BMW and our wonderful federal government set my expectations at at least 18mpg with mostly city and a little highway. A few more thousand miles should get me closer to some kind of stable mileage. I'm more concerned with the uphill lagging than with the absolute MPG right now. Sorry I sounded stupid to a couple of you. I'm not. Right now, it looks like the step is worse for mileage than the auto trans in the '00 540i. Thanks.

Sam

 

OK, over the last couple of days, I have embarked on a research mission and have made a major discovery that I couldn't wait to communicate here. This discovery is announced exclusively on our beloved forum here only. Please do not cross-post without permission as I would like to keep this in the family.

My discovery was made using three different research approaches, all of which led to the same conclusion, which, of course, means it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt!

1) Going back through my old calculus textbooks and pouring over and using up many legal pads,

2) Calling in some favors resulting in free computer time on a Cray 1 to run my simulations, programmed in FORTRAN, of course, and,

3) Empirical evidence gained by more driving.

I have been able to show and thus prove, again beyond a shadow of a doubt that, at least for US cars, pushing down harder on the gas pedal results in lower gas mileage. I was shocked, to say the least. This fact, I feel, should have been shared with us through either additional government warnings requiring an additional press of the iDrive controller or at least with a footnote, in a very small font, either in the users' manual or in the brochure.

Thank you for letting me share this discovery here.

Respectfully,

Sam

P.S. I couldn't help myself... Using Sport mode on the Step has completely solved any uphill lagging problems!

 

I just appreciate the fact that you did the research for us, and now I don't have to waste cycle's on my Cray!

 

EPA's testing method is very outdated. I believe it is the same testing procedure as in the 70's. BMW is just following the EPA guideline in publishing city/hwy EPA numbers. In fact, all car manufactures run into same consumer expectation problem on city/hwy milage due to the outdated EPA testing method on car milage.

 

how many miles to the tank are you getting on the 545?

 

ethanbmw: I really have no idea. I haven't yet let it get much below 1/4-tank before I fill up. I guess that about 14.5 times whatever the tank holds would answer your question. I'm getting better, think, at using the gas pedal. We'll see if that helps over my next couple of fill-ups.

Sam