Guess my MPG for the trip?

john.jackson9213

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I am planning my cross country trip to this year's TDIFest. My first stop will be the Detroit area to have my GTC1549 turbo installed by Matt Whitberead. To arrive at the appointed time I am going to have to drive about 2400 miles in just over 2.5 days. So that means an average speed of about 75 mph.
Google says the shortest route is thru Las Vegas, Denver and on to I-80 south of Chicago. The alternate route is I-40 thru Albuquerque and Oklahoma City before going north to Chicago and Detroit.

Thought it might be fun to speculate what MPG will be for this portion of the trip. Plan is to keep the cruise control set at about 75. Stay in 6th gear as much as possible. Do a full vented fill maybe 2 times during the 2400 miles. Yes, I could try it with just one fill, but I need to get to Detroit on Monday morning. Besides, I will have to pit stop a few times myself.

So what is your guesstimate?
 

annieneff

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The only hills or mountains are going to be in Colorado, and at the beginning on the way to Vegas. Unless you have a headwind you should be able to get upper 40's. Weight does matter though; are you packing light? Also, are you going to sleep?! I did 1800 miles about a year ago from Texas to Seattle, and sleep was a major issue. Didn't affect mileage at all, but my sanity was involved.

Finally; will you have anything on the roof? I will change my estimate below based on this answer.

47.875

Andrew
 

john.jackson9213

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Nothing on the roof. 2 or 3 suitcases (Anita is flying, but I have to drag the luggage for a 3 week trip). 1 tool bag, one ice chest a case of bottled water.. Turbo, down pipe, injectors and that should be it. Maybe at tent?

Think the route I take will affect the mpg.

Not really liking the idea of driving from Grand Junction to Denver at night the first day. Google says it is 844 miles and 12 hours. Denver is 1085 miles and 16 hours from home. But if i leave at 4 a.m. that would put me in Denver at 10:p.m. Not too bad.

If I go south on I-40 Albuquerque is 768 miles and just over 11 hours, then Amarillo is about 1040 miles and 15 hours or about 9 Pacific time. And likely the easier drive at night.

The second tank of fuel should be the better tank for mpg. But don't think I have a shot at 50 mpg, just need to keep the speed up.
 

annieneff

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Baseline mpg's would help too. What do you get in and around Top Gun Land?

Even at 75 you're going to get good mileage east of the cascades, and then after the Rockies. If you're looking to get decent fuel economy, tackle the California to Nevada part on 1/2 a tank of fuel, then fill up all the way.

Jealous you're making the trek. My sister lives in Portland Maine. I really should go too, if nothing else than just a good excuse to see her. Also, I owe Mark/Abacus there at least a case of beer for all the spot on diagnosis over the years. It would be nice to finally meet him! Next time ;)

Andrew
 

Steve Addy

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hmmm....let's see, he has the vaunted six speed conversion with the .59 6th gear.

What speed do you plan to maintain on the road? If you take the I-80 route you'd get the flats of Nebraska and Iowa to cruise and you'd be passing right through my back yard. Do you stop often or like to stay on the road?

If you plan on doing 75 I'd guess 49mpg but I might be overly optimistic.

Steve
 

john.jackson9213

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Miramar, Ca. (Think Top Gun)
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hmmm....let's see, he has the vaunted six speed conversion with the .59 6th gear.

What speed do you plan to maintain on the road? If you take the I-80 route you'd get the flats of Nebraska and Iowa to cruise and you'd be passing right through my back yard. Do you stop often or like to stay on the road?

If you plan on doing 75 I'd guess 49mpg but I might be overly optimistic.

Steve

Steve, Plan to leave Friday and be in Detroit area Monday morning. 2400 miles and only me in the car. Target speed is 75. Should not be a problem from San Diego to Grand Junction. After that, it may be a problem to Denver. Nebraska and Iowa - what are the normal interstate speeds? And what about the Highway Patrol?
 

Steve Addy

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Iowa
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Steve, Plan to leave Friday and be in Detroit area Monday morning. 2400 miles and only me in the car. Target speed is 75. Should not be a problem from San Diego to Grand Junction. After that, it may be a problem to Denver. Nebraska and Iowa - what are the normal interstate speeds? And what about the Highway Patrol?
Download the Waze app, you should be ok I would think. I think Nebraska is 75, Iowa is 70. Don't remember but I think I-80 through IL is 70 too.

Highway patrol in Iowa is spotty, you can probably do 75 and be fine, but I've noticed a recent crackdown but that might be in Des Moines proper only, don't know. What I do know is that I travel a long road construction site every day on the return trip and have yet to see a patrol car in that zone. I have seen a few outbound in the morning but never one at night...and you can tell, people drive 65-70 through a 55 mph construction zone like it was nothing. Eastbound construction is minor and all of two miles, the west bound construction is about 17 miles or more of 55 mph.

All I know is that the speeding fines went up after the great recession due to budget shortfalls and fines in construction zones are double in Iowa....so I don't.

You can review all states that you'll be traveling through here.

And I saw D2 here in Des Moines for $2.40 today!!!!

Steve
 
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john.jackson9213

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Good information. Looks like 70/75 speed limits for the whole route. In San Diego, the speed limit is 65 for most of the freeways. But the traffic moves at 70-75 when it is not rush hour. So 75 looks reasonable for most of the trip. That puts me at 2000 rpm.
 

Skeej760

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Left Coast USA
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1996 Wolfsburg Passat TDI B4 1Zwagon
Travel safe John.

A tip- that long uphill haul out of LA to Vegas was a nightmare last time I drove it a couple months ago headed to No Dak - lots of construction and it was a parking lot.

Remember the northern states do all their road work in the summer, cuz you cant for 9 months in the winter...:)
so get ready for long stretches of single lanes, cones, minor delays in WYO, MT and the Dakotas.

I'd head east on i-8 or i-10 and cut north after you pass the reservations. A little longer but flatter than the mountains.
 

john.jackson9213

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Yes, that traffic to Vegas on a Friday will be heavy (at best). The I-8/I-10 will not have that bad traffic the Vegas route will have. That alone will make the trip longer, especially Friday.

Google Maps shows lots of construction on the northern route - I just did not think of the winter/summer construction difference. Also had a fellow warn me about bad traffic in the Toronto area. Kind of hard for me to imagine much worse traffic than L.A. and I grew up there. May try to leave Thursday night to make for a less rushed trip to Detroit..

Travel safe John.

A tip- that long uphill haul out of LA to Vegas was a nightmare last time I drove it a couple months ago headed to No Dak - lots of construction and it was a parking lot.

Remember the northern states do all their road work in the summer, cuz you cant for 9 months in the winter...:)
so get ready for long stretches of single lanes, cones, minor delays in WYO, MT and the Dakotas.

I'd head east on i-8 or i-10 and cut north after you pass the reservations. A little longer but flatter than the mountains.
 

twentyeight

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I just drove i40 to Michigan and i80 back. I80 construction kept flowing very well. We stopped more for tolls on i40 than... Anything on I80.

I vote the northern route. I don't think I'll be going the southern one again.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Averaging 75 is going to be challenging. On most road trips I take I drive an indicated 10 MPH over the posted limit, usually 75 around here and 80 in Ohio and other states. Not many states around here with higher limits. But driving 80 a lot of the time still nets an average speed in the mid to high 60s. Coffee stops and the resulting bathroom brakes, the rare stop for fuel (usually once a day max), construction and traffic bring average speeds down.

Google predicts travel times at speed limits with no stops. I can beat those times, but not easily, and not by much. Google says 34 hours or so. I would think your first two days are going to have to be 14+ hours.
 

VeeDubTDI

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Steve, Plan to leave Friday and be in Detroit area Monday morning. 2400 miles and only me in the car. Target speed is 75. Should not be a problem from San Diego to Grand Junction. After that, it may be a problem to Denver. Nebraska and Iowa - what are the normal interstate speeds? And what about the Highway Patrol?

On my cross-country trip this time last year, I stuck around 80-85 MPH west of the South Dakota/Iowa border (speed limits are up to 80 almost everywhere). That really helps with average speed, especially if you can keep pit stops down to once every 3-4 hours.

I haven't done the southern route in a long time, so I'm not familiar with current speed limits or anything else.
 

Skeej760

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Shoot yourself now...

If you plan to drive thru LA to Vegas on a Friday. 4 hours taking a nap in a parking lot would be a better way to spend your time than that climb up the hill, because at least you wont be sucking semi-smog and dodging road ragers in the heat...single lane going 15 mph...

Seriously, have fun and give yourself more time than Google suggests. It doesnt calculate pee breaks, which for an old fart like me drinking the coffee it takes to stay up all night, cuts into that 75mph average...

Google also didnt pick up things like major bridge out for a year on I-15 single lane on I15 in UTAH, or the road thru the WYO rez that was out of service, or... well, who trusts the Evil Twins anyway?

Most important, remember that cell reception sucks and is non existent on long stretches of interstate- like literally no ATT in WYO from Salt Lake to Casper. So there goes your google, bing, mapquest.

Ask me how I know, and for my sheep on the hilltop story while trying to set up a new ATT phone, while calling Verizon on my daughters Iphone...:)

Ahh. Technology. Dont you love it!

Bring a dedicated GPS or better, the always trustworthy Rand McNally Road Atlas book.

If you are thinking of the northern route, you might want to consider this: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/index.php

Most of IDAHO is not much fun to be outside, right now, and I remember sucking smoke from the Saskatchewan fires most of the way across ND on my way back a month ago...likely to be same in parts of western wyo, northern UT on I-15, if the wind is blowing right.

http://www.deq.idaho.gov/air-quality/monitoring/daily-reports-and-forecasts.aspx

my guess is 52 mpg going east with a tailwind on the flats. 45 coming west if you go north and hit the 30 knot head winds on the prairies.

I got around 45 or so, over 6000 + miles, to and from ND, over a lot of winding, up and down back roads.

There are some off beat roads if you want to cut down from the northern route that are maybe worth the extra miles if you dont mind taking your time a bit on the way back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Diamond_Scenic_Byway

I can and do waste a lot of time on long trips if I let myelf get distracted:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...ws-Enchanted_Highway-Regent_North_Dakota.html
 
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Skeej760

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Steve Addy

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John
If you need a flop house on your way plan on staying with me. I have plenty of room, most of it's a rehab mess but there are still a few rooms that can be occupied.

Even if it's only to take a couple hour nap you're welcome to crash here.

Steve
 

Digital Corpus

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I'll put in a wager at 50-51 tops. It'll tank with the Cajon pass and aside from the Rockies, you should be near level ground. That's my SWAG.
 

VeeDubTDI

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You have an opportunity to win the Best mileage to TDIFest award if you play your cards right. That's a long trip to do that on, though. Perhaps we could make this a little more fair for the people who are traveling long distances by making it the best single tank, rather than best average over the entire trip...
 

john.jackson9213

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Miramar, Ca. (Think Top Gun)
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Topped off the fuel tank with Propel HPR renewal diesel. Started the trip at 2 pm on Thursday, but not on a good note. Had a limp mode issue which caused a low boost issue for the first 120 miles. Stopped off at Digital Corpus place to swap some parts. Quickly found the problem. Last Tuesday I had attempted to remove the air supply line to make more room to install the Old Navy CCV. I neglected to put the second clamp on where the plastic transitions to the aluminum intake pipe. Put the clamp on properly, cleared the code and I was back to normal. Then back on the freeway to Las Vegas. Once over the Cajon Pass, speed picked up to 85+ till midnight. Stopped for a cat nap near Cedar, Ut and again near Richfield, Ut. Turned of i-15 onto I-70 east towards Denver. Put 10 gallons of fuel in the tank at Clifton, Co at 8 a.m. Friday morning then filled up at Henderson, Co, just east of Denver. That was 1052.6 miles into the trip on the car odometer. Total fuel purchased was 26.649 gallons. So calculated MPG = 39.49866 Not too bad considering the first 120 miles were in limp mode and most of the rest of the time, speed was 85+ (top speed was 96).
Then it was back on the road towards Des Moines, Iowa on I-76. I will post more tonight. Today will be a tour of the Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH.
 
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annieneff

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Drive slower! You're going to make my guess wayyyyy off ;).

Hope you have some fun all those hours on the road. I went from Texas to Seattle last year and had a blast, but you have to be able to find the zone.

Safe travels and post some scenic pics if you get a chance too!

Andrew
 

Steve Addy

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Iowa
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Ok, so we were fed misleading information. I was under the impression you were going to be driving 75, not 85 or up to 96!

No wonder you were so far ahead of schedule when you arrived at Newton Saturday!

I think I'll need to revise me mpg guess down to 42 if you persist in driving 85 mph...

Steve
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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As he gets further east that will be tougher. He did say he wanted to average 75, which means driving pretty fast to account for rest and fueling stops.
 
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