Well, filled up this morning and I checked the gas mileage and this tank is up... I got 28.01 mpg. Not as good as the old beater Honda I got ride of with 171,000 miles but not so bad. I guess everything is breaking in?

Best, JP

 

Mine is about 6 months old and have also been disappointed with the mileage. I don't tear around to any extent and get about 17-19 in the city.

 

It takes too long to convert from metric to imperial MPG, so I'll leave it as km/tank. For my first tank, I'll get close to 500 km or 300 miles. This isn't that bad considering I drove it faster than I normally would have, and spent close to a third of my time city driving.

In speaking with my service manager who had a 3 before they gave him a 6, he said that under mostly highway driving, I should average 600 - 650 after the car breaks which sounds reasonable considering the car has 160 hp. He did mention though that the gas mileage doesn't get noticeably better until you've put a few thousand klicks on the engine.

 

My gas mileage has been cool. I figured it to be 25 city and the best I have done is 34.2 highway and I didn't even think of looking in the manual for the break in instructions. I asked the dealer about it and the old guy told me to drive the way I woulld be driving it normally. So I roasted them up out of the lot.

 

Go here http://www.convert-me.com/en/ for easy conversion for temperature, mass, volume, distance, speed, time, pressure, energy, power, torque, fuel consumption, currency conversion. Put your number in the field that applies and hit "convert".

The fuel consumption part is here http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/fuel


-Dax Clark

 

Ive found the 3 to be extremly sensative to tire pressure when it comes to gas mileage...just a few PSI low and ive seen drops as much as 5 or more MPG. Ive been averaging about 31 on the highway and 27 around town. It all depends on how happy a foot you have...drive it like a grandma and its going to get good mileage.

 

That site is awesome!!

Thanks Dax. (note the site does download spyware though)

This says I averaged 25 mpg (us) which is about what I expect for the first few tanks. If I can eventually average 28 mpg, I'll be a happy camper since it'll be better than I was getting with my protege.

I also agree with the sensitivity to tire pressure. All cars are like that. Most people just never notice it.

 

Just checked my mileage today and this tank of fuel got 29.09 miles per gallon. That includes a good chunk of highway miles but I was doing 80-85 a good portion of that. There was also a decent chunk of stop and go mixed in... I'm happy with this and I think this is going to be the average from here on out, or so I would assume. Not so bad...

Be Good, JP

 

Well I've just finished tracking and converting 3 full tanks of gas to get mpg - all city driving in a slightly hilly city, (Nanaimo, BC) in an automatic 2.3L with about 7500 miles on it.

The average is 24.32mpg. That includes a tank of baby'ing it around and a tank of A/C on and foot to the floor, heavy, but not racing around, driving.

Tank 1: 290miles @ 23 mpg,
Tank 2: 295miles @ 24.7mpg
Tank 3: 306miles @ 26 mpg

Two things I learned which astonished me but there is no mistake.

1: The fuel gage needle shows well below the last bar (below empty) and there is still between 7.5 and 10 litres left in the tank. Thats a 55 litre gas tank. I'm tempted to carry a gas can around and see how far the fuel gage needle actually goes below empty before you completely run out of gas. My guess is at least another 40 miles.

2: This one is insane. I can't square it in my head but it did happen. The car actually got better mileage the harder I drove it. Tank 1 above was normal driving, Tank 2 was baby'ing it around literally feathering the gas pedal, and Tank 3 was hard on it and even had the A/C on for a while. Go figure.

 

NOrrth: I experienced the same thing.. If i keep the rev happy between 3 to 4K... it gets better mileage then when i baby it and shift below 3K

 

Engineers will tell you that an engine that is built for maximum efficiency will be built to run at full throttle. Consumer demand for an engine with a wider powerband, smoother operation, etc. cause manufacturers to engineer away from this optimum condition to a degree, but engines still run most efficiently at a particular rpm, and it's (to my knowledge) not going to be found at the bottom of your tachometer. I learned this by reading up extensively on hybrid cars and the engineering behind them. Writers discussed these facts when they were purporting that you will get better mileage with a hybrid if you don't baby it. In othe words, when you are demanding that the car switch from exclusive battery power to a combination of both, it is more efficient to put some real demand on the gasoline engine. Wanna get to 50 mph? You'll use less gas if you do it quicker. Not necessarily quickest (again, because engines have been tweaked for more tame powerbands, they are usually not the most efficient at the TOP of the rpm range).

-Dax

 

ok cool. So how much gas is left in your tank when you go to fill it up from dead empty? Mine's about 19%

 

Finally got a chance to drive a complete tank of highway driving and saw 30 mpg with 3000 miles on the car. Woo hoo! Even the city mpg is starting to improve now that it seems to be broken in. Loving the car!

 

I just filled up after 542 kms (47 litres). That's the best I've done so far. Before that, my best mileage was about 520kms. About 400 of those kilometers were highway.

Sure is a big difference from the Z34 Lumina I was driving before.

btw, I have a 2.3.

 

After almost 42k miles I'm getting right at 34MPG on the freeway and ~28MPG on mixed city freeway driving. All my freeway driving is with the cruise control set at 70MPH. My car is a 2.3 5-Speed. Car is totally stock and I run Mobile Delvac Full Synthetic oil.