I am about to purchase my 1st RX8 (230, Red, Red/Black Leather). Have looked at 350Z, Z4, Crossfore but the RX8 beats the lot for looks, price and has 4 seats and a boot ! But I do 80-100 miles per day and at 18 mpg will visit my local petrol station at least once every 3 days !?! Should I worry. What's the norm for MPG ?

 

you're going to have to do a search on this one. your MPG may vary. is your 80-100 mile commute mostly highway? city? both?

 

Both

 

yea it varies greatly with the style of driving just put it this way if your going to buy a car like this don't worry about the gas drive it how its meant to be you only live once if you want good gas mileage go buy a hybrid car.

 

Filling up every 3 days would be a pain. You should consider another car if that's an issue.
I reckon you should get 18-21 mpg, seeing that you do a fair amount of highway driving.

 

How you drive it will determin your MPG. If you drive it hard around town you might get 12mpg. If you you dont 17mpg is easy to get. If you drive it hard on the hwy 20mpg, if not you can get 27. On average I get 22mpg mixed driving. Figure about 300 miles and the add fule light comes on. It could be 360+ miles if its almost all hwy. My best was a little over 400 miles all hwy and almost on "E" empty. Mine is an auto. A six speed will be a little lower mpg. MPG is not important it's a great car and a good value! Sometimes I fill it up everyday and I dont mind, it's so much fun to drive. Its my 12 Mazda.

 

it depends. from reading the forum i see people get 12 city driving it granny style to 19 city driving it relatively hard. i would say most people fall into the 14-17 city range. personally i've done 3 and a half fill ups. The first three I drove it granny style. 98% of the time shifting before 3.5K rpm. The other 2% below 4.5K rpm. The half tank I drove harder shifting anywhere from 3K-6K. First three fillups I got 15.6mpg. The half was 15.5 mpg. I do about 90% city.

This is NOT a car to get for fuel efficiency. 18/24 is lower than what someone might expect for a car of that size, but the problem is the mpg you get is probably going to be 2-3 mpg lower than that. Some people ARE experiencing mileage better than the 18/24 and they're not driving it granny style either, so keep that in mind. But if you want to play the odds, chances are against you getting one that gets 18/24 or better. On the other hand I'm going to assume your 80-100 mile commute is mostly highway so I would guess you would reach about 20mpg.

A Prius would be a better car if you wanted to save money for that god awful commute, but the 8 would make the commute much more fun (unless of course it's all traffic).

 

I broke 24 mpg on my last two tanks - 100% highway
I've also done 13-14 mpg when all city

 

It's pretty bloody good for a 200+ car that can run quarters in the 14s, don't you think? It's a sports car, people, it will be thirsty!

 

you said boot. I'm guessing you're in australia or england. might want to check with someone from those areas as they might have different specs from the american version, and people from your area would be more familiar with the type of driving to be expected.

 

i do about 40 mile trip back and forth from work 5 times a week...... im only getting 13-15 mpg.... so im paying about 27-28$ every 3 days for gas..... it blows.

 

Barbs,

I do 60 miles a day, 3 days a week. My drive is 80% motorway-style dual-carriageways and the rest is city.

If I cruise to work. I manage 24 MPG and if I am in a rush the worst I get is 18 MPG. When I have driven on long motorway journeys I have managed up to 26.5 MPG.

This and my other weekend driving generally takes 3/4 a tank of fuel. And I generally fuel up when I go shopping, at the weekend.

I am going to increase my mileage to 140 miles a day, four times a week, soon. So I will be filling up, every couple of days. Lucky, I have supply of chep fuel, just around the corner.

The thing to not of is that In the UK, (I am making an asumption, here) the RX-8 runs fine on 95 RON, BP Ultimate and Shell Optimax do not seem to make any difference to the running of the engine. Cars like the 350Z and S2000 (which are a few thousand more to purchase) run better on 98 RON. There are considerable differences in cost of fuel per mile. Also look at service intrevals, costs, oil usage,e tc.

Also, if you need more then 2 seats, you need to run multiple vehicles.

All in all, The RX-8 is the best compromise.

 

I get around 17 mpg on average, which works out to about 220 miles a tank. I've only broken 20 mpg on one trip...up to Lake Tahoe (about 20 mpg) and back down (22 mpg). Most of my driving is mixed and for that I usually get around 16 to 17 mpg. If there was just one thing I could change about the car, I'd up the gas mileage so that I could average 20 mpg in mixed driving. Otherwise, I love it!

~ Matt

 

i get 20-22 mpg on all or mostly highway miles. but work commute 5 days a week is all city and i get 13-15.

 

Thanks to all for the information, comments and feedback.

Tomorrow, I place the order ! As Crosswound says "you only live once" ! :D

 

At first I was getting only 16 mpg....as the engine gets broken in I've climbed to 18.5 mpg city driving with some freeway speeds. I expect it to get even better. I'm hoping for 20 mpg....of course even if I got only 16, I'd be fine with that because I love the car.

 

I filled up for the second time in my new 8 this morning.

My mileage was 19.85 mpg.

Not bad since the car isn't even broken in yet. This was 80% freeway driving, and I was being pretty easy on it.

 

well I hate reading all this MPG post and see you all very low.. Im never lower then 20mpg..thats if Im hard on it.. usally I get 22-25mpg.

 

I do have a 100 mile commute also and I like to buy gas at home where it's cheaper and not on the way or in the work location.

When I drove the RX-8 daily, I ended up filling every 2 days (200 miles plus a few personal miles).

 

IMPERIAL gallons, not US gallons. UnitedStatesians need to note when fuel consumption figures are given by members in the UK and Canada. You may not wind up in this situation but you can't compare MPG when a 'G' != a 'G'.

 

Daily 50 mile drive on surface streets with AC on gets me about 20.5 mpg (MT with 4K+).

 

i just filled my tank for the first time and got an average of 17.88mpg. i did as was suggested by filling it until the pump stopped fueling. after getting in and starting it, i noticed the gauge was not on full. i could add a little more than three gallons more. we'll see how this tank will fare. also, this tank was a cross between city/highway driving and spirited/normal driving. the car saw over 7k rpms with under 300 miles on the clock. (yea, i'm breaking it in the correct way)

yamajj

 

See my signature file...

 

On the highway I have gotten 24.+mpg on a reliable basis driving at a steady 75 mph. The car is a base automatic and it was built in June, 2004. Around town, our roads are mostly straight speed is around 45 mph and I get around 20 mph on a regular basis. Not driving Granny style, but also not the fastest off the line at a traffic light. Air conditioning is always on and is very adequate.
I can't say that the gas has been a terrible issue because the car being so unique has made up for the little extra cost in fuel. BTW...I have put 5000 miles on the car since taking delivery early August 2004.
I did get to check out a Lotus Elise yesterday at a Palm Beach Jaguar dealership and it is pretty amazing. It gets terrific fuel mileage (around 30-35 mpg) but is around $45,000, has no back seat and a not so comfortable ride to say the least. Delivery wait 1 year. I also looked at the G 35 (terrible back seat, head hits rear window) with a very snobby dealership and a Crossfire prior to getting our Rx8. We still feel that we made the right choice. I think the only regret might be not getting the sports package but, the ridewas a little stiffer.

 

I've had my 6 speed 2005 RX8 for 5 months now with all of 1500 miles on it. It seems to average between 17 and 21mpg but highway and a/c on does affect it. Also I have tried all 3 grades of gas 87 - 89 - 93 it did not seem to affect the mileage and I didn't feel a difference in perf. I drive it pretty normal, changing gears by sound, mostly driving in 4th.