People are starting to lie about MPG.

I spent more time on Friday evening and Saturday morning reading those Explorer forum posts. Just back and have had a chance to think about that wild Explorer with "impossible" fuel economy.

An Explorer poster "Cucumber1949" had a very intelligent post about how the fuel economy is calculated. That is, gas station pumps all have slightly different cut-off points, depending on vehicle angle and time of day.

This poster uses a Scangauge to verify his fuel economy, he tries to get 22 and had a good run at 25 MPG. He also stated "It looks as though Al is getting 30 MPG or close to it overall based on his calculations and calculation methods."

This appears to be the only Explorer in the world that gets a claimed 30-34 MPG. Very interesting how no other Explorer forum member even came close.

I've had a lot of experience with synthetic fluids and have found that, usually, they make a barely noticed difference in fuel economy. For example, the 2000 GMC Sierra I used to have.

A week old the rear pinion seal went, so the dealer had to replace it. When I later serviced the rear end, I noticed a LOT of flakes and fuzz on the magnet, so I did a couple of short runs (1 week or so) with cheap NAPA 80W-90 in lieu of the synthetic 75W-90 the rear end called for.

No difference in fuel economy.

The next service at 2,000 km after I had towed a bit, I drained and refilled ALL the fluids: power steering fluid, front differential, transmission, transfer, and rear end. Mobil 1 Gear Oil 75W-90 in the differentials, GM "Low Temp" partial synthetic power steering fluid, Mobil 1 ATF, and the Gm GoodWrench AutoTrak II fluid in the transfer case.

My difference in fuel economy? About as close to 0% as I could tell. When I serviced the rear end again at 16,000km, I put in Mobil 1 75W-140 and there was no difference in fuel economy.

Much like with my Prius, when I changed the oil myself for the first time at 16,000km I put in Mobil 1 0W-30 instead of the dealer 5W-30. My Prius is getting almost exactly the same fuel economy as before.

I wouldn't be so negative about this magic Explorer if the results had been repeatable. And trust me on this, the first Prius owner who claims a regular 69 MPG I'll nitpik too.

BTW: thanks to recent construction and resurfacing I've had to take a MUCH more inefficient route to work. Staying at a constant 70 km/h on Bishop Grandin Expressway I could routinely expect 4.2 l/100km summer, with the detours I was lucky to get 5.8 l/100km.

That's going from 67 MPG to 48 MPG. All those red lights and speeds of 50-60 km/h.

 

:lol: