2018 XC90 T5 AWD gas mileage way below rating

Hi guys,

So I ended up picking up the XC90 T5 AWD recently. I love everything about it except for the fact that it’s been showing 14-15MPG on the trip odometer even when I put it in ECO mode driving in the city in a very conservative manner. Granted there was a lot of stop lights 15 MPG is about 2/3 if what the rates city mpg of 22 MPG. What kind of mileage are you guys getting on the T5s and T6s?

Tim

How many miles are on the car?

It’s got about 100 miles right now. When the dealer delivered it to me with all freeway driving the trip computer showed 22mpg. Since the delivery the MPG kept going down since I was doing mostly city driving. The average went down to 18.5 and I thought I’d reset the trip. In the last two trips near by my average has been around 15 MPG.

Of course it will show low mileage on only 100 miles LOL
Put more miles on it and it will show closer to stated mileage. Do not reset to get the real life mileage.

My S90 is averaging 22 mpg with 3.5k miles on the clock. A good amount of driving on highway. Prior to highway I was averaging 18 mpg. 22 mpg is still quite below the rating.
There are 2 mpg counters, I will reset one next time I fill up and see what I get.

You’ll need to drive a few thousand miles before the engine settles into its true mpg. Low displacement turbocharged motors are notorious for not getting anywhere close to epa mpg, especially when driven hard. The XC90 is a heavy vehicle and the T5 engine is relatively low hp. You don’t have to be driving hard in a traditional sense to get low mpg if you’re deep into the turbo. Multiple passengers, hilly terrain, city driving with a lot of starts and stops will yield you low results.

I would say drive to NC/SC and abandon the car in the flood. Next time get a smart car instead of a gas guzzler :slight_smile:

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XC90 T5 AWD - 19.5 mpg with 3800 miles. Standard mode and usually with auto on/off turned off.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. My concern was less about fuel cost but more about emissions and I am really looking forward to seeing more electric cars on the road that’s available to the masses.

Vhooloo, haha I just wanted to make sure I didn’t get duped into getting a gas guzzler.

How come you turned off auto on/off?

I almost feel guilty driving an ice vehicle after the electric. The idea of polluting the air and wasting resources even while sitting idle is sad. Not to mention the higher operating costs. As much as I started disliking Musk after his recent shenanigans, I still give him credit for his initiative to make electric cars mainstream.

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My wife drives the vehicle. She finds the feature annoying - for some reason.

I think there should be more emphasis on the environmental factors of owning a car. Most people look at MPG from the perspective of fuel cost but we really should be looking at it from a environmental point of view.

I average 28.6 in my T6 s90, which is generally driven in eco mode with start stop disabled.

This is kind of odd, am I just being paranoid or is it possible there’s something wrong with the car? I’ve been driving the car super conservatively and thinking that the short trips are what’s throwing off the mileage calculation, but the console shows that for the last 100 miles or so the car’s been getting 12.5 mpg?

Again - 100 miles is a very small sample.

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You’ve traveled 103 miles with an engine on time of nearly 8 hours. You’re either crawling around at 12 mph or the car has spent an awful lot of time turned on, idling burning gas. Reevaluate when you’ve got 1000 miles on it.

yeah just going to echo what others have said, just gotta wait a while to run it all in.

For comparison, I’ve got a Highlander XLE V6 with only 300 miles on it (thanks Cody!) and I’m currently getting 19.8 mpg during a pretty awful trafficy LA commute from DTLA to UCLA. It does bump up to about 24mpg on the rare occasion that the freeway is moving. It’s not amazing, but for a big SUV it’s not bad and i’ll be switching to a plug-in hybrid commuter at some point in the next 6 months or so anyway.

If you’re concerned about emissions then really turning the stop/start system back on would probably be a good idea.

The dealership probably had the engine turned on when showing the car and I’ll make sure the start/stop feature is activated. Again I’m probably just being paranoid and I have very high expectations for the car after doing so much research. I’ll go through a tank of gas and report back to you guys. Other than that the car’s been great, thanks for all the responses.

It comes on automatically when you start the car unfortunately. I’d love to be able to have it default to off instead of on.