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| Darkmann Date registered: Dec 1899 Location: Vehicle(s): | Weekend Trip Report I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. For me, it was a 1600 mile trip from Salisbury, MD to Fayetteville, GA and back. I decided to forgo the ML and take the E - the power/response and the fact that I'd just done the tranny fluid change were major factors in that decision. I wanted to see if the tranny fluid change had any effect on MPG - apparently it did as you'll agree later. In any case, 2 adults, 3 grown kids and a trunk full of stuff took off Wednesday PM. The car looked "lowered" with all that stuff in the trunk - wish I had pics!!! The trip going was smooth, but the entire state of GA was too darn cold and The Masters in Augusta wasn't as exciting as I'd wish it to be. Other than the pair of pants I was wearing on the trip, I packed only shorts despite warnings from my wife - I paid dearly for that stupidity (I hope she doesn't read this - I can't stand nymore "I told you so"). In any case, inbound speed varied but was mostly on the higher side of 75 except at night. The car ran very smoothly, them Eagle F1 GS-D3 are absolutely amazing dry weather rubbers. One thing I immediately noticed was that this massive V8 was sucking less gas than same trip I took to New Orleans on Katrina weekend!!! On that trip I had to stop in GA also and the gas consumption wasn't the same. The funny thing was that no matter what I did, the trip computer would not display MPG better than 24.9. At one point as I was pulling into a rest stop it briefly moved to 25 but then as soon as I got back on the road, the average quickly went to 24.9 again!!! Here's mileage report (calculated, not computer displayed): Leg 1: Daytime driving, speed 75-80 mostly, MPG=27 (betters computer's 24.5 reading - was there a tailwind here or what???) Leg 2: Nighttime driving, speeds under 75, a lot of traffic slow downs, MPG=23.8 (matches computer's 24.0 reading) Leg 3: Mostly city combined with remainder of Leg 2, speed not recorded, MPG=20.8 (computer reading not recorded) Leg 4: Heading back home, high powered, high speed driving, computer average speed 78mph, the needle started at 90 and barely dropped below 80 the entire trip, MPG=26.5 (bettered computer 23.4, quite impressive at the speed I was driving and the Rt 95 congestion in VA). BTW, I didn't reset the trip computer between fill-ups, but still, this is the very first time my actual MPG on any of my MB's has betterd the trip computer estimates - unless my computer is very bad. Based on this, I think I'll be changing the ML's tranny oil before my next trip out to the Caroliners. The one negative about this trip (besides sub 40 temperatures) - tons of brake dust on front rim, and I finally have the brake pad wear warning show up. My fronts were done last summer so I think it's the rears. That's mean 73K+ for the rears. That's not bad at all. Edited by Darkmann 4/10/2007 2:05 PM | ||
| #69636 |
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| cmitch Expert Date registered: Apr 2006 Location: Ala-Tenn Vehicle(s): 2002 ML320, 2005 S430 4Matic, 2010 F150 Super Crew Posts: 3412  | RE: Weekend Trip Report Yeah, the south had a major freeze out this past week and it killed every bloom and twig around. Our entire scenery went from green to brown in just a couple of days. Did you end up buying some pants? | ||
| #69729 - in reply to #69636 |
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| Darkmann Date registered: Dec 1899 Location: Vehicle(s): | RE: Weekend Trip Report cmitch - 4/11/2007 10:20 AM ...Did you end up buying some pants? Oh yeah, I had to. | ||
| #69796 - in reply to #69729 |
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| AsianML Date registered: Dec 1899 Location: Vehicle(s): | Re: Weekend Trip Report That's pretty impressive!! Also considering all the weight you had with you. But I'm thinking it has to do with the V8 as well...I'm not sure how this works in the real world, but I would think that in theory, a more powerful car under load would get better MPG than a less powerful car under the same load (E320 vs. E430) because the 320 has to work harder to get it moving. | ||
| #70194 - in reply to #69636 |
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| Darkmann Date registered: Dec 1899 Location: Vehicle(s): | Re: Weekend Trip Report AsianML - 4/15/2007 11:22 AM ...I'm not sure how this works in the real world, but I would think that in theory, a more powerful car under load would get better MPG than a less powerful car under the same load (E320 vs. E430) because the 320 has to work harder to get it moving. Basically theoretically correct. But in reality, with highway aggressive drivers like me, I like to punch it whenever I have the opportunity. That tends to eat up gas mileage quickly. On this trip, I did punch it a few times, but there was more smooth driving to speed than rush to speed. And it all seemed like the tranny was working slightly less to get to speed than before. The evidence is in the numbers - prior to this trip, I'd never seen 25mpg on the display!!! | ||
| #70219 - in reply to #70194 |
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