maybe he divided his miles per tank to how many mpg he pumps....

 

+1...

My car is only about a month old. I do not go over 4k rpms and rarely go over 70mph on the freeway beause I'm still breaking the engine in. I've about 450mi on the ODO and I drive mixed city and freeway but mostly city. I let my car warm up a few minutes before I drive every morning and use Shell 91. I do NOT smell any sulfur or notice anything unusual with the car concerning combustion.

However, on a side note--I've noticed that the starter is not very powerful on my car. That is, if I don't crank the engine a good 0.5 sec or so, the engine will not turn over. In my other car (RX8) I only need to twitch the ignition a bit before the engine turns over...is this normal?

According to my drive computer, I'm averaging 14.5mph and I'm getting about 14mpg!

What's killing me? Is it warming the car up, not driving on the freeway enough? I know I'm not leadfooting it...any ideas?

 

Real simple guys, Divide the miles driven by the gallons put in. Thats your MPG!

 

do you reset it each tank fillup? if you don't and constantly drive the same pattern, it will keep the average low. Everytime i fill up completely i rest the gauge. that way it shows waht you are getting for each tankful, not keeping a running total (which the car i found does not do). try that a couple of times and you will see your actual tank average is back to normal (which mine stays at 17.9)

 

It sounds like you are calculating mileage wrong but if not your -7 is burning to much gas and you need to take it in. One thing is for sure your Z should be getting better mileage than the 8 you had before.

 

What TSB and for what years is it available.

 

Something sounds messed up with your ECU. Unless your not driving faster than 25 mph, your average speed should be much higher than 14.5 mph.

 

*I* know how to do it. I'm still wondering what the OP is doing to "calculate" his 13 mpg. He still hasn't answered.

 

lol one day i clicked to see what mine said i thoguht it said 40 (city) but it was actually 4.0..i dont even know

 

Don't warm up your car. Are you going up any hills/hilly roads? Your mostly city drives are killing you too. Is your city driving mostly stop and go and/or are you idling much of the time? When you're stopped (and warming up), you're just wasting gas as you're going 0 mph. Are you using the AC or defrost (that runs the compressor)? If so, shut it off to see if that helps.

How short are your drives? Short drives will also kill your mileage. When I lived in WA and drove little (much of it city), it wasn't unusual to see my calculated mileage (on my 5AT) down into the 16s or 17s. Now w/my current commute (~8-9 minutes of city and expressway, not much stopping + 20 mins of highway at ~67 - 80 mph), I get ~21-23 mpg according to my calculations (trip computer is off by 0-1 mpg).

FWIW, when Consumer Reports tested an 05 Zr w/manual, they got 14 city, 27 highway, 20 mpg overall.

 

He must be doing the math like this:

Fill the car all the way up. Drive 260 miles and low fuel light comes on. Time for a fill up. Gas tank = 20 gallons. 260/20 = 13mpg.

 

But if he has an '03, most likely he is only filling up 15 or so gallons unless the tsb was performed.

 

No, your getting 260 miles between fillups

How many gallons are you putting in at each one of these 260 mile fillups?

That's why everyone is asking yu your doing the calculation. In order to calculate miles-per-gallon, you gotta use the gallons in the calculation.

bill

 

But how many gallons are you putting each time.

What you really mean is your getting 300 miles between fillups

bill

 

Without more information which isn't coming easily, it could be the OPs calculation, calculation method, tank, ECU, gauges, or a real fuel consumption problem. Maybe the dealer is the best source of help.

 

One more thing on this w/Phantom Menace's 14.5 mph average speed. A good way to tell if that # seems correct is to reset the count up timer/3rd trip odometer on the trip computer when you fill up. At the next fill up divide the # of miles by the # of hours to see if they're close/match exactly.

 

TSB or not TSB, it's pretty much irrelevant. We need to know how he is calculating, how many miles he's gone between fill ups and how many gallons he put in. Without this, we're just all guessing here.

I wish the OP would answer.

 

It is relevant if he is assuming he is burning thru 20 gallons of gas when he may not. I agree he is calculating everything wrong here. I'm just trying to figure out his logic.

 

Sounds like you brought over your RX8 gas mileage with you

 

First oil now gas.....