Saving Gas Mileage & Money on a Rental Car Road Trip

Posted by Jeff Glucker on Monday, July 07, 2008 12:27 PM

Tags: 2008 dodge avenger, 2008 toyota prius, 2001 nissan altima, mpg, rental car, road trip, gas mileage, dodge, toyota, nissan, nadaguides

A car road trip needs only a few things to be fun: good music, great friends, and a terrific destination. But these days, if you don't want to break the bank, you also need a car with good gas mileage.

For a recent car road trip, my wife and I decided to rent a higher gas mileage car than our 2001 Nissan Altima. After reading NADAguides.com's recent picks for the Best Road Trip Cars, our first choice was a Toyota Prius; unfortunately none were unavailable. Sure an exotic rental would have been fun, but the speeding ticket would have been very expensive.

2008 Dodge Avenger Proves to be Road Friendly

Instead, we rented a 2008 Dodge Avenger SE, which has EPA-estimated gas mileage of 21 mpg city/30 mpg highway. On our 790-mile road trip, I got about 25 mpg. I'll admit it, I drove pretty aggressively. There was a point on a mountain road that my wife clutched the armrest, while yelling at me to slow the [expletive deleted] down. Still 25 mpg is about a 40 percent improvement over the 18 mpg I normally get in my Altima, so that means I saved about $130 in gas, plus I saved wear and tear on my car, which made it well worth the extra time and money at the rental car office.

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Reader Comments

christine

7/8/2008 3:28 AM

I agree with your wife on you driving habits.

Jeff Glucker

7/8/2008 10:27 AM

@christine:

When you grow up driving in and around the Boston area... you don't treat driving as a simple means to get from Point A to Point B. It is a sport, and being the competitive person that I am... my goal is to "win".

At the same time however, I obey two very important rules of the road.
-Don't drive in the left lane unless you are p*****ing and move over for those who wish to go faster.
-Use your signals so that people know you are turning.

Mike J

7/29/2008 11:58 AM

First time I saw an Avenger I thought it was a Charger. I like the look and it appears to be lighter. The Charger is an overweight car that should lose about 1000 lbs. The article doesn't say what engine/trans was in the rental which would seem a requirement in an auto enthusiast column. It is unfortunate that Chrysler is***** bent on killing the brand (closing dealerships and ending leasing plus having no high mileage models). Chrysler invented many "standards" today.

Jeff Glucker

7/29/2008 1:03 PM

@Mike J:

The Avenger was an inline 4-cylinder with a 4-speed automatic. If they offered a manual trans I would have jumped at it, however you would be hard pressed to find such a vehicle among the ranks of the traditional rental fleet.

I agree that the current crop of "retro-muscle" cars are showing up with big numbers at the scale. However, I think they play into the romanticism some still feel for that era of true Detroit muscle... The cars are heavy (just like the originals were), but they have more sophisticated engines, safety features, interiors, etc yet they are still putting up great numbers on the track.

By the way, if you think the Charger is too heavy (which I agree it is) then you should steer well clear of the Challenger SRT-8 with its 4140 curb weight!

rytmitz

12/4/2008 6:17 PM

we likely feel desperate whenever we heard 'bout higher gas prices that is ravaging us these days.. so some are thinking of necessary measures to address this problem such as looking for <a href="http://www.car-stuff.com/gas-saving-products.html">ways to improve gas mileage</a>. Hypermiling techniques would be a great idea.