ok I'm new to this, but I hope someone could help me out, about 2 months ago I purchased a Mazda 3, 5 door automatic and I noticed that my gas mileage is not really good, I'm only getting about 240 to 250 miles per tank which is not what the specs for the car says.. is anyone else here having the same problem? or can someone give me any clues as to what I could try... by the way I have tried putting in regular 87 octane gas and also 93 and noticed that putting in 93 gave me worst mileage than 87.. please let me know if there is anything that I should be doing?

 

wow... not good at all... i am getting 330-350 depending on how much highway time... i would deffinatly say there is something wrong.... you are going through a full tank of gas right? filling it up over 12 gallons at fill... (could be as simple as a bad gas gauge..?) or could be injectors or timming...or multitudes of things... i would deffinatly take it to the dealer ship and have it checked out....

 

I'm having that problem too, except my highway mileage is fine....30-31 mpg. But my city has been around 16-18. Can someone explain why the highway would be ok and the city not? Should I take it to the dealer?

 

could be just the way you drive in the city.... high revs and late shifts eat up a lot of gas... though it is FUN!!! i would try to make an effort to keep off the gas in the city for a tank and see where you are at, if still gettin 16-18 i would take it in.... like i said it could be a number of things.... breathing problems, flow problems, timming problems, etc....

 

I have tried different things like driving softly, driving hard, my car is an automatic so I even tried driving it in the tiptronic mode and either way I'm still getting very poor gas mileage, so by now I don't think that it's me or the way I'm driving I'm thinking that there is something wrong with the car somewhere, I'm going to call the dealer to see what they say and or suggest, if anyone has anything else that I could try or do pls let me know.

 

Any word from the dealer? I spoke to a dealer today and they told me there is probably nothing wrong. They said if there was a problem with the mileage, it would affect the highway as well, but since my highway mileage is fine, there is probably nothing wrong. They also said the check engine light should go on if there was a problem. However, I'm on a new tank of gas, taking it very easy on the gas, and only have 50 miles on the first quarter tank (city driving). They also said it could take a little while while for the mileage to improve...not sure if I believe that. So not sure if I shoul dhave it checked out by my mechanic maybe or just wait and see...maybe get it loioked at during my next oil change.

 

I had a thought...is it possible that the poor gas mileage is caused by a problem with the clutch? I have noticed that the gears change with barely any pressure on the clutch...a little too easily it seems. And a few of the gears slip out of gear with a little pressure on the shifter without even stepping on the clutch. If this is a problem, I figured that the good highway mileage i've been getting is because I do not have to switch gears at all...could this be an explanation?

 

ok so I finally went to the dealer and they could not answer my question they had no clue why it was doing that, they did tell me that they were going to put some type of liquid in the gas tank and to do it again for the next 2 tanks which is what I'm trying right now to see what happens, while all this happening I ran into another issue, my door panels are starting to look like they are fading out also my 6 cd player one of my cd's melted inside of it? has anyone else heard of anything like this? I'm going to take it into the dealer again tomorrow but I mean come on now, how much problems can you have on a brand new car?

 

wow.... that sucks... a melted cd... damn!!! what/how... i don't get it... Yeah the door panels are a pain to keep clean but i don't know about fading already seems a lil pre-mature???

 

ok so how do you keep the doors clean, no matter what I do I always get like these white spots like all over the door, about the cd well I guess that wasn't much but I'm still a little worried about it as when I took it to the dealer they checked it and cleaned it and it was no problem, now it's working fine again... but the only thing that is really bothering me is the door panels I get these white spots that I'm just not sure on how to get rid of them.

 

With brand new cars before they're properly broken in they wont produce the claimed mileages. Just keep driving calmly till you get over 1k miles and then if there's still a problem, well there's a problem.

 

My MPG has been 28-32 since the first tank of gas. Modern engines don't have much of a break in period anymore. My worst tank so far has been 26MPG. I don't drive like a grandma either. That 26MPG tank had 20 or so miles over the 110MPH mark. Having said that I do drive with the cruise set 90% of the time at 65 to 75MPH.

Spencer

 

my worst tank has was 280.... only city driving no highway at all. now i try to break it up and take different ways to work to get better mpg.... yeah the break in period according to the owners manual is only like 300 miles i think.

 

I wish I did that well....my tanks are barely over 200 (220-230). I took it to the dealer today, they hooked it up to the computer and they said nothing was wrong with the car. The guy told me city driving can really produce bad mileage and that the estimates are under "ideal" conditions. After I left the dealer, I filled up the tank and calculated my mileage for the tank....18.6 mpg (mostly city but a lot of highway too). HORRIBLE. Dealer also said give it to 10,000 miles and see where it's at.

 

i normally get 220-230... when i go driving around for a couple hours like every day or so (that was over the summer when i was bored) i would get almost 300 miles per tank. i know why i dont get that many miles per tank tho, it's just the way i drive it... i've got a heavy foot i guess, not to mention i always speed and try to race people as much as possible.

Lately I've been driving it with the tiptronic and i found i get more gas mileage then when i drive it in automatic. I put it in neutral when im about to stop for a light or something too so maybe that has something to do with it... ?