Mazda -- Most Fuel Effieient Automaker
- Thread starter dblgoat
- Start date
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
I grew up in Texas, but even though you want to call AR small...have you been to the N. East Coast?
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
The jeep would choke and die on the cheap swill that Mazda drinks, lol!
My commute to work is mostly 65 mph interstate of which I would do mostly 70 mph in my CX5. I guess that about 20% of my driving from tank to tank was a mix of city and stop and go. My average speed (computer trip) usually was in the 50 MPH range, so it's hard for me to imagine an average trip speed between tanks of over 80 mph. This means you had to be doing speeds way in excess of 80 MPH. With the CX5's shorter gearing and the smaller engine working harder to push what still is an SUV through the air; I can understand why your fuel mileage was poor.
A bigger engine with tall gearing won't suffer as much in extreme conditions in terms of fuel consumption. Likewise, the CX5 will have much greater efficiency with its fully modern 4-cylinder and more areodynamic shape if driven at more reasonable speeds. My Ford F-150 can achieve an average of 22 MPG doing that same commute as I do with my CX5 and the worst I've got (was actually today) was 18.17 MPG. My CX5 just got over 28 MPG with mostly city driving, yet it has achieved over 35 MPG average in the summer in that same commute; something no big engine, big vehicle can match.
A bigger engine with tall gearing won't suffer as much in extreme conditions in terms of fuel consumption. Likewise, the CX5 will have much greater efficiency with its fully modern 4-cylinder and more areodynamic shape if driven at more reasonable speeds. My Ford F-150 can achieve an average of 22 MPG doing that same commute as I do with my CX5 and the worst I've got (was actually today) was 18.17 MPG. My CX5 just got over 28 MPG with mostly city driving, yet it has achieved over 35 MPG average in the summer in that same commute; something no big engine, big vehicle can match.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
No, it obviously means I wasn't doing 20% of my driving in stop and go traffic.
Hey now, no need to be insulting to us grannies and small-staters with a blanket ignorant statement like that. Apparently you have never been to Maryland or on the Capital Beltway. 80+ miles per hour bumper to bumper, like a fast-moving parking lot. Do you get out of Arkansas much?
Mike M - I would kill for your great gas mileage. I average a little under 26. But I'm still loving the hell out of this car!!
No need to kill for good mpg, just get the 2.0L motor! (thumb)
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- Plano, Texas, USA
We had a long trip to Houston and Austin from Dallas during holidays with our new 2016 CX-5. The average MPG on I-45 and I-35 was 26.5. We could only get 24.6 MPG from Houston to Austin where part of state highway is more hilly but the speed limit is lower. I can tell if I drove at 65 mph I could get better gas mileage but that would be suicidal with the speed limit at 75 on Interstate highways! I used cruise control and set at 78 which apparently used more gas as I checked the average MPG on computer which showed 25.6. Not until I discarded curise control and took control of the gas pedal, I brought the average MPG back to 26.5. I'd tried to use as little gas as possible by monitoring the instant MPG readout, and there was no way to have anything close to 30 MPG while driving at 75 mph unless it's the downhill. Even at 65 mph, I could hardly manage to keep up at 28 MPG based on instant MPG readout!
By comparison, we used to drive our '98 Honda CR-V AWD for the same trip. The return was 25~26 MPG. The EPA for the '98 CR-V is 19 city and 23 highway. We also drove our 2000 BMW 528i many times and the return was 28~29 MPG with the EPA at 16 city and 24 highway. Our CX-5 AWD has 30 EPA highway MPG and from my experience there is no way to meet that number! And with all the new technologies the gas mileage improvement for our trip has only gone up 0.5 MPG from the compact CUVs! I truly believe Unobtanium's complaint on EPA highway gas mileage for CX-5 is legit!
As it is with the majority of vehicles.
The test regimen is not representative of real world driving. Anyone who expects to duplicate the EPA ratings in normal driving is unaware of how the testing is done.
Anyone who believes that Mazda falls short of EPA ratings by a wider margin than other auto makers is underestimating the lengths many of them go to in order to get a high rating.
Read up about how the tests are done. Then compare your driving with the cycle EPA uses. I think that will help you to know where the problem lies.
The test regimen is not representative of real world driving. Anyone who expects to duplicate the EPA ratings in normal driving is unaware of how the testing is done.
Anyone who believes that Mazda falls short of EPA ratings by a wider margin than other auto makers is underestimating the lengths many of them go to in order to get a high rating.
Read up about how the tests are done. Then compare your driving with the cycle EPA uses. I think that will help you to know where the problem lies.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
It doesn't matter how EPA did the test cycles for gas mileage. Just like the experience from Unobtanium, I got 25~26 "real-world" MPG on the same highway trip from our '98 Honda CR-V AWD with EPA 19 city and 23 highway MPGs. I got 28~29 "real-world" MPG on the same highway trip from our 2000 BMW 528i with EPA 16 city and 24 highway MPGs. But I only got 26.5 "real-world" MPG on the same highway trip from our '16 Mazda CX-5 AWD with EPA 24 city and 30 highway MPGs. So why is that I can have better real-world MPG than EPA ratings on our other cars which have over-estimated, pre-2008 MY EPA fuel economy estimates but our CX-5 not only can't beat the supposedly 22% downward adjusted EPA highway rating, but also has far-less (3.5 MPG, 12%) than EPA rated highway MPG?
My Volvo 850 Turbo got much worse mileage than my Mazda 3 or my CX-5, up to ~ 70 mph. From there up, it got better mileage than either. Top speed was over 150. It was about gearing. I'd guess the same was true for your BMW.
When the test cycle has an average speed under 50, some cars will test well; others not.
It matters a great deal how the EPA runs its tests. They flatter some cars and make others look bad.
When the test cycle has an average speed under 50, some cars will test well; others not.
It matters a great deal how the EPA runs its tests. They flatter some cars and make others look bad.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
Agreed. With big difference between EPA and real-world highway fuel economy, I'd think Mazda or many other car manufactures tend to program their cars to have the best gas mileage ONLY for EPA test cycles, hence the real-world fuel economy suffers.
Mazda may have gone to great pains to get better EPA ratings. The pre-skyactiv Mazdas were well known as thirsty little suckers. Many economy car buyers avoided them because of that.
My 2010 Mazda 3 GT auto (2.5 engine) used 10.7 litres per 100 km (21.6 mpg) over the 55,000 km I owned it. My CX-5 is currently sitting at 10.1 litres per 100 km (23.4 mpg), and my driving routine hasn't changed. My 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo sucked down 13.3 litres per 100 km (17.7 mpg) in the 155,000 km I put on it.
My 2010 Mazda 3 GT auto (2.5 engine) used 10.7 litres per 100 km (21.6 mpg) over the 55,000 km I owned it. My CX-5 is currently sitting at 10.1 litres per 100 km (23.4 mpg), and my driving routine hasn't changed. My 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo sucked down 13.3 litres per 100 km (17.7 mpg) in the 155,000 km I put on it.
Yeah, the 2.0L has the same tow rating as the 2.5L but I hear ya. I would probably get the 2.5L if I was going to tow anything big enough to tax it but I have a truck for that. And yes, it sucks gas pretty fast even though it's a 2010. Good thing it has a 38 gallon gas tank, LOL!
No doubt, the most fuel efficient automaker award is just one more feather in Mazda's cap and my hat is off to them. They sure have been racking up the awards since they put their Skyactiv thinking caps on! Of course an SUV with the best ground clearance in it's class and generous shoulder/head room is never going to be a fuel sipper at speeds significantly higher than EPA hwy speeds but I'm impressed they have done so much with an inherently inefficient shape and they didn't cheat by lowering the car to sedan like ground clearances to achieve it. In most of the competition I feel claustrophobic, especially in models with sunroofs, but the CX-5 has the "people space" I was looking for.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
Yes, I have been to MD. It was just years ago and I must have forgotten. I don't recall much time spent at 80mph, though due to traffic in that part of the country...but some roads in NY were absolutely amazingly pretty!
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
Suicide is still murder. Some of us just can't, lol!
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
It has a 3500 limit, doesn't it?
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
I drove from Dallas to Austin, and your numbers are bang-on what I got. Prepare to be told that you, too, are the problem, or your CX-5 is "defective", etc. lol
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
Huh. tell that to every other vehicle I've owned. They met or exceeded highway EPA on multiple occasions driving 70+, and were routinely within 1-2mpg of it almost all other times.
