Raptor75

Had any of you with poor gas mileage ever had it fixed by a visit to the dealer. It seems most people report the dealers telling them they can't do anything, live with it. I'm hoping I'm wrong here and some of you had some luck. By poor I mean 10 to 14mpg.

jaguargod

Yes, I did. When I first got it, the complimentary tank of gas was gone in 3-4 days. I calculated the next tank at 13 mpg. I took it back and told the dealer that I was getting "**** poor gas mileage". He had a tech drive it, and they confirmed it. I believe that they changed the plugs and flashed the ECU. I started getting 18-19 mpg after that, so I guess it worked. I just wish they could do it again so that I could get 25 mpg.

Ike

Or you could trade it in on a Mazda 3, that would fix it

dmorales

No they just put a couple strips of duct tape across your intake leaving a half inch sized hole open!
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PAREJAHOTST8 CAM

brillo

1. check and clean your airfilter and MAF
2. if your over 30K mi, change your plugs
3. Double check to make sure your on the latest flash
4. make sure your tires are at 32psi

more advanced options:
1. RP tranny and diff fluid
2. RP 5W-20
3. Mazsport Interceptor ECU

8_is_enuf

Here's a tip. When you pull away from a traffic light, don't accelerate any faster than the other cars around you. I did this and went from 14 to 23 MPG. I used to drive like an Ahole and I got bad mileage. Now I drive reasonably and get the same mileage as any other car I rent (I rent a different car every week as I travel on business.) My last two rentals have gotten worse mileage than my 8. Something about that car drags it out of you.

Raptor2k

23? City driving?

I don't know what to say...how many miles do you have on your 8?

Cooder

He definitely doesn't mean mostly city driving with the 23 mpg. With city driving, you're probably not going to use up the tank on one outing (like you might cruising on the fwy over a long distance), meaning he'd have a LOT of startups. Every time you have to start up the engine, that alone uses up a lot of gas. That's another factor with city driving that no one has really mentioned.

Cooder

I want to report something about oil according to the level on the dipstick. Whenever I get an oil change at my dealership, they fill up to the top line on the dipstick. I drive conservative so it always takes me 3000 miles for the oil level to reach the bottom of the dipstick. When I'm doing mostly city driving and the oil level near the top line, I get 19 to 20 mpg. However, when the oil level is down to the bottom line (~3000 mile for me), mostly city driving gets me 17.5 to 18.5 mpg. This is when I have not added any oil.

When this happened recently, I was worried that my engine was going downhill because I have over 50,000 miles on my car. I figured even though the oil level was down to the bottom line, I should be ok because the low oil light didn't go on and I was only at 3000 miles on that oil. At that point I decided to do an experiment by adding a quart of oil (which got the oil level right about midway between the two lines). My next tank of mostly city driving went back up to around 20 mpg! Keep in mind, this is without an oil change. The conclusion here is that (1) oil level, and possibly its effect on the relative amount of clean oil, affects mpg and (2) you should keep the oil WELL above the bottom line on the dipstick.

Finally, when I got an oil change after the above episode, filled up the gas tank, and went on a long-distance cruise at 70 mph, I was back to 23 mpg, indicating nothing is wrong with my engine.

Chrisbert

I always get just short of 260 miles on 13 gallon fillups with a mixture of 70% city / 30% hwy. And, I've noticed the oil thing too.

Whitehot

8_is_enuf

I am almost always driving in mixed conditions (in Atlanta). Even when I go exclusively to the highway my mileage gets better by only 1 mpg. (I think because of the high rpms.)

Raptor75

Just to refocus, has anyone with a new car with very poor mpg gone to the dealer and had them fix the problem?

Thanks for your response "Jaguargod".

Cooder

That's not a silly comment that you can assume everyone does. My oil was not below the bottom line when my mpg started going down. What I'm saying is some people might not even be at the bottom line before the mpg suffers. When I wrote keep the oil above the bottom line, I meant keep it WELL above the bottom line and probably somewhere closer to the midline. I didn't mean people need to be told to not let the oil go below the bottom line. Give me a break.