Is my Ms3 running too rich?

[peter.sellers]

Hi folks,

Firstly wanted to say hi to everyone. I just got my 2007 (used) MS3 on Sunday with 9000 miles on it; and so far I lovveeee it! Still getting used to the stick shift though

Today I noticed that my exhaust was black and was wondering if my MS3 was running too rich?

I filled my tank on Sunday and the fuel indicator is at 1/2 mark with ~100 miles. That seems kinda low! Btw I've not been driving hard and have kept the rpm below 3000 for the most part.

I am going to go all the way to empty on the fuel indicator and see what my mileage is. Also my dash says the avg mpg is 30!! Is that right??

What do you guys think?

 

[Betelgeuse]

Expect about 18-21 mpg or so in the city (depending on how you drive). The fuel indicator is just a rough estimate and always tend to be a few mpg off so don't rely solely on it. Nothing beats the old fashioned fill-up-then-divide-by-gallons method. With summer here/ac blasting I'm getting around 18-19 in the city.

The black soot on the muffler tip is normal. Our cars do run rich. Also remember to use premium only.

 

[phantom6294]

Hi folks,

Firstly wanted to say hi to everyone. I just got my 2007 (used) MS3 on Sunday with 9000 miles on it; and so far I lovveeee it! Still getting used to the stick shift though

Today I noticed that my exhaust was black and was wondering if my MS3 was running too rich?

I filled my tank on Sunday and the fuel indicator is at 1/2 mark with ~100 miles. That seems kinda low! Btw I've not been driving hard and have kept the rpm below 3000 for the most part.

I am going to go all the way to empty on the fuel indicator and see what my mileage is. Also my dash says the avg mpg is 30!! Is that right??

What do you guys think?

My exhaust tip gets pretty sooty as well -- I think the MS3s just run pretty rich. As for your mileage, if you didn't reset the trip computer (and especially if it hasn't been reset in a long while) it is still accounting for previous driving and your recent driving won't affect the avg very much. That said, ~100 at halfway seems pretty low if you're keeping it under 3k RPM. Every car I have had uses more fuel in the first half of the gauge than the second half which means you aren't going to much more than 200 Miles on that tank. I fill up right around 12 gallons when the light comes on so 200 / 12 = 16.67 MPG. That would be expected if you were having A LOT of fun... but it sounds like you aren't. ;-)

 

[CoolWhip]

In my case (white car) even the back of my bumper gets a little dark.