HollywoodHall

We all bought the car to be fast / furious. duh. But throw us a frickin bone here.. 13-14 mpg royally sucks... flat out. and if you do any type of driving every day like myself.. that 13/14 mpg translates into $25/$30 every 3 days just to move my butt around. And that adds up faster then getting an hour long lap dance at the local strip joint............WE ARE NOT COMPLAING ABOUT THE GAS..... wait a second... YES WE ARE.. IT SUCKS!@!

Jailbreak'74

13-14 means you're beating the hell out of it around town and trying to impress people chirping your tires at every corner. Drive like a kid and lose, or drive 1/2 way responsible and save a few bucks. It's up to the owner how much gas they go through.

zoom44

someone posted the other day from a road trip at 65 mph a 27 mpg avg. i myself recently got 22.5 on a long highway trip at 80mph. i believe Elara once got 26 or 27 mpg.

is Kellybrf on Mflash? at what speed were those Highway miles done?

Nubo

The car was "meant" to do many things. Part of the early promotion of the Renesis engine included winning "Engine of the Year" award. And, a big part of THAT was projections of 30+ mpg, if I recall. I've got an RX-8 and love it as you do yours. I'm ok with the mileage but doesn't mean I'm not disappointed that the original promise of the engine hasn't materialized. I'm also interested in how this works out over time, so I do read the mileage threads.

mysql101

Is there anyone from Japan reading this and can give us your mpg? The NA ver has the lower hp ECU, but in Japan they have the full 247hp version.

Spin9k

My guess you have it spot on Jailbreak'74, either that or they got serious car trouble, or didn't pass MPG math 101. We'll never know for sure.

kellybrf

iTrader: (2)

not at all true. ill get around 14mpg w/city driving and most of it is farily conservative, keeping the rpms under 3500 and not blasting off the line at every oppertunity. some of our cars are just plain getting shitty gas mileage

Topgun

This car does not have enough torque to put in the gearing to get the engine turning slow enough to get high mpg. But who cares when you have a 9000 rpm redline. My 99 corvette turned at less than 2000 rpm at 70 mph and got 25 mpg on the highway and had 400hp. But to make it go fast you had to downshift a few gears from 6th. This is still almost as much fun as the Corvette and it is half the price. I geuss a 300+ hp RX8 would be the best of boths worlds.

quaggy

It's amazing how offended some of you get when any negative comment is made about your beloved RX-8 or its manufacturer... like someone said something nasty about your mother.

Clearly, Mazda explicitly or implicitly misrepresented the fuel mileage. All this garbage about "it's not Mazda; it's the EPA".. geez, were you born yesterday?

Even for you folks that think you are getting "acceptable" fuel mileage, consider the following.

According to EPA sticker, the 24 highway is the expected average; vehicles should be seeing between 20 and 28 on the highway. So, we should be seeing as many vehicles reporting 28 as are reporting 20.

Spin9k

I wasn't born yesterday... but you apparently were, or can't read. It IS the EPA and it's methodology, it is NOT not Mazda, or Toyota, or GM, or any car company in particular. If the EPA had the car companies do a realistic test, they would report realistic numbers - end of story - I simply don't understand how and why people such as yourself keep going back over this and say "well, it's Mazda, you fools!

But then you wouldn't be a troll, by chance, would you?

MEGAREDS

True enough. Some people have been very sensitive to fair criticism... then again, some people are just trolls and deserve the backlash they get for posting nasty. The devil is always in the details...

"Misrepresented" is too strong a word. Once EPA released the numbers and the 8 barely squeeked by the Gas Guzzler Tax, Mazda did nothing but follow the law... The EPA regulations do not allow manufacturers to make any comment about fuel efficiency other than to re-state the EPA figures. I have a folder chock full of advertising materials on the 8... not a peep about fuel efficiency, and every car sold was delivered to Mazda's dealers with a window sticker making a plain disclosure of how the 8 did on the EPA test. Do you really believe a car manufacturer that falsified the test wouldn't be hauled into court -- by consumers, by State governments, by environmentalists, by competitors? The numbers are fair, it's the real-world experience of drivers that's been disappointing.

The one fast one that Mazda pulled, as far as I'm concerned, is in the "International Engine of the Year Award." That award was based on a statement that the Renesis could potentially get in the low thirties... if that is true, its not based on the RX-8 chasis or anything concrete that's been published.

BoxerGT2.5

They wouldn't be hauled into court. But if they did the EPA administrator would do one of two things. 1. Request further testing or different testing. 2. Ask Mazda to resubmit a different "test" car. What mazda (or ANY manufacturer) submits as data is compared against EPA testing/data. If mazda (or ANY manufacturer) finds that the EPA's data is misrepresentative, resulting in the EPA to override mazda (or ANY manufacturer's) data; then the manufacturer has the right to file a petition and consequence hearing.

Again, don't get me wrong I love my car...everything about it. Except the fact that when I look at the trip and see 145 miles and fill up the tank of 14 gallons.

mysql101

Mazda can submit a million RX-8s for the EPA to test, but the result will be the same.

The car isn't flawed, the TEST is. So it doesn't matter how many cars are submitted, or who does the test.

Why you not understand this?

BoxerGT2.5

I'm not arguing the test. I argue that Mazda (or ANY manufacturer) has nothing to do with the data. So when people say it's not Mada...it's the EPA......they arn't 100% correct.

MEGAREDS

MyRx-8yourcar: The last time I looked at the Gas Guzzler Tax, I was surprised to discover that the 8 fell within 1 or 2 mpg of having an assessment of $1000 per vehicle. That's when I realized what Canzoomer was up to... Mazda's tuned the car to avoid the tax, to maximize the HP, to preserve the cat, to allow the car to pass California's emissions... fuel mapping is tricky and filled with trade offs. Mazda clearly has a lot to do with the mileage that the car gets, but if you are suggesting they've cooked the data in some way, I think you need to back that up with something more than generalities about the EPA administrator and Mazda.

I've never seen mileage close to EPA estimates on any of my cars. Except for those members getting 12mpg or 13mpg, the Renesis seems a bit worse than what you'd expect, but that's easily explained by the design difference of the rotary engine. Also, it's my theory that the 8 is a pig when it comes to cold starts/short trips... the more you start it, the worse the fuel efficiency is. I'm consistently getting about 18mpg, but longer trips, even on city streets, seem to be better than what I'd expect. I know that people with Prius are getting far worse mileage compared to the EPA estimates, and Toyota's been struggling with that problem because the data raises expectations that they just can't meet.

I'm gone for a while... thanks for a nice thread. I think the answer to the question posed by the thread title is "No."

Xyntax

I saw on the news that the measurement EPA is using to determine MPG on vehicles is outdated. They mentioned that if they did update it and use the new formula, ALL cars here would get 2 - 3 MPG less than what's presented currently.

EPA is still on the fence about moving to the updated formula.