Long term fuel economy
 

For what it is worth, the chart below shows my fuel consumption records from purchase to date

Interesting... my view is that fuel economy all depends on how hard you push it.

Cruising at 110km/h in cruise on the freeway I get better than 10l/100K.

Driving more aggresively (around town with the occasional beep at 9200rpm) I usually get around 13+

Timbo,

Nice Data!

Cheers,
Hymee.

I'd agree -- actually, to drive this car economically, you pretty much have to keep it under 3250rpm in any gear … which is no fun at all ;)

How come you get this figure mate... I am averaging around 13L even I drive 70% Highway. If 90% Highway I get 12L... why 10L?

I am cruising at 100kmh ... is that not good in 6th gear?

CBD driving - I will get 20L/100km :p

It's all to do with the right foot. If you insist on exercising it, especially through the gears (and let's face it, this car does sound good at 8,000+rpm :p ) you pay the consequences … at the fuel pump … and occasional speeding fine :eek:

Takahasi... I'm trying to work out why the 10L figure...I got better than 10 on both the trip down and back from the Audax Alpine ride.

I was expecting around 12...I used cruise control almost all the way, which I think is more economical.

Also, this was 100% freeway, which may make a big difference to the average??

Do you use cruise much?

I got 9.8/100 mainly freeway to Melbourne at Xmas fully laden.

And I recall Timbo does the Sydney-Canberra freeway weekly.

And I read in American threads wildly varying consumption figures.

Every rx8 must be an individual!

mine has a lot of freeway - say 75 percent - I use c/c set at 120kph, and I reckon f/c never dips below 11L/100K. To do so requires cruising at less than 110kph: ideally below 3250rpm. But I'd like to experiment with resetting the ecu.

I also read lots of posts where some yanks cruise at 5-6k. I'm sorry but you aint gonna get good fuel economy once that secondary injector fires up.

With fuel prices the way they are at the moment, I thought it'd be prudent to haul Timbo's thread up from the depths.

I've just achieved my best fuel economy yet. I filled up this week at 114.9cents/litre and got economy of 10.9l/100km's. That equates to 559km's out of a tank based on the stated capacity of 61 litres. Hymee has squeezed over 62 litres in, but he rolled up to the pump out of fuel :eek: . Me, I have yet to drive over 500km on a tank, but having gotten so close on this tank, I'm building up the courage to give it a burl.

Righto, these are the factors that I think could have contributed to these figures:


1. The tank was a 40/60 mix of city and country driving.

2: I have recently switched to BP Ultimate, from Shell Optimax.

3: I am pretty easy on the brakes, so I don't spend a lot off time accelerating back up to speed.

4: I had the re-flash to "G" at the 10000Km service. (I've now done 13500km)

5: I've had my 8 since February, I'm becoming better acquainted with the car, it shows in my driving....the gear changes are smoother!

6: The car is now run in.

7: I run my tyres at 36psi.

8: Just me in the car for the duration.

9: I never exceeded 7500rpm. Mainly 4000/4500 gearchanges.


I didn't consciously try to set a record for this tank, so I was a little surprised :) .
How are you guys going?

Regards, Gomez.

Must do an update, but that sounds on the money to me, for mixed driving. It is possible to do better but it's a very boring drive ;)

I've been keeping track since I got my RX8 at the end of May. The huge increase in L/100km was the Mazda drive day recently. My driving habits are/were:

For the first 4 weeks pretty much I drove 5 - 7 days a week 100km round trip each day, 90% freeway 80-110km/h cruising. That takes into account the first 8 figures. After that I spent a minimum of 1 day a week doing the same 100Km round trip, the other 4 work days were 12km drive to the station and 12km back in the evening. The 2 10.xx L/100km were after a 300km 110km/hr cruising to Hamilton and back. So 600km round trip.

All entries are fill the tank up, no $10 splash here and there. Petrol used has been a variety of Shell Optimax (8 fill ups), Caltex Vortex Gold (10), BP Ultimate (5) and Mobil Synergy 8000 (2). I'll add a basic graph image in a followup.


Litres L/100km Est Max Distance
53.13.......11.91.......512.06
53.35.......12.03.......507.09
53.54.......11.70.......521.59
23.98.......12.01.......507.99
52.81.......11.22.......543.70
51.76.......11.02.......553.55
54.56.......11.81.......516.53
53.55.......11.75.......518.98
55.76.......12.28.......496.77
51.13.......11.84.......515.39
56.74.......11.89.......512.85
58.51.......11.76.......518.88
56.75.......10.77.......566.27
57.87.......12.17.......501.44
51.07.......11.53.......529.26
55.28.......12.11.......503.85
51.35.......11.88.......513.66
56.28.......12.52.......487.31
51.86.......12.16.......501.67
55.88.......12.78.......477.29
18.26.......10.52.......579.60
53.47.......18.93.......322.19
58.79.......12.40.......491.92
34.60.......11.22.......543.53
60.16.......11.85.......514.89

Looks like the figures didn't come out as spaced as I would have liked. I'll have a play with editing the previous post.

The graph I'm adding here contains the L/100km obtained at each fill up, plus a running average (add all L/100km together and divide by total number of fill-ups at each fill up) and an overall L/100km obtained (total km and litres work out L/100km at each fill up).

The current average is 12.08L/100km and the current overall L/100km is 12.01L/100km.

I get crap economy around town doing lots of short trips (around 10km) - I get 14-15L/100 and I keep the car under 4000 RPM because it's just getting warm at the end of a 10k trip.

On a recent long run from Brisbane to Yeppoon I got 10L/100 using cruise control in 6th, keeping it under 3500 RPM, but plenty of overtaking (where I am far from conservative with gear selection and acceleration). Tyres were at 38 PSI and air con was on the whole time. So I'm not unhappy with the fuel economy on long trips.

Hmmm, so far, my best economy is 9.3L/100km over a 300km stretch, ALL highway... cruising at or below 117km/h (which keeps it under 3750rpm, ie, first set of ports open only)... normally, around town, no matter how conservative I try to be (I try, doesn't mean I succeed ;)) is about 14.5-15L/100km.

I don't seem to be doing as well as you guys on my petrol consumption. Haven't done 2,000km yet, but only seem to get about 15.5l/100km, pretty much city driving. Mostly cruise around 3k and only go up to 4 -4.5 k before changing gear. Any tips?

Yeah, more miles. My first few tanks were in that range....

I think I may have beaten pepe...

9.1 l/100km South West Rocks to Sydney recent long week-end (i.e. double points) and p-plate daughters driving most of the way.

We are approaching 50,000 km which I feel sure is improving fuel economy. (Thinks; must look up another Timbo thread, replacement tyres.)