nomadchick

I've been reading a ton of stuff after the Consumer Reports article saying that people can't achieve much beyond 36 or 37 mpg, and I'm flabbergasted by how they must be driving. Our Cmax has about 2500 miles on it, and our lifetime average mpg is almost 39. BUT, I live at 5000 feet. It's a 20 minute drive up a steep mountain to get back home from anywhere. If I just take short trips down the mountain, it's hard to recover that when it's flat. I find that going up I lose just a little more than I gain going down. But here's the thing. I totally make up for it on longer trips. This morning I drove it to my office - about 55 miles - the first 11 miles down my mountain road are straight downhill with no gas. Then I get on the freeway and cruise at 60mph (yes, I used to drive faster than that before the cmax, but these days I don't care - I listen to my audiobooks, get comfortable, and watch all the stressed out people going crazy around me). Anyway, I got 72.6 mpg on my trip this morning. Even on my return trips home, when I'm on the freeway for 44 miles followed by 11 miles going up 5000 feet, I still average about 34 mpg. I do not understand at all how the Consumer Reports people were driving to not be able to get good mileage. Anyway, I used to drive a Chevy Aveo as my commuter car, and that only averaged 33mpg. And it was tiny, stick shift, with not much storage. To have a lifetime average of just under 39, with a car this size, is amazing. If I didn't have this dang hill to go up every day, I'm positive we'd be averaging well over the 47mpg listings. When we're out running errands, and we go from one place to another without going back up the hill, we average around 53, so if we didn't have the commute up the hill, I'm sure we'd be getting around 50 regularly. I just had to put in my $.02 as a happy cmax owner who is thrilled with the mileage.