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07 hch cross country drive report

Created August 18, 2007, at 11:31 pm by jamestkirk

Hi All,
I leased an 07 HCH on Memorial Day (actually was going to buy a Prius, but the arrogance and insolence of my Toyota dealership made me leave). I live in San Diego where the weather is pleasant, but on the warm side. I decided not to overinflate the tires until cooler weather this fall. I typically drive my car to Tacoma, WA every summer for vacation and was excited to see what the HCH would do (compared to my 03 Saturn Ion 2 that averaged 38 mpg freeway at 75+ mph).
I spent June and July driving my work commute with the car and was dissapointed to see 41 mpg as my average. I gave up trying to drive "hybrid" and to just use cruise as much as possible and started getting 43 mpg - no where near the rated 49/51 that was on the sticker.
For the actual long distance drive, I left San Diego with a full tank and stopped near Disneyland for the best mexican food in SoCal (Los Sanchez in Garden Grove). It was 112 miles and I averaged 50.1 for that segment. Then I travelled thru LA on the 405 in hot weather and construction speeds. My average went down to 38 within 30 miles. Then I travelled north and once over the Grapevine, I was averaging 49 mpg at 77 mph, very nice (lots of downhill in case you aren't familiar with SoCal).
Long story short, while driving in California with 70 mph speed limits and 100 degree temps, I was lucky to keep an overall mpg average of 43 using cruise. In Washington and Oregon (using a lot of country rounds) using lower speed limits and lower temperatures, I could average 49.2 mpg per tank. Never got above 50. I did some drafting behind big rigs for short periods of time and saw higher mpg's, but suffered some minor rock damage to the front end.
Overall I'm happy with the car and it's performance; but I had to really baby it to get anywhere near the mpg advertised on the sticker. My Saturn cruised at 77 mph+ and got 38+ mpg on the freeway, and the HCH got about 43 mph in the same condition.s Less emissions I'm sure, but the sticker needs to change.

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thompson
Member

4 years ago

See fueleconomy.gov. New rating for 2007 HCH is now 40/45 MPG city/highway. Sticker still says 49/51 MPG, but new 2008 HCH's should read 40/45 MPG. Still, 43MPG is pretty darn good for speeds travelled, and conditions of travel.

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jamestkirk
Junior Member

4 years ago

thanks, I knew that after I purchased the vehicle and did research - but was still dissapointed. I would still recommend buying the car howerver...

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