Day one of our Arizona Spring Break tour ended with a bang and an expletive. We were travelling North on Loop 101 in Glendale, Az, within 5 miles of our first stop, when a loud "crack" sounding like an over-enthusiastic billiard shot startled the four of us.
A plumber's van a car-length ahead in the next lane had kicked up a stone. There was no avoiding it. I guess now we'll get to see how much a new 2008 Scion xB windshield costs.
Throughout the day we'd been cruising Interstate 10 from SoCal to Phoenix, and the Scion's windshield (and grille, and bumper, and headlights) had proved to be the final resting place for hundreds of bugs. I'm not sure if our ersatz entomology collection was so complete because of it being Spring or because of the xB's snub nose and somewhat upright windshield. The rock sure hit it a ton.
We had been cruising the freeway at 75 mph all day. Other than a bit of wind noise and a somewhat "short" and busy freeway ride, the xB garnered no serious complaints from the crew. Three stops dragged our average speed down to an even 70 mph. At the 261.0-mile mark, we added 9.32 gallons for a 28.0 mpg average. 30 mpg fuel economy seems possible, but we'd have to cruise at 65 mph to get that, I think.
Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle testing @ 15,775 miles (Wednesday, March 26)
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I hate to beat a dead horse, but that fuel efficiency still seems pretty lackluster. I've made 27mpg at 78mph with my car loaded down, and I've got an extra 115 horsepower to boot.
I'll bet they can fix that these days. It's doesn't look that bad in the picture.
Wow, it seems like every vehicle in the LT fleet gets a chipped windshield at some time or the other.
Wow, i've gone to and from LA and phoenix at all hours of the day and night, never have I gotten that many bugs, I AVG 23 mpg@80mph, and my car weighs about 4,100lbs with me in it, this new xB is a bigger pig than I thought.
Trying driving 2700+ without getting bugs on the windshield, headlights
& bumper. Yeah, not gonna happen. I think just about every stop we made (in May 07, when I moved from Los Angeles to Philly), we cleaned the windshield since it looks nasty.
The XB's windshield isnt even close to the worse that I've seen :)
"The XB's windshield isnt even close to the worse that I've seen :)"
The worst I had for bugs and stone chips was my 91 Trooper. Windsheild was flat and nearly vertical. Caught every bug around.
I agree the windshield is not that bad, try to drive in Florida during the lovebugs seasons (march and September) then you'll see...
hey dan, it's the snub nose and the upright windshield. it literally ATTRACTED bugs. although i think they're more like innocent passerbys getting taken out by a runaway snowplow. we were there just two weeks prior and the little buggers were already out in full-force.
louiswei,
ha ha.
it's awful with the lovebugs.
they make your car look much worse than this scion's winshield, that's for sure.
I had a friend fly down last year and took her to Disney World for the day, during love bug season. It was only an hour and a half drive, but she laughed at how hard it was to see through the splattered windshield. When she got out, she nearly gagged when she saw the front of my car had turned black from all the love bug bodies.
We got lovebugs bad in east Texas, too. I remember running cross country events first thing in the morning when they were most active. It's really hard to breathe with lovebugs up your nose and in your mouth.