Ok, that's what I was thinking.......

 

Addes weight does lower your MPG. Your car is now putting out enough power to haul and extra xxxxxx amount of pounds. That will take more torque to get the car to move involving more fuel. The reason a 2000 pound honda civic gets such amazing gas mileage.

 

not only does it require more fuel to make the car start moving, it requires more to keep it moving.
Also, the last thing you want to do in any vehicle with a high Cd (coeffiecient of drag) is to add weight.
I am unsure of what the outlanders is, but as its an SUV, it has to be hovering at least in the 30's or worse. thats alot. and when you add weight to the fact that you are having to move alot of air, it hurts even worse. Not to mention that when you add weight, you worsen the Cd, becuase the back of the vechicle is now at a more dramatic angle, and thus, the air doesnt flow across it as it was designed to do, instead, the air flowing over the top begins to stumble and tuble earlier.
And, the more weight you add, the more compressed your tires become, Everyone knows that a more compressed, or "flatter" atire (flatter having nothing to do with the amount of air in the tire, rather the the distance from the top of the tire where it meets the rim, at the rims closest point to the ground,to the ground) becomes, the more rolling resistance you create. The more the rolling resistance, the more power is required to turn that wheel.
There is so much to this, i could go on for paragraphs about this subject alone, but instead let me sumerize this by saying, more weight destroyes each, and every aspect of your cars.

 

So adding 134lbs is really enough to drop your MGP average significantly? Maybe you'll loose about a mile to the tank but not a whole mile to the gallon. My statement remains true that the 134 lbs added to the 4WD models is not enough to make it less fuel efficient than the 2wd models when set to 2wd mode. I mean, come on we are talking less than the weight of an average person here. The only reason the 4wd cars are advertised as 1 mile less than the 2wd is because they list what the car will be doing when set in the less economical mode(4wd).

 

134 pounds is alot of weight. Thats 134 more pounds it has to move off the line every time you accelerate. Its 134 more pounds it has to keep moving at 60 mph. Every pound counts. That is the reason they advertise 4wheel drive models as 1 less mile per gallon.

 

yes and no... 134 lbs is not that much, but it is a normal woman in her 20s... basically, you added another person to your outlander.
No, you wont lose alot of milage, and what you do lose you wont notice cause you dont have a 2wd only vehicle. but check the milage numbers of the two, mitsu says that the 2wd gets 20, and 27. and the 4wd gets 19, and 26. it also say that the 2wd holds 16.6 gallongs of fuel, and the 4wd hold 15.8... those numbers dont sound like alot, but figure it this way, by those numbers the cruising range of the 2wd should be around 448 miles on the highway (yes I know those are never going to be acurate, going by what they say, but remember, we are still comparing apples to apples, cause we are going off of one set of numbers.)
whereas the 4wd should get around 408 on the highway.
thats 1.5 gallons at the least diffrence. Not to mention, real world, the actual is going to be alot more in favor of the 2wd model...
do I really have to go into details of why???
I can, but just dont want to

 

Wanted to chime in on some numbers I got over the weekend.

First off..2WD and under 1000 miles..I used the AC, all interstate miles..each average was over about 90 miles

70 MPH - 27.7 MPG
65 MPH - 28.8 MPG

My in-town mileage is ranging about 18-24, where my old car with the same city estimates got about 17-22. I'm atributing it to the extra gear and the smaller displacement (which should burn less at stoplights and when coasting)

I'm very pleased with these numbers especially since the engine isn't fully loosened.

 

Are those mileage based on the computer readouts or per tankful of gas?

 

I was going by readout, which seems to be pretty close.

When using the odo/gallons filled method,it came out to just under 27, but there was about 20-30 miles of city driving on the tank.

Something else I noticed...I brought along my handheld GPS and the speed it was showing between 71 and 72 on the calculated speed when the cruise/speedo was dead on 70. The error is tiny, but a little strange to show slower than actual.

I'd like to get a long continuous drive and compare the computer's figures..I also have a scangauge, which gets data from the OBDII port and calculates mileage

 

I'm bringing this post back from the dead.

After one year of ownership (purchased 11/25/06), I've added up my average MPG for the last ~13 months...yes I've kept track this whole time.

XLS - 4wd - loaded
Current mileage on truck: 9963
Mileage when purchased: 33
Average MPG: 17.92
Average price/gal: 2.959
Amount spent in gas: $1525.27