Initial MPG from AWD Touring

[Macdaddytn]

Well so far I am very impressed with the fuel economy on my AWD CX5. I have a lengthy commute of around 32 miles, just about all freeway. I traded my 2010 Mazda3 sGT Hatchback in which I was averaging between 26 and 28 mpg, according to the car's computer, depending on how I drove it. The CX5's computer is reading 31.5 today on my drive home, it briefly hit 32 on the way in this morning. Figuring the mpg by hand gives me an average of 30.77. I have close to 800 miles on it so far and I am hoping it creeps up just a little more as it gets broken in. Really liking this vehicle so far!

 

[jaman_ca]

Great, so it wasn't just hype.

 

[DougNuts]

Cool! I use fuelly.com to track the mileage on my cars. Hopefully your average stays high.

 

[JTNY]

Awesome results! Do keep us informed about your fuel mileage, I too plan on buying a GT AWD and am apprehensive of the MPG claisms, my commute is about 33 miles each way with 90% highway.

 

[hooked]

Thanks for the info. Good to know that the MPG estimates are pretty accurate. I would be interested to hear from someone that does mostly local street driving.

 

[Antonio DiMarco]

What I find funny is that I believe Mazda has been more honest about fuel consumption over the years compared to their competition. For instance Hyundai has been getting criticized for publishing pretty optimistic numbers that don't equate to real world experiences and if they do people have to enagage an "eco" mode that cripples performance. Unfortunately people purchased based on these numbers. I think that the Skyactiv stuff will be better than people expect. So far I've even heard people with the Mz3 skyactiv averaging ~40 mpg. And that car doesn't even have the entire Skyactiv treatment.

 

[dasayheykid]

Great results. Does anyone know if having Traction control (TCS) on or off affects gas mileage in any way?

 

[kampfire]

Great results. Does anyone know if having Traction control (TCS) on or off affects gas mileage in any way?

TCS on or off does not affect gas mileage during normal driving conditions. Perhaps in snowy conditions you could get slightly better mileage since you wouldnt be spinning the wheels at high RPM but I'd think the difference would be almost non-measurable.

 

[dasayheykid]

TCS on or off does not affect gas mileage during normal driving conditions. Perhaps in snowy conditions you could get slightly better mileage since you wouldnt be spinning the wheels at high RPM but I'd think the difference would be almost non-measurable.

Thanks kampfire, good to know.

 

[inodes]

What I find funny is that I believe Mazda has been more honest about fuel consumption over the years compared to their competition.

In Australia, it's illegal for manufacturers to produce their own figures. Just one of the laws that aims to protect the consumer from being cheated.
Prior to selling a vehicle, all manufacturers (even Ferrari for example), has to submit one of each vehicle type for analysis and fuel consumption calculation under identical, controlled conditions.
This type of measurement removes bias.

The figures Mazda have released in the US are more or less identical to the results the Australian government has observed under these conditions.
I consider them then to be avoiding bias themselves. Fairly good.

Not sure what figures Hyundai have released, but it would be a good comparison to see which of the manufacturers in the US, are cheating their customers by altering fuel consumption figures.

 

[Kornik]

In Australia, it's illegal for manufacturers to produce their own figures. Just one of the laws that aims to protect the consumer from being cheated.
Prior to selling a vehicle, all manufacturers (even Ferrari for example), has to submit one of each vehicle type for analysis and fuel consumption calculation under identical, controlled conditions.
This type of measurement removes bias.

The figures Mazda have released in the US are more or less identical to the results the Australian government has observed under these conditions.
I consider them then to be avoiding bias themselves. Fairly good.

Not sure what figures Hyundai have released, but it would be a good comparison to see which of the manufacturers in the US, are cheating their customers by altering fuel consumption figures.

In US it's almost the same, with the exception that official numbers are usually published with the delay, so manufacturers estimate their own numbers and put that figure on the sticker for first few months.
Having said so - they can't really cheat, because if the EPA's official numbers will differ greatly they will get a lot of bad press. What they can do though is to tweak the car to perform better during those controlled tests than in real life - the test environment is known and it's easy to do. Best example comes from Mazda - they do not sell iStop here in US because the EPA test is designed in a way that you almost can't see it in the result. So if you can't sell it why bother putting it in? I'm quite sure they can tweak the car as easily the other way - put something in in the way that EPA test will show better numbers with no effect in real life.

 

[inodes]

In US it's almost the same, with the exception that official numbers are usually published with the delay, so manufacturers estimate their own numbers and put that figure on the sticker for first few months.

So in many ways they're probably similar.
Unfortunately a car can't even be sold here without the official sticker.

Easy enough though. The government did the tests back a while back. I only realised how keen they were when I noted photos of cars being unloaded from the boat, with the fuel consumption stickers already attached.

The same can be said for refrigerators, washing machines, toliets - basically anything that consumes electricity, water or fuel.
Doesn't stop us though, from being second most wasteful country per person - basically a minuscule amount below the US.

 

[wannabe]

no one can be better than the US at being wasteful!


OP:
great results on your mileage, hopefully it will stay up at 30mpg as advertised