My mom has an S60 AWD, and she's pissed at the fuel economy. I know that the AWD has something to do with it, and I make sure that the tires are at 34 PSI all around. Is there anything we can do to try and improve the fuel economy? I'm pretty sure she uses 87 octane fuel.

 

New spark plugs and air filter. This will allowthe maximum amountfuel to burn properly rather than blow out with your exhaust.
Remove all unnecessary objects from your trunk. Remove mass, and it will require less force to accelerate.
Stay on top of oil change intervals. Old oil breaks down and loses its ability to reduce friction.
Air conditioning requires more power.
Open windows and roof racks create drag.


DRIVING HABITS:
When accelerating, pretend you have an egg between your foot and the pedal.
Try to anticipate traffic lights and stop signs so you can coast to them rather than driving and using your brakes.
Try to always keep your RPMs under the boost level. As soon as your turbo kicks in, more fuel is added to compensate. With an auto, that can be hard to do, but if you don't mash the gas pedal, the trans will shift at lower intervals.

Your 87 octane fuel shouldn't give you worse gas mileage so long as your car isn't detonating. Mine does, but other members and the volvo manual all say the car should run fine on it.


Remember, the engine is a 2.5l 5 cyl motor. That's as big as many V6's. It's also a heavy car and like you said, AWD. Mid 20's is actually good for a 208 hp car.

 

The car only has 5600 miles on it. I guess that's just what you're stuck with when you have AWD.

 

What numbers is she seeing, in what sort of driving?

Is she measuring fuel economy, or just unhappy about how quickly the needle drops?

My site includes a real-world Fuel Economy Survey that is more detailed than others. Results for the S60 here:

Volvo S60 fuel economy