Gas Mileage on a Denali?

[PartyOf5]

Alright I wanna thank everyone here who replied to my past thread a few months back when I was looking to buy a Tahoe/Denali.

I finally pulled the trigger on a Denali. Man-O-Man do I love this thing! What a great ride. I'm going to post pic's soon.

Quick question, is the in-dash computer gauge that shows you "avg mpg" suppose to SCARE the Bejesus out of you!!!! I didn't buy a Denali thinking the 6.2 AWD will give Hond Civic hybrid gas mileage, but its says I'm averaging 7.5mpg. What give here? If figured 2 to 3 mpg less than the sticker was realistic, but this is about half.

Do I need to put more miles on it or something? Is there a break in period? I only have 130miles on the it. Mix of highway and local.

Please tell me this is normal and I have nothing to worry about.

 

[LAP TOP GAMER]

You have to consider the in city driving and most importantly, the engine isent broken yet. I have an 07 Tahoe and I get an average of 12 MPG in city and I tend to have a lead foot.

 

[Getwired]

Have you reset the DIC mileage indicator yet? Chances are you're seeing an average that includes the "spirited" test drives of the folks who may have driven it before you bought it. Yes, the mileage gets better, but don't expect a miracle. I average between 11-13 depending on what kind of driving I do. I just towed a 2500LB trailer and 7 people (and a dog) 80-85 MPH over 400 miles and got like 11.1 MPG. Not too bad.

It definitely gets better, but only if you keep your foot out of it and aren't towing. Best I've seen is 14.3.

Post some pics when you can!

 

[Getwired]

Another thought or two...

Oh yeah, run 93 octane gas and get some Mobil1 oil in there on your first oil change -- that'll buy you some improvement. When you get the urge to start modding, you can pick up further additional power and mileage with a Volant air intake (or other CAI).

 

[PartyOf5]

Have you reset the DIC mileage indicator yet? Chances are you're seeing an average that includes the "spirited" test drives of the folks who may have driven it before you bought it. Yes, the mileage gets better, but don't expect a miracle. I average between 11-13 depending on what kind of driving I do. I just towed a 2500LB trailer and 7 people (and a dog) 80-85 MPH over 400 miles and got like 11.1 MPG. Not too bad.

It definitely gets better, but only if you keep your foot out of it and aren't towing. Best I've seen is 14.3.

Post some pics when you can!

Getwired, I didn't reset the DIC mileage and I"m a little embarrassed to say, I don't know what your talking about just yet. I've only had the truck for 2 days.

If I get the mileage you're getting, I'm perfectly happy with that. 11 to 13 and maybe a bit more on highway with a light foot is about what I expected.

I'm going to post some pic's soon, but if you really want to know what my denali looks like, go out to your driveway and take a look.

Looks almost exactly like yours without the mods. I went with the stock wheels, but looking into a set of 22" in time.

 

[PartyOf5]

You have to consider the in city driving and most importantly, the engine isent broken yet. I have an 07 Tahoe and I get an average of 12 MPG in city and I tend to have a lead foot.

Sorry if it was discussed here already, but is there a break in period for these engines? I was told just not to abuse it early on and I should be fine.

 

[Getwired]

Getwired, I didn't reset the DIC mileage and I"m a little embarrassed to say, I don't know what your talking about just yet. I've only had the truck for 2 days.

If I get the mileage you're getting, I'm perfectly happy with that. 11 to 13 and maybe a bit more on highway with a light foot is about what I expected.

I'm going to post some pic's soon, but if you really want to know what my denali looks like, go out to your driveway and take a look.

Looks almost exactly like yours without the mods. I went with the stock wheels, but looking into a set of 22" in time.

No problem man! Just push the top button to make sure the AVG MPG is displayed, then press and hold the checkmark button to reset the average. (Online owner's manual is over here if you'd like to read more...)

Post some pics when you put the 22"s on! :thumbsup:

 

[PartyOf5]

Oh yeah, run 93 octane gas and get some Mobil1 oil in there on your first oil change -- that'll buy you some improvement. When you get the urge to start modding, you can pick up further additional power and mileage with a Volant air intake (or other CAI).

Thanks, I've read the threads here about the mods you and other have done. I'm going to install some of them after paying off few bills first.

 

[LAP TOP GAMER]

Sorry if it was discussed here already, but is there a break in period for these engines? I was told just not to abuse it early on and I should be fine.

Yes there is about 500 miles if I recall, without cracking my owners manual. The other weird thing is I like to down shift on hills, but you can't do that for the first 500 miles according to the manual, don't know why, perhaps someone here could expand on that.

 

[Getwired]

Thanks, I've read the threads here about the mods you and other have done. I'm going to install some of them after paying off few bills first.

Yep, I know how that goes. It took me like 8 months to get the modding bug, and now I just get "the evil eye"... :skep: Have fun and enjoy your awesome new ride! :thumbsup:

 

[Grillmaster]

Alright I wanna thank everyone here who replied to my past thread a few months back when I was looking to buy a Tahoe/Denali.

I finally pulled the trigger on a Denali. Man-O-Man do I love this thing! What a great ride. I'm going to post pic's soon.

Quick question, is the in-dash computer gauge that shows you "avg mpg" suppose to SCARE the Bejesus out of you!!!! I didn't buy a Denali thinking the 6.2 AWD will give Hond Civic hybrid gas mileage, but its says I'm averaging 7.5mpg. What give here? If figured 2 to 3 mpg less than the sticker was realistic, but this is about half.

Do I need to put more miles on it or something? Is there a break in period? I only have 130miles on the it. Mix of highway and local.

Please tell me this is normal and I have nothing to worry about.

Congrats on the new Denali! With my Yukon Denali my DIC says an average of 14.9 right now. When I do all city driving it goes down to 13.5 (eventually), and I just came back from a 400 mile trip and it went up to 14.9. Just give it some time and reset the count when you hit 500 miles, you should be fine. I just hit 2,000 miles and decided to play around a bit and holy cow 0-60 comes in quick with a full throttle and a 6 speed tranny. Love it.

 

[PartyOf5]

Congrats on the new Denali! With my Yukon Denali my DIC says an average of 14.9 right now. When I do all city driving it goes down to 13.5 (eventually), and I just came back from a 400 mile trip and it went up to 14.9. Just give it some time and reset the count when you hit 500 miles, you should be fine. I just hit 2,000 miles and decided to play around a bit and holy cow 0-60 comes in quick with a full throttle and a 6 speed tranny. Love it.

Thanks. I haven't pushed it just yet but took the family for a joy ride today and I'm just incredibly impressed with how smooth it is. Cruising like it was nothing at 75-80mph. It didn't feel fast at all. Going 50 felt like 30 compared to my old car.

My wife said I've had a smile on my face from ear to ear all day.

 

[ChiTownTimmay]

I reset mine mid-trip doing about 70mph and was getting right around 17mpg's. Of course once I took the cruise control off it was a different story, but for the majority of the 300 mile trip I averaged pretty well. The thing wouldn't budge from 13.3 and so I remembered that included all of the driving time from the previous 9000 miles so I reset it and voila, better gas mileage.

 

[PartyOf5]

Yes, I did a reset and my mileage is better. I do a good amount of local driving so its still giving me ~10mpg readings. I hoping it'll get better after it's had a chance to break in a bit and when it gets a cooler out so I don't run the AC the entire time.

Still no complaints though... The vehicle is just flat out AWESOME!!!!

 

[Getwired]

Yeah man!

:iagree:

 

[marksti]

I have about 900 miles on mine so far.


I rececntley added the K&N intake setup and it seemed to boost it from 11.4 to about 12.7 mpg.

The truck has about 950 miles on the odo..as she breaks in and as I switch over to Mobil 1 i think it'll do alittle better.

Maybe a Corsa exhuast would help out aswell.

 

[PartyOf5]

I have about 900 miles on mine so far.


I rececntley added the K&N intake setup and it seemed to boost it from 11.4 to about 12.7 mpg.

The truck has about 950 miles on the odo..as she breaks in and as I switch over to Mobil 1 i think it'll do alittle better.

Maybe a Corsa exhuast would help out aswell.

At how many miles are you going to switch over to Mobil 1? I was thinking of waiting till about 5000miles. Some say I don't need to wait that long.

 

[73shark]

Yes, I did a reset and my mileage is better. I do a good amount of local driving so its still giving me ~10mpg readings. I hoping it'll get better after it's had a chance to break in a bit and when it gets a cooler out so I don't run the AC the entire time.

Still no complaints though... The vehicle is just flat out AWESOME!!!!

The consensus on several different forums is that owners are seeing mpg improve all the way to 10K miles.

FYI: unless you are using a programmer like Superchips, 93 octane will just empty your wallet faster with no benefit.

 

[PartyOf5]

The consensus on several different forums is that owners are seeing mpg improve all the way to 10K miles.

FYI: unless you are using a programmer like Superchips, 93 octane will just empty your wallet faster with no benefit.

What octane are you using?...and is this on a 6.2L engine? I've read conflicting views. Premium I use is 91 octane. I'm only using this as the maual "recommends" it.

Figure I'll do this at least during the break in period. Then as I get to know the truck better and how it performs, I may or may not switch to lower octane.

 

[73shark]

I use 87 normally and 91 with the Superchips

Everything I can find states that there is no benefit to using any octane higher than recommended in the owner's manual.