58 mpg Mazda 3
 

58 mpg get your attention?

I managed 58mpg on my trip home from work yesterday. The trip is about 35 miles. My previous best for that route was 55mpg. Overall tank is about 43mpg as I take the interstate on my way to work and only average about 40mpg at 65mph.

Not bad for a car with about 150hp available. When driving for extreme mpg like that I usually never go over 45mph.

Kevin

That's definitely up there, especially when U.S. and not U.K. mpg. That's dashboard optimismeter mpg calculation? What do you get with actual ciphering when you compare the two?

Dash calculator is very close. Overall for 33 tanks it's within .1 mpg of fuelly. Best tank is 43.2, 40.4 average for last 10 tanks. 58mpg is with optimal conditions for only 35 miles. I'm sure if I could drive 40 miles per hour in 6th gear for entire tank my mpg would be over 55.

That's very close to what I used to get at 70 MPH in my old diesel Renault (59.8 US MPG or 72 UK MPG). It's a shame you had to lower your speed to such extremes to achieve that, although I guess if 45 was the limit, it wasn't an issue.

At similar speeds in my Renault, I would get an indicated 96 MPG, such is the difference between gas/diesel.

Diesel is definitely a winner in pretty much all but price. I remember as a kid when diesel was considered the "junk" left over after making the various gasolines and as such while regular gasoline cost a whopping $0.279 per gallon diesel was a paltry $0.109 per gallon. Now diesel costs about 20% more than regular, over here anyway.

One problem with diesel now is after the government got done "cleaning it up" it costs more than gasoline at most places. Interestingly though, it's more expensive at truck stops near me that at regular gas stations by about 20 or 30 cents per gallon.

There's only 1.3 pence difference between petrol and diesel here, many who can't afford hybrid/electric are opting for diesel again as it goes way way further, and when your fuel is as expensive as it is here, that matters alot.

For basically the same price diesel is definitely a winner. Around here diesel is 20-25% higher than regular gasoline. Combined with higher vehicle purchase price and higher maintenance costs it makes it difficult to come out ahead unless one drives a LOT of miles.

Part of what happened with cleaning up diesel is that refineries could find more buyers for it abroad. Europe was ULSD for awhile before the US switched. So our higher sulfur fuel couldn't be sold there. That meant a surplus with low prices. Now that former oversupply is going to Europe.

Wow K Kevin, that's great mileage from your Mazda3!

I believe my best tank in my Mazda3 was around 52MPG, but it's hard to squeeze that much from each gallon out on the highway.

Before I bought my 2015 Mazda3 automatic, I considered the VW Diesels. I'm glad I didn't buy one, because shortly thereafter VW was discovered cheating on their emissions data and got hanged at the public square for it and had to give back all their ill-gotten gains.

I've experienced great performance from my little 2.0 gasoline Mazda3. I can't think of a better choice for me.