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.

some older threads on this:
http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...&threadid=1022
and
http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...threadid=14919
and
http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...&threadid=2864

Why use 91-93? You're wasting your $$$. Use 87, and be happy. That's what the car is designed to run on, and it works fine.

We've got plenty of 93 octane here in Ohio if you feel you need it (hella road trip!!) :rofl:

Jim

PS - I get ~23mpg mixed city/highway back and forth to work. Car just turned over 2500 miles. FYI

You guys are luckey, gas up here is around 77 cents a liter the premium runs about 89 to 91 cents a liter, and being a small town there is only the Esso (Exxon) bulk plant that supplies the towns four stations. I go out to the reserve with my buddy cause he has a gas card and get it for around 58 cents. I look forward to getting out of town cause then I treat her to Shell gas.

How come your MPG # goes down after installing the air filter? I heard that it's supposed to increase the efficiency...!? Maybe you just floor the gas pedal after installing the "performance part"? :D

Well I bought my 2002 P5 for my kid more for the handling aspect than mileage. I figure the milage is OK, I recognize Mazda geared the P5 towards performance and less towards mileage.

My kid doesn't care about mileage, I put one of those Exxon/Mobil speed gas wands on his key chain .:o

i just got 430 km out of 39.5 litres.

that's all city with moderate to heavy lead-footing on starts. and a bunch of engine braking.

Don't forget that our cars are geared fairly low (for the 5 speeds), so you will gain decent acceleration at the expense of gas mileage. I too do mostly city driving, but I can't complain about the mileage as I had a 4 wheel drive Ford Explorer Sport with the 4L SOHC motor with 4.10 final drive before I got the P5. I got around 14 mpg in mostly city driving. After getting the P5, I have essentially doubled my mpg, to around 26 or 27 mpg in town (all figures in Imperial gallons, for our American friends). In city driving, I usually average around 400 - 450 km before my low fuel warning light comes on, and I drive fairly aggressively in town. On the highway, I can usually pull about 600 - 650 km out of a tank of gas.

Hey Mantis,

I see you're from Burlington. Me too. I haven't seen ya around though. Where you been hiding. I've got a black 5 with blue plates and eurolites. Stop me if you see me.

What brand of gas and octane level are you using? My low fuel light comes on with about 320 KM on it.. this is with an automatic doing 95% city driving and Shell 87 octane gas.

Heres mine
 

Heres mine

2002 Protege5
automatic
CANADA

http://members.rogers.com/cetheringt...DA/mileage.jpg

Re: Heres mine
 

chuck, how much city driving do you do?

I'm averaging 9.5L/100Km over the last year and a half on a manual P5.

See here for a more detailed account of my mileage.

Cheers,

Eric

I have a silver car with blue licence plate covers, black steel winter rims right now and MP5 badges on the front doors. I don't have the Sport Exhaust on right now (too noisy; I'll use it for summer). The reason you probably don't see me is that I work ALL THE TIME. I already have worked ~1000+ hours of overtime this year (yes, 1000, and I'm making the company pay for all of it). I am quite often at Chapters/Starbucks with the missus. I am also back and forth at my (almost finished) brand new house.