The mileage will get better, and you will care less, the more you drive! The car is a tone of fun all around.

All of the looks you will get at the gas pump, will be worth it!

Welcome to the club, and enjoy your new ride.

 

Forget the gas mileage, let's talk about you shifting at 6000RPM with only 400 miles on it. You may want to go to racing beat website and follow their engine break-in recommendation.

http://www.racingbeat.com/FRmazda4.htm

Congrats and have fun!

 

You could probably try pushing it some of the times :-) no seriously your numbers arent that bad, its most of us are probably within 3MPG of your numbers, and as someone said, it will get a little better over time.

 

The car had 400 miles when I bot it from N. California. I then drove it down the state to Los Angeles (conservatively) and now after a week I have almost 900 miles.

I read that the break-in period is only 600 miles and that it's good to go after that. Thx for the RB advice. Looks like 600 wasn't enough to let loose afterall.

I thought it seemed short, but I attributed it to the Wankle design.

 

The fuel mileage is a state of mind. My first six tankfulls, I obsessed about it, then just decided, screw it, I'm not going to let this pointless crap get the best of me.

The difference between 17 mpg and 21 mpg for me at $2.00 a gallon over a year's driving (12,000 miles/year on my lease, 10,000 in practice) ... is as follows:

12,000 miles of driving / 21 mpg * $2.00/gallon = $1142 in fuel for the year.

12,000 miles of driving/ 17 mpg * $2.00/gallon = $1411 in fuel for the year.

Price of fun for the year? $300. Price per day? about 78 cents.

I have an extra 78 cents every day.

Stop worrying about your mileage. Enjoy the car. I get 78 cents more fun per day out of my car than anyone on the road.

Best,

Stew

 

I went up into the mountains this past weekend and spent all day on the gas pretty good. I went 294 miles on the tank and filled it with 12.9 gal. Thats close to 23 mpg. I have only 1900 miles on the car too. Dont know what everyones complaining about. :D

 

I drive 35 miles to work on country roads over 2 small mountains. Two stop signs and three traffic lights, usually not much traffic. I shift at about 6,000 rpm's but I try to use about 1/3 throttle when accelerating and just give the engine time to rev to 6,000 rpm's. I push in the clutch or shift to neutral going downhill and get 20 - 22 miles per gallon. Bye the way the car is very quick accerating when driven that way. Fourth and fifth gear are often skipped because I'm up to 60 - 65mph in third.

 

Shifting at 3k with an RX8 is NOT normal driving. Shifting that low in the rev range you will be driving slower than a Chevy Aveo (or a H2, so I am not size discriminating).

To drive briskly, but not overly aggressively, you need to get up in the 5,000 rpm range in my opinion. Now if you go over 6,000 rpm, that is a completely different story....

 

Are you still using 87 octane?

 

For the most part, yes. Every now and then I put in a tank of 93 just for the cleaning benefits. I can tell no difference. At the moment, burning a tank of V-Power, but I can't tell any benefit from it other than it makes me feel good about myself.

I burn Shell, Mobil or BP exclusively.

 

BS. I shift at 3k all the time in the city so that I don't have people hearing any high revs and giving me the "OMG HE'S PLAYING 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS ON PUBLIC STREETS!!!" stinkeye look. And I'm just about in front of every car every single time when I pull away from every stop light, if I'm the first car, and there's cars beside me. If I revved it to 5k, I would be blatantly ripping away from people off the line. The only way I wouldn't be the fastest and farthest one off the line is if the other cars tried to actively race me. Which so far hasn't happened to me, and even if it did, I would refuse to rise to the bait, and give them the lead for all I care.

Oh, and I'm driving the automatic too.

 

Well, the auto only redlines at 7,500 rpm or so, thus I believe that explains our disagreement about 3k rpm. In a 6-spd, I guarantee you that if you shift at 3k rpm you are almost bogging the engine down.

Either that, or you guys drive REAL slow in Hawaii... :p

 

Glad to see others are getting good mileage, too. I just went 309 miles on my last tank of 91 octane Costco gas. It took 14.087 gallons (I know...cutting in close) to the first click. I do ~80% hwy/20% city and drive pretty "normal", except for a few sprints here and there. Oh yea, I have a stock 2004, 6sp, with 10K miles.

 

All this talk about shifting at 3k and 7k is getting me a little annoyed. Everyone that has the 8 shifts at 3 sometimes and shifts higher sometimes too...It just depends on if you feel like letting your 8 play or not. Stop talking about this shifting stuff now. It's old...This thread turned into a reving thing from a gas mileage thing. STICK TO THE ISSUE AT HAND MY PEEPS!!

 

WOW -- 309 miles -- I wish id get that -- I might if i am lucky Get 200/tank

the best gas milage you get with this car? .. dont drive it ...

I was better off with the Expedition i traded in for this thing

 

I am on my third tank with my new 05. My first two tanks got me 14.2 MPG and 13.95 MPG respectively. That was with 93 Octane. I came out of the break in period on this latest tank and I filled it with 89 Octane.........MIGHTY BIG DIFFERENCE IN MPG. I jumped to a bit over 20 MPG with the same driving conditions PLUS I'm out of the break in so I've been doing a bit of ZOOM ZOOM as they say. I don't know what the deal is but 89 Octane has me getting much better mileage and absoluetely no noticeable loss in power or knocking.

 

I bought my 8 about a month ago. It had 411 miles on it when I got it and I was getting about 18 to 19 miles to gallon. Mixed driving. And now a month later I have 5500 miles on it. I did quite a bit of driving on various types of roads and I drove from SD to Texas and back. ( Thats where all of the miles are coming from.) I've got up to 145mph on one straight road! Now I get about 24 mpg on the interstate running about 75. Once you get a good break in ( a couple of thousand miles) I think you will see it plane out.