Fuel Consumption

[gear_dawg]

I was recently checking out a 04/05 Nissan 350Z verses my 95 Mercy Sable.

One thing I noticed was that my car gets better if not better MPG than the Nissan 350z does.

Here are the differnences that I see can and do affect the fuel consumption:

Drive Train Type
Mine: FWD 4speed auto vs 6speed manual RWD Transaxel

Engine Size
Mine:3.8L or 3801cm^3 vs 3.5L or 3502cm^3
To the best of my knowledge both are EFI
Both are V-6s
Mine Steel block w/ alluminum heads vs all alluminum [-X

Gross Vehicel Weight
Mine: ~3.3K vs a lot less

Fuel Economy
Mine 20/27.8 vs 19/26

It seems that the gear ratios on this 350Z are not very good.
Any other questions or comments, I could be wrong but I think its the main reason.

Gear

[dumrick]

What's the point in comparing a family sedan with a high performance car? I'm sure that the power / capacity ratio is very different from one to another.

And about the gear ratios, american cars usually have very long final gears, in order to keep revs and consuption down (why don't they thing of making efficient engines instead???? ), onthe other hand, the Nissan, being a performance car, has rations optimizad for performance...

[Monstrobolaxa]

Instead of making more efficient engines...why don't they switch to manual geaboxes....due to the slipage of the torque converter north american engines tend to have bigger capacity in order to keep up the high oil flows necessary to keep the torque converter spinning....something the manual cars don't really need cause of the clutch which doesn't slip as much.

last summer or 2 years ago me and my dad we rented a Hyundai Accend in Canada....a car we have here in Portugal....it was a 1,2L....which with a manual gearbox goes easily up to 160km/h....with the automatic gearbox we could only reach over 120km/h going downhill. In a previous post someone mentioned a new torque converter which minimized slipage....but there is nothing like a clutch which has almost zero slipage.

[sharkie17]

What's the point in comparing a family sedan with a high performance car? I'm sure that the power / capacity ratio is very different from one to another.

And about the gear ratios, american cars usually have very long final gears, in order to keep revs and consuption down (why don't they thing of making efficient engines instead???? ), onthe other hand, the Nissan, being a performance car, has rations optimizad for performance...

american cars have tall gears because thats the kind of driving americans do. ive driven in europe now for over 4 months now and europeans and americans definately drive different. roads here are diffrent, and driving requirements are different.

and i agree, american manufacturers should definately concentrate on getting better gas milage because i know it can be done (just look at corvettes... they have over 400 hp and it gets 22 mph in the city.)