SteveRX330

I just purchased a 2005 RX330 and have amassed a "big" 500 miles. Obviously, I'm still getting comfortable with the car and perhaps the car needs a break-in period. Two questions have come up. First, the gas mileage appears much worse than I expected. We did a fair amount of highway driving this weekend at speeds varying between 55 and 70, but I couldn't get the mileage above 20.4 mpg. I was also very careful to avoid hard acceleration. I just increased the tire pressure from 32 to 34 psi hoping to make a difference. Is this gas mileage typical of the RX330?

The second observation is that after refueling the Trip Info indicates a range of 283 miles. If you divide 283 by 19.6 gallons you get about 14.4 mpg. Does anyone know how the range is calculated and if this phenomenon is typical?

Steve

lexuslover

20.4 is not bad. on super long higway trips, you might get up to 24, but that is very brief and it drops drastically once you start going local.

as for the trip meter, the range is calculated conservatively. the fuel light will be on before you reach zero, but usually you have a few gallons AFTER zero (about 2-3 gal) before it's really empty. you will know this after you've pumped a few times. if you filled gas right when the light comes on, you will get somewhere between high 14 to low 15 gallons in there.

i have 42,000 miles on the RX now. our average is about 19-20mpg with 60 % highway. traffic congestion will kill your mpg. i leave the office after peak traffic, and my mileage has improved a lot.

i've also kept recommended psi on the tires since i bought it in march 03, and so far the oem michelins are holding up nicely and have quite a lot of tread left.

congrats on the RX - i am sure it will serve you well for many many years!

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

There is about a 2 MPG difference between the AWD and FWD RX's that I know of. That said, my FWD 04 gets about 21-22 MPG on average with about 65% or so highway driving. When I fill up my computer estimated miles resets to about 385-390 miles. I usually let it drop to about 30 miles to go and my actual odometer miles at that time is about 340 miles. This was before I put 20" rims on, Now even with the 20" rims I'm still getting better MPG than you report. Letting the car break in will help a bit, but even when my car was new I was getting over 20 MPG. So far I have never gotten below that and we now have 40Kmiles sinve we bought it in April 2003.

ultra63

After 2000 miles we are finally getting 24 mpg. Before it was 21 mpg. highway/street 60/40

Lextranny

I'm getting 22 mpg combination city/freeway. Using Chevron Techron Plus Unleaded.

SteveRX330

Ultra63: How would you characterize your driving while achieving 24 mpg? City? Highway? Combination, and if so what percentage city and highway? Thanks.

Lextranny: Would you take a guess as to what percentage city and highway? Thanks.

Thank you both for your feedback. Based on your experiences I'm clearly off the mark. One final question: Did your mileage start off low and slowly build as you accumulated more mileage? Or has your experience been fairly constant since purchase?

Steve

Lextranny

I would say 60% freeway 40% city. When I first got the car it started at around 20 mpg. Now, is gotten lot better. I did notice though when I pumped regular unleaded my mpg went down to like 19-20 mpg. So, I'm sticking with Unleaded Plus. But, with this oil prices going up I don't know (today record high $68 barrel!!!!) Yikes! ....I might sell my Rx330 and get a hybrid.

Lextranny

I forgot to also mention that the overall distance trip range (total miles) is not accurate unless you filled up your tank when your fuel gage shows a little less than 1/4 tank to 1/2 tank full. The most I've seen it is 347 miles. For instance, if your fuel gage shows a little less than Full and you go and pump gas your overall distance range doesn't change as previous. Looks like the computer doesn't recalculate it. That's my observation.

thwang99

Getting 27.7 MPG so far on this take (4th or 5th tank) after 80 miles, 50/50 highway/city driving, a lot of stop and go highway driving, which really helps mileage for some reason!

RXGOLD

27.7 mpg??? Hard to believe...you must be driving downhill.

thwang99

Yeah, i'm on a goal to maximize mileage. I've reduced weight by like 150 or so pounds, and reduced drag by removing roof rack. Other things I'm going to do or considering:

reduce drag around the spare tire well by making something to make it smooth, right now there's a big "empty space" there (removed spare tire)

remove side mirrors, adding LCD monitors/CCD cameras

waiting to see what CS Energy might offer (http://www.energycs.com/)

- Tony

SteveRX330

Thanks to everyone for responding. I will continue to monitor my fuel consumption and report back in a couple of months.

Also, on first fuel fill-up the comupter reported a driving range of 283 miles; on my second fill-up it reported 295. Both far below what it should be. This isn't critical to the car's performance, but I will continue to monitor and discuss with my Tech at first maintenance.

Steve

spwolf

he has 400h :-).

man8959

stveerx330, i have the same problem as you do. i have 05' FWD rx330, about 600 miles on it so far. ever since i bought this car the most mileage i got on this vehicle is 16mpg. average is about 15mpg on city driving. this really bother me now because i thought gas consumption on this car is btw 19-24mpg. if it's not getting any better i think i'm gonna bring it back to the dealer for them to check it out. let me know if the dealer say something about it if yall bring it in.

SteveRX330

I'm planning a long trip in September which should provide a good metric for highway gas mileage. I plan to calculate the mileage manually and with the onboard computer just to validate that all systems are operating correctly, including the driver! I will report back around the third week in September.

Steve