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      12-23-2014, 04:52 PM   #1
bosstones
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35i Fuel Economy - My Experience

Since the question of fuel economy still comes up, I figure this may be useful for anyone that currently has a X1 w/ the larger N55 engine (xDrive35i, turbo I6) or is considering it versus the smaller N20 engine (xDrive28i, turbo 4). Granted, this is only my experience but it may serve as a frame of reference to others.

The short of it all is that, last year, I started tracking the price of gas every time I filled up. Why? Primarily because I grew curious how wildly the price would swing. I've always noticed some fairly large fluctuations and was curious how it trended over the course of they year. I kept doing this in 2014.

However, I took delivery of a new X1 35i "M-Sport" (oh, how I hate that marketing) shortly after the new year.....ours, not the Chinese. I was curious how closely the OBC's readout for mpg tracked to manually calculating it so I started tracking this as well.

I average 250-300 miles a week and commute everyday except when I am on business travel. My 46-ish mile (round trip) commute is a mix of city and highway driving. Weekends is mostly city-ish driving while I run errands. Generally, I don't drive like an @$$ but will get on the throttle once the oil temp is warmed up. Until then, I keep it under 3k RPM most of the time.

During nicer weather (summer through fall), I tend to average in the 23mpg range. It would be a little higher (24-26mpg) but, as expected, it drops on the weekends while running errands (city-ish driving and stop/go traffic).

I've also noticed that fuel efficiency dips a bit after the vehicle sits for a bit while I am away on travel. This caused some of the wild variation (drops) during break-in (re: dips from January thru spring/early summer) so the gradual increase in fuel efficiency is a little broken up. We also had a long cold winter (takes longer for engine/trans to warm up) and had a real cold spell in early/mid Nov.

Something else I noticed is that the OBC readout for mpg is typically within a couple of tenths of a mpg when compared to hand calculations.....nothing that wouldn't be within the realm of the margin for error (OBC rounding and amount of fuel burned vs added to the tank).

Overall, I am happy w/ what I get fuel efficienty-wise. It is, after all, a 300lb-ft/300hp, 2-ton beast.
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      12-23-2014, 09:07 PM   #2
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Awesome data points and conclusions, thanks for sharing.
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      12-23-2014, 09:40 PM   #3
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I think we've had about a handful of tanks above 20 mpg. Most are between 16 and 18. Actually a little better than our N54 135i. My wife has an absurdly short commute and a heavy foot though.

Thanks for the data points and info on the OBC, good to know.
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      12-24-2014, 08:17 AM   #4
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Great post. I have been getting about 21mpg out of my 35i. That's not bad. Love the power so it is worth it. One huge bonus is that the price of gas lately has been so cheap.
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      12-24-2014, 09:39 AM   #5
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Good info.

I get about 17 in the city, solid 28 on the highway. All in all I feel it's excellent given a Tiguan and some other cute utes get the same mileage with a lot less under the hood.
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      12-24-2014, 10:18 AM   #6
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Great info on the accuracy of the mpg calculation. Not that I care in the least what mpg I am getting.
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      12-24-2014, 11:44 AM   #7
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I use mine as a DD, and a delivery vehicle, so my mileage is a lot of stop and go. After I got used to the glacial throttle tip-in, my mileage went up to 20.7mpg, so if you get into the turbo earlier, your mileage will suffer. I always calculate by actual fuel used. Better than my previous DD, a Nissan Titan.
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      12-24-2014, 12:29 PM   #8
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Between 16 mpg and 18 mpg
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      12-25-2014, 01:50 AM   #9
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21.7 mpg average over 13,000 miles.
Mostly to/from work, hilly with a lot of stoplights.
Mostly in DS or "manual", using flappy paddles.
Never less than 91 octane fuel.
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      12-25-2014, 09:13 AM   #10
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My 35i performs at or slightly above the MPG rating for the vehicle and that's also with it running a Dinan stage 2 ECU flash and approx. 20K miles on the vehicle.
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      12-26-2014, 04:40 PM   #11
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about 20K miles and it is averaging about 23.5 mpg

Best was about an 850 mile trip, easy driving and ecopro and averaged about 29.5
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      01-02-2015, 01:59 PM   #12
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Op, you can check out this website called Fuelly.com. There, you'll be able to tracker your miles, gallons, and price per fill-up. They will also create graphs, charts, and all sorts of lovely graphics for you.

Here's my page as an example: http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/335i_x...crono06/217096
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      01-03-2015, 12:09 PM   #13
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Very kewl data collection and presentation
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      01-03-2015, 04:11 PM   #14
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I just drove from Miami to Naples and averaged 31.9 MPG. Not too shabby
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      01-09-2015, 10:58 PM   #15
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mpg

16-20 mpg is pretty consistent. with eco pro ive gotten as high as 23mpg on long runs,
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      07-29-2016, 05:15 PM   #16
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Updating my old thread since I've kept this experiment going...mainly out of curiosity of gas price fluctuation as well as seeing if I can see a noticeable drop in efficiency when it comes time for a carbon scrub. I seem to have lost a few receipts before I could update my spreadsheet so there are a couple of gaps. This version also does not make note of snow vs 'rest of year' tires or when I had my roof rack on/off. Yes, I have gotten lazy.

You can see where I took a road trip this past Memorial Day, though. Mostly highway w/ a little city driving on both ends of the trip. #'s are down some weeks due to heavy traffic running errands on hot days. For instance, that last fill up had me at 21.5mpg. Prior to that day, I was at 24 for almost a whole week.

Still.....the OBC reading still typically tracks to within a few tenths of a gallon.
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      07-29-2016, 06:56 PM   #17
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Excellent, excellent input. Thank you.
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      07-31-2016, 01:47 AM   #18
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35i vs 28i

Quote:
Originally Posted by bosstones View Post
Updating my old thread since I've kept this experiment going...mainly out of curiosity of gas price fluctuation as well as seeing if I can see a noticeable drop in efficiency when it comes time for a carbon scrub. I seem to have lost a few receipts before I could update my spreadsheet so there are a couple of gaps. This version also does not make note of snow vs 'rest of year' tires or when I had my roof rack on/off. Yes, I have gotten lazy.

You can see where I took a road trip this past Memorial Day, though. Mostly highway w/ a little city driving on both ends of the trip. #'s are down some weeks due to heavy traffic running errands on hot days. For instance, that last fill up had me at 21.5mpg. Prior to that day, I was at 24 for almost a whole week.

Still.....the OBC reading still typically tracks to within a few tenths of a gallon.

While looking at your chart for the 35i I got very suprised to see so few MPG variations throughtout the year. I found amazing the MPG staid in the bracket of 20-25 nothwithstanding the winter conditions.

I have the 28i model and I recorded my gaz consumption at every fill-up (except twice) for 334 days during 2015. I do about 40 miles per day, half on the highways and half in downtown city traffic. Winter tires are a definitive drag on gaz, and the 28i's MPG goes south during winter and/or when crusing over 60mph.
See the chart below: the green line is the OBD's MPG reading and the blue line is my MPG calculation.
I did really witness poor MPG during winter, down to 18MPG ! (Temperature is often below -10F during winter). However during summer time the MPG can be really great, up to 32MPG. On average I am at 23.7 MPG which is very close to your 35i avg, which makes me guess that I should stop driving over 70mph... As for the OBD readings, on average it always underestimate the MPG by +/- 3%.
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Last edited by x1-2012; 07-31-2016 at 02:25 AM.. Reason: Now the chart is included.
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      07-31-2016, 03:25 AM   #19
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Just to let you all know you can adjust the OBC mpg reading to show accurate consumption through the cluster hidden menu. Let me know if you need how to instructions.
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      07-31-2016, 08:05 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d1saster View Post
Just to let you all know you can adjust the OBC mpg reading to show accurate consumption through the cluster hidden menu. Let me know if you need how to instructions.
Does it requires connecting via an OBD scan tool? Or can it be fixed only by pressing the dash button?
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      07-31-2016, 11:20 AM   #21
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So I figured I'd throw my fuel consumption in here as well on my '13 28i (mind you it's in metric, so you'd have to do the conversion). Had the car for exactly a year at this point so you can see fluctuations season to season.

Main impact on the fuel consumption I've found to be the speed. It's very efficient at 60mph, a little worse going up to 80mph, and pretty terrible above 80 mph.
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      08-01-2016, 03:41 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by x1-2012 View Post
Does it requires connecting via an OBD scan tool? Or can it be fixed only by pressing the dash button?
It can be done with the trip reset button only. Here is explained how:

http://e90.wikifoundry.com/thread/50...tion+factor%29
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