Around Town Mileage

Back in October I wrote a little about how our new car had mileage almost comparable to our old car.  I ended with the teaser:

"The Saturn SL2 would normally give us 30 to 31 miles per gallon for our normal day-to-day driving.  Next time we buy gas we'll learn the equivalent for the Touring."

Here is that update with the data about our mileage when driving around town.

For our first tank of driving around Eugene we drove 329.9 miles, and used 11.24 gallons.  That is 29.3 miles per gallon.

Our second tank was very similar, with 290.9 miles and 9.95 gallons, for 29.2 miles per gallon.

Our third tank was also similar, with 344.5 miles and 11.84 gallons, for 29.1 miles per gallon.

But all good things come to an end.  After the weather became chilly our around town mileage dropped notably: our fourth and fifth tanks were about 26 mpg and 25 mpg.  Why?  Because now when I pick up my wife from work I idle the car to keep the heater going.