills.
If driving that to begin with probably isn't going to fork out the money for a hybrid, not to be rude, and they really aren't all they are cracked up to be.
 

tortillasoup

Golden Member
Jan 12, 2011
1,977
4
81
If driving that to begin with probably isn't going to fork out the money for a hybrid, not to be rude, and they really aren't all they are cracked up to be.

If OP bought a Prius for less than $10K, then actually he could recoup the difference between the Aveo and the Prius in fuel savings. Only reason to give suggestions on the Aveo is because OP wants to drive a stick shift car and inertia.
 

tweakmonkey

Senior member
Mar 11, 2013
728
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tweak3d.net
Search google for "hypermiling".

Driving slower usually helps. Also avoid the brakes unless you have to (such as coming to a complete stop). A lot of people will floor it toward a red light then slam on the brakes, for example, when coasting to it would save a lot of fuel.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
3,067
121
If OP bought a Prius for less than $10K, then actually he could recoup the difference between the Aveo and the Prius in fuel savings. Only reason to give suggestions on the Aveo is because OP wants to drive a stick shift car and inertia.
I wasn't aware you could even buy a Prius for less than anywhere near 10K, and if you can seems the battery would be pretty old.

http://www.toyota.com/prius/
 

MixMasterTang

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2001
3,167
176
106
The engine isn't tiny, it's 1.6L and it's modern. You seem to forget that they've made 1.0-2.0L engines since the 1960s that were put into actual cars and those engines were far less powerful than they are today. It's true cars have gained some weight but they have also gained some power and it's safe to say the power to weight ratios have improved considerably even from 15 years ago, let alone 40 years ago. Shifting early in an Aveo will improve fuel economy. As long as OP can accelerate smoothly without any racket and isn't flooring it (after about 85%+ throttle input, depending on make/model) so the car doesn't enter into Open loop which ignores O2 sensor output, he will be fine.

As for OP driving up hills, he will have to play around with the shift points and see what works for him so that the engine doesn't ping/knock/make horrible noises. I live in the SF Bay area so I'm familiar with hills and so I know what shift points work and don't work on the lower displacement cars. The only time I hit 3K RPM+ is when I'm purposefully wringing out the engine, not just to "drive normally" whether that be a 1.6L engine or a 5.7L engine.

I doubt he could make it up a hill at 1000-1500 in the Aveo. My Cruze with the 1.4L turbo makes next to no power under 2000rpm, at the 1000-1500rpm acceleration is pretty much non-existent unless I'm going downhill.
 

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
223
106
Try 2000 rpm instead, 3000 is awfully high. You can shift even earlier if you accelerate gently. Go drive an automatic transmission car with a very light throttle input and watch how low of an RPM it shifts at, you'll be incredibly surprised to find that with a light throttle input on a 6-speed transmission, you'll see shifts in the low 1000 range. On my ES350, with a light throttle/cruising, the car @ 20mph is at 1000rpm. When cruising @ 45mph on level ground, light throttle, I'm in 6th gear with the torque converter locked up @ 1200rpm.

Don't worry about "lugging", if you hear the car make awful noises, then sure back off the throttle but otherwise it's a non issue. People who drive manual transmission vehicles don't seem to understand than an automatic version of that car would be shifting far far earlier with a much taller ratio (lower RPMs per given speed).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that your ES350's torque numbers may vary slightly from a Chevrolet Aveo. :)