Poor fuel economy on 2002 P5?
 

Hi guys..

Just picked up a used 2002 P5 in October. I'm new to this forum, so I hope you guys can lend me a hand.

I'm getting what I consider to be pretty poor fuel economy. I should say that 90% of my driving is city driving going 8 km to work and back each day.

I do about 380 KM before I get to a 1/4 of a tank and my low fuel light goes on. When I fill up I put in between 43-45 liters. To me this sounds pretty bad, my old 2000 Sunfire would do about 450-475 on about 45 liters.

Does anyone else have any city driving figures to compare to or have any suggestions? The oil was changed before I got the car, and I just had them change the air filter last week.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Just wanted to say, Welcome to the club. Sorry I couldn't give you an answer though. I'm sure there is someone to help you though.

I get 450km on every 47L tank. The car's fuel economy will improve as mileage increases.

With both warming up the car in the mornings and city driving, the milage you've reported is unfortunately about the same as mine. I really am not impressed with these numbers, if there's anything anyone can suggest to improve this, please do.

Crash, Welcome to our happy little corner of the net, and to our Club. There are TWO BIG fridge'S in the corner with anything you can think of in them...help yourself...of course only take what you can LEGALLY have.

make yourself at home on one of the big fluffy couches, kick your shoes off, put your feet up on one of the tables, yes we are allowed to do that, mom don't care....and take it easy.

oh...btw....every once in a while a food fight breaks out...so you may not want to wear nice clothes here.

Welcome!!

As for your gas mileage....it sounds about average......we don't do all that well with ONLY city driving....I know that mine do get what I consider decent milage out on the open road though...as I have done some long distance cruising at 85 mph and still achieved 29-31 mpg running with the A/C on, the car loaded to the top. I didn't think that was too shabby. There is no telling what kind of mileage I would get with just me in the car...and keeping the speed down.....LIKE THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN!! LOL

If you drive your car hard, you will get bad mileage.. such as constantly accelerating like a mad man and/or woman, and of course it depends on how the citydriving actually is... lots of ligh stops?... warming the car up? your car have less than 10k km?... mine is better now... i have just about 13k km, and my milage has gone up a tad.

Thanks for the warm welcomes guys.

When I bought the car, it had about 14000 KM on it. Now it has about 15000.

I only let the car warm up maybe 30-60 seconds and then drive really slow, keeping the RPM below 3K. I try not to even use the defroster or floor mode heating to avoid using the AC compressor.

My city driving is basically normal driving , light stops, a few KM at 60 KM/H, then stop.. etc. The same route in my Sunfire yielded about 450 KM per tank of 45-47 liters. Granted that was in the summer, but I expected this car to do better then this.. maybe it will improve in the winter.

Also should mention it's automatic... which probably hurts.

I know after about 10,000 miles on my 02 P5 I started getting a little better mileage. I am in the U.S. am in a hurry so sorry I can't go through all the numbers. Maybe try changing your oils wieght. I switched to 5w-30 for the winter around that 10,000 mark after was when I noticed a little better mileage. Not extremely, just about 2 or so mpg total (averaged the highway/city driving) on a good day. a number of factors could effect that though so don't jump on me about saying "oil gives better gas mileage". I could have a freak engine or it just broke in a little around that mark

Hope that helps man...

Re: Poor fuel economy on 2002 P5?
 

hmmx0r... i have ran my car down to all but 3 liters and i have squeezed 610KMS out of that 52L this is all city driving... and i rev my engine pretty good usually to 3K, merging = 4K, assholes = 5.5K

Yeah our cars do eat up a lot of gas. I began taking notes of my mileage early on, and how much gas I put in her. I never have less then 1/4 of gas, so I have to estimate it, but I had put in 8.65 gallons and it only gave me around 175 miles which translates to a little bit pass 20 miles per gallon, which sucks. This is with stop and go traffic next to no highway driving, and I rev to about 3000-3500 rpm's before I switch gears. But at highway I'm getting close to 31 mpg.

How much do you guys spend in a normal week for gas? I live in San Diego where gas is very expensive, a 91 octane at ARCO cost me $1.70 per gallon. I'd go prolly $20+ per week. I used to drive a 1994 corolla I'd spend $12 a week.

I have no real complaints, I just blame it on the 2.0l engine. "Mom it eats a lot because its bigger."

I think my dad's 1999 camry LE V6 and the pro5 has the same mpg for us, and I can tell u my car gets off the line a tad faster then the camry.

Haha...you think that's bad...I get about 160kms with 40L of fuel in one of my cars.

I've had my 2002 P5 for almost a year now and do quite a bit of driving with it. This is what I've noticed:

I can get around 660 km on a full tank (55L) I'm guessing. I do mostly highway driving and if I keep the speed around 120kph. I've gotten 612km before the fuel light came on. When I filled her up it still had just 10 L in the tank.

I noticed though that my fuel economy really goes down when I push her above 140kph.

Hope this helps.
Shane

I usually stay away from ARCO...their gas for some reason just evaporates to quickly. Go with Shell (Texaco), Chevron, or some bigger name. When I put in Texaco gas instead of ARCO, I notice a slight increase in mileage. I believe that this maybe due to some of the additives that they add to the gas.

Ive posted this before, and heres what I get.

2002 Protege 5, manual tranny, K&N filter added on 8-8-02.

Please comment on my numbers. Thanks

http://members.cox.net/mazdaprotege5/MPG.gif

80% of the time I use ARCO, never really noticed a difference between different brands, though. Around here the other brand names are like 20-30 cents more per gallon, I don't think I can afford to pay nearly $2 per gallon on gas even if ARCO does go out fast. I either spend more for a little bit more miles or get less miles but spend a little less, its all the same $$$ anyways.

I'll give it a try though, might try Chevron, but I'll never use 76, that company here in San Diego is always hella expensive. Now if I can get my dad to register my car at the NAVY station, I can buy their gas, shit its only like $1.40 for the premium, always 10-20 cents less then ARCO, and don't notice a difference.

Hey so...is it me or in San Diego, the highest octane is 91, never seen any where higher around here. People talk about 93 octane I'm like damn I wish I was there.