Green E-300 DT

No need for smart remarks about your third grade math. We all use calculators and with Fuelly, we don't even do that

Wondering why you stopped entering your fill-ups on Fuelly. The last one was way back in January.

What about this short run of only 125 miles where you used 3.2 gallons and got 39 mpg?

#29 1/17/12 for 125 miles, 3.20 gallons, 39.0 mpg

You call that a long run?
Funny, the one after that posted on that same date where your mileage fell.
Both the one before and the one after were a great deal less! See what I am saying?

Anyone can fill a tank and go a very short distance and return and fill it again and show high mpg, but to run
over several days and 600 or 700 miles or more and record high mpg, that is an entirely different story.
I am suspicious of any high miles-per-gallon readings where both the tank before and the tank after show lower miles-per-gallon.
To me, that means the high reading was not done on a completely full tank and therefore not accurate.

Oh well, whatever you believe. It is, after all, your car and if it makes you happy, that is what counts.



Derrel

listerone

OK,cool...whatever.Have a nice life!

Green E-300 DT

Notice in your signature line, you once had a BMW 335d.

Wondering why you traded it off for the E-Klass?



Derrel

Arrie

Had a about 1400 mile trip last week. Almost all interstate at 78 mph. Got about 24 mpg in average and this is by miles driven divided by gallons pumped. Someone claiming 28+ mpg with an E550 is blowing smoke or driving 65 mph.

Live Oak

WRONG!

Green E-300 DT

Sounds 'spot on' to me, but what do I know?

It takes a certain amount of gas to feed a 5.5L motor is a heavy car, and
according to the EPA estimates, 24 mpg is good fuel mileage indeed.

Even at 65 mph, I seriously doubt anyone will get 28 + mpg unless and even with a strong tail wind going downhill.



Derrel

34.50

No, I believe an e550 will get 28 mpg on the highway easily. I've gotten 24.1 mpg before on my CLS 63 (6.2 NA engine) driving at 65-70mph on New York Thruway (I-90), so it's not unreasonable at all. I cycled the AC on/off during the trip.

ttoE550

There are lots of factors that influence mpg. To treat EPA figures or Fuelly averages as maximums seems mind-boggling to me.

Why would achieving 29 mpg seem so fantastic? It's about 17% above the EPA figure of 23 mpg (oops, math error, see below). this Edmund article suggests that one's driving style can influence mpg by 30 % or more

http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/...s-part-ii.html

I read elsewhere that lower rolling resistance tires can influence mpg by 6%. Presumably the road surface, ambient temperature, tire inflation, amount of traffic, type of traffic, wind direction, wind speed, humidity, topography, etc, etc. are all factors. From personal experience (and from watching Mythbusters) I know that drafting can increase mpg from 25 to 40%.

The EPA number is just a number. All the factors that determine mpg mean that actual mpgs will form a distribution. Some will be high; some will be low. 29 mpg sounds quite plausible to me even for a 550.

I do not get such high gas mileage. I drive in the "aggressive" manner discussed in the article ( I prefer "assertive", thank you). My mpg numbers fall in the other end of the distribution. But I would have gotten a different car if that was a real concern for me!

Edit: I forgot to complete my thought. Despite my assertive driving style (lots of acceleration, some WOT, hard braking) my computer shows 27+ mpg. Even allowing that it is several mpg off...

Edit x2: hee hee bad math. The difference between 29 and 23 is more like 24%. I still think 29 is reasonable given all the factors that affect mpg.

Green E-300 DT

Of course, the EPA figures are not maximum, but for anyone to post figures that
are so much higher than those posted by the EPA seems to me unbelieveable.

This all started with a person stating that they got over 29 MPG on a long trip of 3000 miles.

While it may be possible to get that kind of mileage over a short trip of a few miles done in
one day or less which I doubt, it is not possible over many days and that many miles.
To many cold starts, stops and starts, etc.

As far a tires are concerned, the E-550 factory tires are not LRR tires, and are 17 inch wheels
which are heavier, and the tread width is wider, all of which will decrease fuel economy.

It is also hard for me to believe that the 5.5L V8 will or can get better fuel economy than the 3.5 V6 in the same body.



Derrel

Green E-300 DT

Was that actual tank mileage or was that the readout shown to you by your onboard computer?

The onboard computer does not give a true reading.



Derrel

thekurgan

I don't see the point if you're not going to believe what's presented here by anyone unless it's yourself. And what's with the smiley faces anyway???

Live Oak

He hides behind smiley faces as he calls people liars and idiots.

jvc300

Just for comparison I just completed a 4000 mile trip with my 2011 E350. My average MPG was 28.8. That was measured the old fashioned way. Based on fill-ups using mileage and # of Gallons.
The trip computer showed any where from 550-680 per tank and I pushed to reach 680 and that was a very disciplined maneuver. That turned out to be 645 miles from one tank. "Radio Off, 65 mph, etc...." Zzzzzzz. The wife didn't appreciate the experiment..... lol

An E550 can get the same mileage as my E-350 seems like a stretch to me...

I attached a pic of the computer giving a 681 mile range....

34.50

That was from the onboard computer...As ttoE550 said, there are too many factors in determining MPG. I usually get on the lower end of the MPG scale, since 99% of my driving is in the city, but I try to drive more conservatively on the highway. In any case, it's not miles per gallon, rather smiles per gallon. You don't get a v8 and complain about gas mileage. You get it to have fun!

Green E-300 DT

That is excellent fuel economy for an E-350 gasser, and entirely believeable for sure.

As a matter of fact, with the E-350 gassers and the Bluetec diesels getting fuel economy so close to each other, why would
anyone buy the diesels? The newer Bluetec diesels do not do that much better than the diesels, unlike the older CDIs.

Likewise, my wife does not like my driving for fuel economy, but she dislikes speeding tickets even more!



Derrel

Green E-300 DT

I am not hiding behind anything and do not recall calling anyone
a liar or an idiot, but IF the shoe fits, by all means wear it!

Plainly stating that some people state milage figures that according to the laws of physics are simplty impossible.

You can believe whatever you like; That's entirely up to you.



Derrel

Green E-300 DT

Maybe you haven't been reading my comments or noticed, but I always begin each one of them with a .

Why are you sore? I do believe your mileage postings. Presented just as I do mine with full Fuelly entries.
What's not to believe or agree with?
If you want to believe that someone with a 5.5 liter gas V8 gets such fantasticly high fuel economy, that is up to you.

Having had eleven Mercedes Benz diesels beginning with my first, a 1961 190 D/b, I do know diesels.
Also, six other diesels from different makes including a Dodge Cummins.



Derrel

jvc300

I was looking at the diesels and I can not find a reason to get one. I agree with you that there is no real advantage. Unless you want to run bio-diesel.

thekurgan

I prefer not to question someone, for any reason, when it comes to these boards, and especially something so petty as 2-3 mpg.

People can say what they want, it makes no matter to me. Nobody buys a Mercedes Benz for fuel economy, that's just crazy.

I personally leased the turbo diesel because of it's power and the style of driving I do, it has a perk of great fuel economy for a heavy vehicle, but not the reason it was examined.

I think the issue some have is you're like the guy who enters a conversation uninvited, becomes annoyingly defensive about his point, to the point of driving everyone nuts.

Men that do this in a bar usually get punched in the face, then they are unable to make smiley .... I'm kidding ..... of course, but you get the idea.

Don't be one of "those" guys. You made your point more than once, leave it at that, walk away.

- fin

thekurgan

The diesel is about power in the form of torque, of which, the gas vehicle needs to be "on the cam" to produce whereas the diesel has as much or more than the V8.

jvc300

That is good info and I haven't thought of it that way. For my style of driving the gas vehicle suits me well.

Arrie

Take a picture of the dash showing the fuel consumption display and post it here. For a true 29 gpm fuel consumption it should read 31 - 32 mpg.

Green E-300 DT

Cannot run biodiesel in any of the 2007 and later diesels because that will plug up the DPF.
You don't want to do that 'cause I hear they are rather expensive to replace.

Someone said $5K. Don't know whether or not that is correct?

That's one of the reason I sold my Jetta TDI. Didn't want to have to worry
about the HPFP going out and later on, the DPF needing replacement.



Derrel

ImInPA

Gallons per mile? lol. I think we are talking Yachts. :-)

Green E-300 DT

Would not agree with you there on that point.

I have bought every one of the seventeen diesels I have owned since 1966 because of their fuel economy.

Not that fuel economy was the only reason, but it was then the primary reason in the beginning.
That '62 Olds 88 with its ten (10) miles per gallon on premimum was eating me alive.
The '61 MBZ 190 D/b that replaced it got 28-32 mpg, but I did not really care what it got
'cause my fuel was costing me less than 16 cents per gallon delivered to my home.

Those were the days.



Derrel