Very disapointing fuel economy from recent roadtrip...

[Unobtanium]

With FWD CX-5 I have no doubt you can get these MPGs as EPA combined MPG on 2016 CX-5 FWD is 29. My friend's 2016.5 FWD GT can easily get 30 mpg to-and-from work with 60% highway driving. But with AWD, I couldn't even get 30 mpg with instant MPG readout under any circumstance during the long trip to Houston and Austin. The average MPG for the 800-mile trip was 27 mpg.

Yeah, Houston keeps growing, especially in Sugarland area! Back to 80's people in Dallas and Houston each claimed they have the largest city in Texas. Now I guess there's no argument who is the largest. In fact, San Antonio now is the second largest city in Texas! We living in Dallas are jealous Houston always have a lot more free highway funds to build and widen highways as I-45 now is widened up past Woodland and State Highway 59 now becomes I-69 and winded pasted Rosenberg with some 10-lane section near downtown! In Dallas we either have to build tollways or wait like I-35E which is always under construction for 30 years just for one-extra lane!

27mpg is a very normal average for me on road-trips.

 

[arunka007]

As much as I enjoy driving, widening roads isn't a very effective way to deal with that kind of traffic in the long term (or even medium as we can see in Houston, that expansion isn't even 10 years old). Mass transit makes much more sense for getting people to and from work - a single train can carry hundreds of people. Of course, this is not the Texas way and so we have terrible traffic in all the major cities...

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ This is an interesting proposal which is expand public transit and then make driving on those highways during rush hour more expensive, with the price based on the amount of congestion.

Can't agree more. In all fairness we have really good roads here in Houston but it can't keep up with population growth. It's not even a short term solution because, when they announce road widenings, new housing developments are announced which bank on wider arteries. The housing and the roads get completed around the same time and we end up with same or worse traffic.

 

[CX-5um]

I notice when traveling through our freeway system (with many sections with walls/high shoulder embankment hills) we can get decent mpgs. 37mpg @70 for the Mazda6 and 32 mpg @70 for the CX-5.

Then out in the open freeway its noticeably more windy. Something like 28 mpgs or less for the CX-5.

 

[yrwei52]

And we have this. Widest road on planet earth. 24 (or 26) lanes. Still bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour.

That has to be part of newly converted I-69! Our I-35E under construction for 30 years still only has 3 lanes on each direction! The tollways we have mostly 3 lanes each way but bottle-necked 2 lanes at many sections. That's why we envy you guys in Houston that you have endless highway fund to built and widen the highways for "free"!

But I shouldn't complian too much if we're comparing the highway traffic to LA's ...

 

[arunka007]

That has to be part of newly converted I-69! Our I-35E under construction for 30 years still only has 3 lanes on each direction! The tollways we have mostly 3 lanes each way but bottle-necked 2 lanes at many sections. That's why we envy you guys in Houston that you have endless highway fund to built and widen the highways for "free"!

But I shouldn't complian too much if we're comparing the highway traffic to LA's ...

This is I-10 in Energy Corridor area. All energy companies have big offices here and this is their backyard. It's anyone's guess why there's no rail transit here and where the unlimited funds for road expansion comes from!

 

[frenchbiker]

27mpg is a very normal average for me on road-trips.

Pretty much the same here. We just did a 850-mile trip this weekend in our 2016 AWD GT+Tech w/ 2 people on board and light luggage. All Interstate, light traffic. Speed average: 61mph w/ cruise control set at 70mph. Gas mileage for the entire trip: 28.4 mpg.
I am pleased with these numbers but I would really like to understand how people owning an AWD get 32mpg on highways. Do they drive at 60mph or even less?

 

[craigo]

Can't agree more. In all fairness we have really good roads here in Houston but it can't keep up with population growth. It's not even a short term solution because, when they announce road widenings, new housing developments are announced which bank on wider arteries. The housing and the roads get completed around the same time and we end up with same or worse traffic.

Exactly! As a result, traffic will fill the space unless there's a massive economic contraction ala Detroit and a large portion of the population leaves.

 

[buyingconstant7]

Mom filled up today. Her regular commute is 70% highway. Over 350 miles in hot weather, A/C on, some stop and go rush hour, a bit of idling, etc. her CX-5 returned 31.2mpg. Max speed she does is 70. So over 31mpg in some city and highway, and 25mpg in all highway. If that's not proof of how busy these engines are, I don't know what is.

 

[piotrek91]

Mom filled up today. Her regular commute is 70% highway. Over 350 miles in hot weather, A/C on, some stop and go rush hour, a bit of idling, etc. her CX-5 returned 31.2mpg. Max speed she does is 70. So over 31mpg in some city and highway, and 25mpg in all highway. If that's not proof of how busy these engines are, I don't know what is.

I don't think Mazda ever changed the gear ratios for the AWD model when they switched from the 2.0L to the 2.5L.
That would mean that the 2.5L ends up running with too little load and revving higher than optimal at high speeds.

 

[jhu8]

Pretty much the same here. We just did a 850-mile trip this weekend in our 2016 AWD GT+Tech w/ 2 people on board and light luggage. All Interstate, light traffic. Speed average: 61mph w/ cruise control set at 70mph. Gas mileage for the entire trip: 28.4 mpg.
I am pleased with these numbers but I would really like to understand how people owning an AWD get 32mpg on highways. Do they drive at 60mph or even less?

With the weather now warm, if I do 60-65 I get about 34-35mpg in my awd cx5. If I do 70-75 I'm right at 30mpg(+/- 1 for variables). Pretty solid numbers and I can live with it. I saw someone quote Uno and he said something about underpowered vehicles and their struggle at higher speeds. I think thats exactly it and why any vehicle that is underpowered struggles at higher speeds. Smaller engine needs to work harder. But bigger engine vehicles won't struggle as much. Not say the cx5 doesn't have enough power because it does, but it certainly isn't known for its power.

 

[Unobtanium]

With the weather now warm, if I do 60-65 I get about 34-35mpg in my awd cx5. If I do 70-75 I'm right at 30mpg(+/- 1 for variables). Pretty solid numbers and I can live with it. I saw someone quote Uno and he said something about underpowered vehicles and their struggle at higher speeds. I think thats exactly it and why any vehicle that is underpowered struggles at higher speeds. Smaller engine needs to work harder. But bigger engine vehicles won't struggle as much. Not say the cx5 doesn't have enough power because it does, but it certainly isn't known for its power.

It's engine may also simply be very inefficient at some rpm vs other rpm ranges or some load levels vs others. I dunno much about this Atkinson thing.

 

[jhu8]

It's engine may also simply be very inefficient at some rpm vs other rpm ranges or some load levels vs others. I dunno much about this Atkinson thing.

Yeah good point. And I would imagine most vehicles in today's car world that are marketed for their fuel efficiency, are optimized to be most fuel efficient around the EPA test ranges.

 

[Unobtanium]

Yeah good point. And I would imagine most vehicles in today's car world that are marketed for their fuel efficiency, are optimized to be most fuel efficient around the EPA test ranges.

EXACTLY!

See, back when engines had cams (Does the 2.5L have cams? My 370Z didn't have cams...), and back before VVL, and all that, we were stuck with whatever efficiency range things "fell at" "due to physics". Now, things can be shuffled and tuned and all that. I am not at all convinced that a little power wasn't gained in the 2500-3200rpm range at the expense of efficiency, because 0-60 numbers look better, and that falls outside of the EPA "highway" test, so basically you get better 0-60 published times without hurting gas mileage AT ALL. Why WOULDN'T they do it? Whereas with GM's vehicles like the Corvette and the trucks and all the LSX based products, and JEEP/Chrysler's HEMI, the efficiency "falls where it will" moreso because of the cam-in-block design. They do get DoD, though. Anyway, my point is, all these variable valve events just = the ability to "game" things in favor of things more sexy than real-world mileage on a road trip.

 

[ALafya]

I AVERAGE 22-23.5mpg. AVERAGE. After 10K miles.

27mpg is a very normal average for me on road-trips.

I am a bit confused; you said you were doing mostly highway.

 

[Unobtanium]

I am a bit confused; you said you were doing mostly highway.

Yes, but I do drive to work and home, which is a 2 mile trip. But, by mileage, mostly highway.

When I go on a road-trip, I set CC and let it ride. The vehicle is hot, and already rolling at 75mph before I start measuring mileage. Not so, on my day-to-day work/home/gym commute.

 

[ALafya]

Yes, but I do drive to work and home, which is a 2 mile trip. But, by mileage, mostly highway.

When I go on a road-trip, I set CC and let it ride. The vehicle is hot, and already rolling at 75mph before I start measuring mileage. Not so, on my day-to-day work/home/gym commute.

2 mile trips is the cause for your bad MPG. I've heard the same from owners of other makes. Perhaps this is more common with newer vehicles, with cleaner emissions. A Prius we used to own had its tank average MPG drop every morning in the first few miles. I heard the same complaint from Subaru Impreza owners which were getting 21 MPG. If you couple it with cold weather, it's even worse.

I must say 27 MPG for road-trips with high speed does not sound bad to me.

 

[Unobtanium]

2 mile trips is the cause for your bad MPG. I've heard the same from owners of other makes. Perhaps this is more common with newer vehicles. A Prius we used to own had its tank average MPG drop every morning in the first few miles. I heard the same complaint from Subaru Impreza owners which were getting 21 MPG. If you couple it with cold weather, it's even worse.

Won't argue that.

 

[frenchbiker]

With the weather now warm, if I do 60-65 I get about 34-35mpg in my awd cx5. If I do 70-75 I'm right at 30mpg(+/- 1 for variables). Pretty solid numbers and I can live with it. I saw someone quote Uno and he said something about underpowered vehicles and their struggle at higher speeds. I think thats exactly it and why any vehicle that is underpowered struggles at higher speeds. Smaller engine needs to work harder. But bigger engine vehicles won't struggle as much. Not say the cx5 doesn't have enough power because it does, but it certainly isn't known for its power.

My mpg is a tad lower than yours at these speeds but like I said, I'm pleased with it. For our 850 miles trip this weekend, if I was getting 30mpg vs the 28.4mpg I got, I would have saved 1.59 gallon at $2.45/gal = $3.73. Nothing to lose sleep over.

 

[Unobtanium]

My mpg is a tad lower than yours at these speeds but like I said, I'm pleased with it. For our 850 miles trip this weekend, if I was getting 30mpg vs the 28.4mpg I got, I would have saved 1.59 gallon at $2.45/gal = $3.73. Nothing to lose sleep over.

...and this is why I felt it was absurd when some people were all "You should sell the SUV that does everything you want it to except save you $5/1000 miles on gas!"

 

[Sekmor]

Here's some info on a road trip we just did. Total round trip was 590 kms. Cruise set around 118 kph (73.3 mph), 90% highway. I reset the computer at the start. The first hour or so we were at 6.9 but you can see the final computer readout was 7.1L/100km. (39.8 mpg). Using std hand calculations at the pump, worked out to 40.5 mpg (6.97L / 100kms). I found the computer is usually pretty darn close to the actuals. Like most have said, slowing down to 100 kph I have seen up to 44 mpg. I'm happy with those numbers even though the EPA window sticker says 46mpg.

Oops, pics are a little large, but no idea how to change that.