Why does the RX8 get so bad gas mileage? My daughters 05 gets like 200 miles or so a tank and that sucks!!! I wouldn't mind if it had 300+ hp but it only has 197.

 

So you want your daughter to have 300hp?
Anyway, tune it up.....coils, plugs.........and you may get 235-240 per tank. I get that religiously.

Anyway, you can search on why it isn't the most efficient gas user, it's been covered at nausea.

 

you bought the wrong car.

 

Shoulda did your hw before buying the car man. Very high maintenance and a gas guzzler. I avg 16-17 mpg combined. But like Mazufer said, might wanna replace coils, wires and plugs.

 

because you don't know how to drive for ****, and you don't understand the car nor does your daughter.

So yeah, just sell it, get a Civic. oh you want 300 hp for your daughter so she can crash faster? ok, plenty of choices. for example, a Rustang ... I mean a Mustang.

 

thats just right for city driving. especially around, say, houston.

 

^...don't know about that, I would consider my 235-240 in town. I don't hardly do any highway driving.
I average about 220-225 until light on, but I try not to get it that low anymore.

 

Depends for me, I used to get 16 mpg religiously then I upgraded my coils. Get in the mid to upper 18's now, sometimes with the right gas 19's commute is 30 miles (15/15) from town to town between long country roads

 

I get 19 mpg I think. Mostly Freeway. Id say 70 freeway /30 city. If I really went to the light im sure I can get 250 to 270 miles.

 

I just want to point out that gas does matter.

everytime I filled up in NJ and I gain 20 miles tank "magically".

gotta love garbage gas in NY.

 

Gas does matter, down from where the gas was made, plants use different detergents and additives, and whatnot, so even from the same gas company, different stations can affect it. There's a whole lot of things to get into when it comes to that, storage techniques, yatta yatta, but ultimately it does affect it.

The Rx8 has to be driven a certain way to really shine, if you're wanting low end torque from a V8, you're not going to get that with our cars(However, I will say, a factory Mustang isn't going to be giving you power approaching 9,000rpm.)

Make sure all maintenance is up to date as well, including tire pressures even.

Honestly, what does your daughter think of the car? Since it's her car and all..

I'll just suggest this, autocross, High Performance Driving Events(HPDE), and such, to get out and really enjoy the car for what it's made for, not going to the movies or groceries with consuming as little gas as possible. Yes, it can do that, but that's not what it was primarily built for.

If she still wouldn't like it then(I'm talking about the car it's self), then perhaps it's time for a new car. If she does, then you know what to enjoy it for.

 

^I had my local Mazda service manager tell me to only use good gas. He said Shell is the only station in my city with that kind of gas. The specific name he called it i cant recall at the moment. But it was just surprising to me. I kind of want to do a mpg comparison now with diff types of gases

 

Make a fuelly account

 

lol Yea I see those all the time. I wanted to clean my ssv before I starting recording. Before that was cleaned I got 11 mpg all highway
I am waiting till my next fill up to see what I got this time. I know its better but I don't think by too much

 

pretty sure he was referring the gas that is marked as "nitrogen enriched" by Shell.

 

OMG Myz car BlOwZ UP CUZ NO SHELL GAZ!

 

It's not that the gas itself is better. It's that in Jersey you get a lot of extra hydrocarbons in the air, and don't use as much out of the tank.

Ken

(Yes - I'm originally from New York.)

 

I'm happy with my mileage. I drive the **** out of it and take the "fun" way to and from as much as possible. My fun per gallon way out weighs my miles per gallon. If my exhaust doesn't pop when i shift, i feel cheated.

 

hmm ... you might have a point ...

 

No it wasn't that. I mean they are nitrogen enriched but the mazda service manager called it top fuel. Has anyone ever heard of that before? I'm gonna try to look it up to see if this is true.

 

Yea so I'm pretty positive shell does not use nitromethane.... So I have no clue what that guy meant when he said that.

 

Hey I live and gas up my 2008 40th Anniversary edition RX8 in New Jersey. I agree with others , I get pretty decent mileage on Jersey gas. I can get 19-22 miles a gallon in highway driving. I don't bother calculating city driving , as the stop and go plays havoc with good mileage. I actually, on long trips keeping no more than 10 mph over the speed limit, have gotten 300 miles to a tank, filling up near empty with the fuel light on. I also add 4oz of Pettit Racing synthetic fuel lubricant for Rotary engines to each tankfull, so that is also helping some.

By the way, to my calculations there is about 2.5-3 gals. left in the tank when the fuel light first goes on, so don't push your luck and be too far from a gas station. And that is a 2004-2008 RX8 tank. The 2009-2012 tanks are one gallon capacity larger.

 

I think the service manager was saying this :

http://www.toptiergas.com/

it's nothing more than a marketing gimmick really. after the Federal government LOWERED the detergent requirement years ago, the gas we use suck ***. it's just a way to "save" oil company money and "help" cars break faster so auto companies can sell more cars.

well for me, even in Stop & go traffic, if my tank is full with "NJ" gas, I still get more miles. That's a plus for me. just sucks that I have to pay 8 bux to go Jersey. Now every time I know I will be in Jersey in a first days, I will wait and not fill the tank at all, cuz I usually fill it when its 1/2 empty.

when I'm in NJ, first thing I do is go straight to the nearest gas station, Holland Tunnel exit got most of the brand that I liked not so much for Lincoln nor GWB

 

Ah I see. That might be what he was trying to get at. I assumed it wasn't extremely important otherwise it would have been said on here. He also said my ssv was stuck from said bad gasoline. Which isn't it a lot more likely that is was oil overflow?

 

Because a rotary is the ideal engine when you don't care about fuel consumption or reliability.
It kicks *** at everything else.