That's what sucks... I live in Atlanta, the crap-hole vortex for all traffic in the universe. I have 21 miles from door to door in the daily commute to the office... and on decent days when I leave the house before God wakes up, it's 30 minutes with traffic lights... when i leave the house at the same time as the rest of the city, it's an hour, hour and 10 sometimes... and my MPG sucks bad, down to about 14.5/15.5mpg.

Oh well, can't wait to move out of this crap-hole of traffic... hate it here. I wish the planners of this city would learn to BUILD ROADS ahead of congestion.

Cheers

 

i've been gettin 21-22 with 50/50 highway/city driving on my commute....which is 100miles a day. I'm happy with that. I even made 300 miles on a tank once

 

that's klingon

 

no, what they need to do is time the damn lights, which they said they won't do because it will cost too much money...10mill for the whole city. BUT, they have no problems spending 6x that amount to widen 1.25 miles of 1 road!

that's a great phrase...crap-hole vortex
left home at 7:10 this morning. 11 mile trip. got to work at 8:13. thanks atlanta, because of you, i was late to work today.

 

He was replying in Klingon to the star trek statement I made earlier.

 

WOW! I have been doing precisely the same thing. I was going to post it tonight and you saved me a lot of writing. I can add just a few more things I'm doing to help out with my MPG.

First let me qualify before I start because when you start talking about driving like granny it always brings out the speed freaks. My favorite driving is from 6-9K and believe me, I have done my share. I love to rev match down to 2nd gear and power out of a turn. I guess you could say it is my instinct to never let anyone pass me. But!... The other day I put $40 worth of gas in my 8 and was in shock all the way to work. So now I've been driving as conservative as possible with the occasional relapse.

My normal gas milage is 15-16 MPG. After changing my driving habits it is more like 19-20. This is mixed driving with 30% Interstate and 70% metro for my daily commute. When I get behind a slow car now, my attitude is to use it as an excuse to drive slow. There is always someone who wants to put-put around. Now instead of bitching about the slow drivers... I is one! This evening on the way home I got behind a slow tractor trailer. I used it as an excuse to shift 1-3-5 and just enjoy the surroundings that I usually don't take the time to see. People were flying bye and I didn't care anymore. Besides it gives me a chance to show my car off to more people.

I'll still drive it like hell at the proper time.

psbjames1970, thanks for your post and I'm "behind you" 100%.

 

Thanks, but I warn you... you will still be stalked by those that will say ... buy a Corolla...

 

LOL, that's fine. I still drive my 95 Altima that my son totaled and I fixed up for $1500 and my 95 Toyota pick-up.

 

Yeah, but the cool part... you have a LOT more options than those guys who post on the Corolla website talking about getting more performance out of their car, with everyone there answering "Get an RX-8!" :D

Krankor
05 Shinka 6MT

 

main reasons are:

money

time

other resources

willingness of other people to do what you want/need

etc

but I think money is the biggest factor, I could do some great things if I had the money I need (poor engineer with tons of ideas that can't be pursued due to this )

 

Update:

Well I have modified my technique in driving the RX-8 to try to get the best from both worlds...

Here is the updated technique (basically the technique that Zoom44 suggested but in more detail)

1. Rev it up and enjoy the acceleration, but get to 5th or 6th as soon as you cruising (i.e. not accelerating anymore).

2. Anytime cruising between 30-50 MPH, (note not accelerating) use 5th gear

3. Anytime cruising over 50 MPH, use 6th gear

4. If you need extra power to pass, just go to your preferred gear, when you are cruising again, go back to 5th or 6th. Example: A BLEEPY red little neon wanted to pass around me, of course the manual states that I cannot let this happen in an RX8, therefore I drop from 6th to 3rd and bolt ahead of him right at the point he thinks he has overtaken me.... PURE JOY. Left him in the dust. In fact, after the next curve, didn't see him again. Just pop back into 5th or 6th when completed your manuever and are cruising again.

This technique yields in my "suburban" driving (e.g. city driving with no traffic jams or stalls) 20.5 MPG on average (so far only two fill ups to compare on but I will keep monitoring). Not the 22 originally I saw, but hey I gave it some thought and realized I don't want to drive like granda, it is kinda disrespectful for that car.

So... Lessons learned from this little adventure...

1. There are few of us that believe the RX8 should NEVER be driven like granda. I respect those folks and now agree. But you don't have to drive it like its stolen. Hey, I want the ladies to see me...not think I hot wired the vehicle.

2. Just a small modification in your driving technique can yield a 1-3 MPG increase w/o robbing you of the joy in driving the vehicle. However, this only works if the RX8 doesn't sit in traffic all the time. If the RX8 isn't flying, it is drinking heavily... (the curse of the rotary)...

3. AVOID traffic jams when possible. You may get more joy and better gas mileage taking the back roads than driving on the clogged ateries. I understand for some of you, this isn't a choice.

One more thing, gas quality and additives DO impact the MPG. How did I find that out, I asked on of the Mazda regional technicians. This can cause the most variation in MPG (more than driving technique). Those states that add ethanol to gas will yield a lower MPG rate (ethanol burns faster). What he recommended is that if your state does add ethanol (some states add 10%) to gas, then stick to premium ONLY. Higher octanes don't burn as quickly and counteract the ethanol effect. Other additives can have an effect as well.

Wonder if a hybrid version of the RX-8 could improve stop and go MPG rate (you could have the electric motor only kick in at lower speeds and essentially shut the rotary off at that point). But then the hybrid technology is too expensive to implement on an overall cost efficient basis right now.

 

After reading this thread I tried a similar driving technique with my Protege5 for one full tank of daily work commute (33 miles each way mixed 20% city and 80% highway )

I never get higher than 26~27 mpg driving in a spirited fashion and cruising at 78 mph in the highway. For my experiment I decided to use light throttle instead of wot like I normally do, shift at 2500rpm and cruise at 68 mph (any slower and I'll get run over by semi's). I also used the cruise's controls to slow down and speed up when needed.

For this one tank I got average 31 mpg, which is my P5's hwy rating so I was surprised to get it in mixed conditions! :D And one important thing, it took me only 5 more minutes to get to and from work, I thought the 10mph made a bigger difference.

 

best statement in the whole thread!

w00t!

:D :D :D

 

if my foot isnt in teh firewall, I'm home sleeping

 

OK... Not to beat this thread to death, but this morning I filled up after "adjusting" my driving a bit after I read this thread. Could I possibly get 22mpg while still having fun while driving my '8?

Almost. I came in at a bit over 21.8mpg!! Holy crap! I've never had mileage this high. I basically shifted around 4K from 1 to 2nd, then around 3, 3.25K for the rest of the gears. There were still some times I needed to accelerate and did. A couple squirts on the tank to 9K. And even some freeway driving in the 75-80mph range. All that, and 21.8mpg.

Not too bad. I still had fun when I wanted, but just let the car relax more when I was just "getting there."

This is all with the R-flash (my first full tank since the R-flash in fact). I'm not sure that makes a difference or not, but thought I'd mention it.

 

From several other threads, I suspect the R flash may make an improvement. Bottom line, all I can determine is that the RX8 is drinking less when moving and when in high gears (in otherwords, speed that car up!!!). I am still doing oberservations but only have been going to work and home lately. No real business trips through major cities recently.

 

maybe a complete ECU reset and then granny driving might improve it. gonna try that myself.