My wife drives an '08 Jeep Commander. Yeah, the MPG is awful. I even have the Hemi MDS system that cuts back to 4 cylinders when it's cruising. Still won't do ant better than 15. Plus the "fly by wire" throttle has a mind of it's own. But it has never stranded us. It has over 109K miles on it with the factory plugs still in it. All we've done is oil/filter changes and put gas in it. Last time I took it to my mechanic I told him to do the plugs and wires. He said "Maybe next time, there's no problem with these". Saved me a couple hundred dollars.
When I bought mine, I knew very little about them. I was actually going to look at another car over in northern WV, but decided to see what else they had on the lot, before driving over an hour to get there. The only other V-8 that would hold four kids, was the Jeep. So I did a crash course study on them by interwebz before I went.
DIDN'T like the other car, so I took the Jeep for a test drive - I was SOLD! And I felt like I was being SUCH a 'grown-up,' by getting the smaller V-8... D'OH.
I test drove a Hemi Commander 2 weeks later (traded my wife's van in on a newer Dodge Van, and decided to test drive the Commander while I was killing time). DEFINITELY wish I'd gotten the Hemi after THAT. MUCH better power-to-weight ratio, and the gas mileage is about the same. I have a 50' commute (walk!) to work in the morning, and barely put 6k miles a year on my Jeep. The Hemi would've made a big difference on driveability here in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.
CRAZY thing about mileage; I was pulling between 9.5 & 10.5mpg around town (it's Superchipped; I run an 87 octane tune, but 89 octane gas). I hafta go to Lancaster, PA once every other year, and Buffalo once or twice a year; otherwise, I rarely even leave Allegheny Co. (Pittsburgh)! On those trips, I might pull 19.8 or 19.9mpg - not QUITE 20mpg.
So in September, I add spacers (couldn't find a set of wheels with the proper offset for it, that didn't look 'ghetto'
), the lift kit, and bigger tires (245/60/17's came on it - went 265/60/17's with the Cooper ATPs). I also had the bigger Fastman throttlebody installed at that time, so your first thoughts are gonna be, the gas mileage is gonna
suuuuuuuuuuuuck...
Two weeks later, I go to Buffalo. In heavy rain, with intermittent a/c usage, I get 21.9mpg going up there. :boxed: In clear, sunny weather coming back, I get 22.2mpg!!!
And YES - I used the Superchips tuner to
adjust for the new, BIGGER, tire size before I went!!!
I'm now pulling 12 -14mpg around town as well. So when I WIN the Powerball, and drop the crate 392 Hemi in it, I can't WAIT to see how much my mpg picks up
then!!! :favorites37: