Quote Originally Posted by atcovan
Quote Originally Posted by gsills
all the money you saved on the oil change will go to the tow truck as it looks like your parked in a painted spot...

Now that's funny!
PS Fighting Irish... has your mileage improved?
So the stats are in- for the life of the car so far @25,154 miles, I've acheived 30.84mpg. I drive in the city 44%, highway 56%.

While using Mobil1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0w30, I acheived an average over 5000 miles of 32.83mpg. So initially, it would appear that it does get better mileage... however, take the following into consideration:

-the first 10,000 miles, the engine was still being broken IMO- I was averaging 29.71mpg during the first 10k miles.
-the next 10k miles, I averaged 31.07mpg. If you compare this to the 32.83mpg that I acheived while using the 0w30, it is a 5.6% increase in fuel economy. However, during the 10k-20k mile range on my ODO, I was doing about 55% of my driving on the highway. I was driving about 66% highway mileage during the 0w30 test period.

So overall, it's pretty much a wash. It's tough to tell if it really had any effect at all, seeing as most of the first 20k miles of the car it was being driven to and from school. The past 5k miles were being driven to and from "work", a much longer drive and on the highway more. I'll know a bit better after the next 5k miles seeing as I put Mobil1 5w30 back in it and i'm doing a pretty similar drive everyday as I was during the 0w30 test period.

My best guess is about a 2% increase in MPG, a bit less than a 1mpg increase. Just by looking at the raw data (yeah I've managed to record all 84 trips to the gas station since I owned the car... can you say anal?), it seems probable that it would be between a 2-3% increase in mileage if all factors were equal. I could get all fancy and pull out some statistical formulas, but I don't have time for that. That said, if you were to run 0w30 for 100k miles, you'd pick up an extra 2k miles probably... which would save you about $200. However, the extra money spent on the oil itself would negate that if you're used to buying conventional anyways.