Gas mileage tip! (What have you been getting?)
 

Make sure you tire pressure is at least 32psi on all tires, shift at 3 to 3500k, not BEEP! Or skip gears. 1st, to 3rd, to 5th. or so. Whatever floats your boat. Its worked for me. I do 80% city driving and avg 19mpg, but still have fun! BEEP! When I do nothing but hwy, I have gotten a amazing 29mpg. It can happen.
I also log my info on https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do

Q and A:
What have you all been getting and in what driving conditions??

I didn't buy an RX-8 for fuel efficiency...but I know that keeping the RPMs low (2-3g's) makes a HUGE difference. Someone was saying about getting more mpg after putting more miles on their cars...I bet it's just that after a while they learn how to drive it more efficiently. I know I get way better milliage now than when I first got the car... :cool:

gas mileage tip #2: lay off the gas.

gas mileage and power output get better on rotaries as they get past their infancy

this is normal gas milage for me, my first car was a lt1 v8 trans am, then my winter car is a 91 tempo ... noth had the same gas milage. so the rx8 getting 300+km on a tank of gas is amazing for me!!

32's the way to go

Oy. That's the maximum tire pressure. For the proper recommended pressure for our application, check the plaque inside the driver's door jamb. It lists 32 psi.

WTF!! 51 psi? your crazy. that has to be terrible for your tires.

umm.. skipping gears bad for synchros, no?

The only why mine gets better then 12mpg is to let it sit in the drive way. But al least Mazda is ignoring the problem. :rofl:

side note: i went through 1/4 tank and managed to drive 67 miles mostly highway. my gf's toyota highlander (i understand the tank is bigger but not by much) drove the same distance and the gas needle moved only a tick.

i usally do 4-6 on the highway. up until last week i never really used 5th. but now i normally don't skip gears anymore unless im downshifting

My gas mileage sucks. I get about 13-15, if I'm lucky. I had heard that shifting it at higher rpm's would help some. My tires have 32psi in them. What's funny about that is that when I bought new tires, that's what they put in them. I took the car back to them because I had a flat and it had damaged the tire. They said that they wouldn't honor my road hazard warranty because I wasn't running 45psi in the tires. I've never heard of running that much in these tires. Heck, who knows.

My gas saving strategy is called: Chicago Transit Authority

After that, I've been at a consistent 17.5mpg since I bought the car. I'm at 24.5K.

Tip #4: park in garage and don't drive

^ NY's MTA... just hope they don't organize another strike.

Yup...I do that one too. Drive the Tahoe. It actually gets better mileage on the highway than the 8. Hell, my LS1 Trans Am got better mileage than the 8.

I'd been wanting to ask this, is skipping gears ok!? I mean a lot of times I have no need for fifth on road trips, by the time I get to a good speed in fourth and I'm ready to put it in cruise, there isn't a need to go to fifth. I was just assuming it would be bad on the car to skip the gear.

As long as you match the revs when skipping 5th, I dont see how it could possibly be bad.

Gas tip #5: Buy a car thats meant for mileage, not spirited motoring.

I'm with you, I skip gears often...at least for casual driving.

And downshifting gets those rpms up there...this is more gas consumption. ;)

After 22k miles I have finally learned the secret to getting decent fuel mileage...I quit driving it like it's a go-kart all the time. The car is just so much fun that I have a hard time going through a tank of gas without spinning it up to redline a couple of times and taking turns hard enough for the DSC to kick in.

Now that the initial rush of ownership has subsided I find that I can limit my trips to the red line to maybe once a tank. And the cost of replacing that first set of tires has helped me limit those eight-tenths turns.

Guess I'm getting old.

Repost

Yeah, I definatly match rev's when skipping fifth, that's a huge sigh of relief, I was so worried that was going to kill my car completely.

Raptor:
I've been following your saga of horrible gas mileage and was wondering: Have you taken your car on a road trip yet to see what kind of highway mileage you get?

Just curious as to whether your highway mileage also sucks...

I bought my RX-8 from Autobarn at about the same time you did, but I'm getting 19 mpg in city driving.