Last 3 tanks 36.3 MPG, 36.5 MPG, 35.3 MPG, with an Auto

[thegrapeguy]

I'm not buying it Mobius. I have the same car and tried babying the various tanks of gas and I'm getting 29 mpg in my AWD. I can fool myself in getting 34 by driving a short distance (like 100 miles) by going maybe on a flat to downhill run and filling up and checking mileage. But after 400 miles of varying terrain (speed on the CX-5 readout averages 37 mph) and throw in a few highway jaunts (averaging 70 mph) and I'm back to 29 mpg. I'm happy with that for sure. But 34 in the AWD - you must be doing some extreme driving...

 

[CX-SV]

No mention of kind of driving mobius is doing to achieve average of 34, as nice as that number seems, kind of meaningless...

 

[V8toilet]

I've been traveling at 70-75 mph on the highway and not paying attention to traffic so I'm using the brakes a lot more and my trip is at 32.3 mpg right now with about 300 miles on the OD. This is the same commute that I got 36+ traveling 60 MPH on the highway using mild hypermiling techniques and 35.5 with the cruise at 65 MPH on the highway. Goes to show you how much speed kills mileage especially on the highway.

 

[mobius120487]

I'm not buying it Mobius. I have the same car and tried babying the various tanks of gas and I'm getting 29 mpg in my AWD. I can fool myself in getting 34 by driving a short distance (like 100 miles) by going maybe on a flat to downhill run and filling up and checking mileage. But after 400 miles of varying terrain (speed on the CX-5 readout averages 37 mph) and throw in a few highway jaunts (averaging 70 mph) and I'm back to 29 mpg. I'm happy with that for sure. But 34 in the AWD - you must be doing some extreme driving...

My commute to work and back is 30 miles each way @ 55 mph on a back highway w/ a jaunt to 70 to pass here and there...I have tall bridges I go up and down on that route, and the occasional stop sign or school bus. Yes I do baby it whilst accelerating and coast to as many stops as I can but average is right around 33 - 34...looking at getting the corksport SRi, wonder if that will improve mpg more????

 

[thegrapeguy]

V8 and Mobius - are you folks going by the reading on the onboard meter? I have found that meter to be off as much as 2mpg. It's usually off by about 1 mpg compared to my actual calculation at the pump. It always shows me getting more mpg than I'm actually getting. I've divided miles driven on a tank by gallons needed at fill up with no extra squirts for 6500 miles now and the results are very consistent (lower mpg than the digital meter). How accurate can that meter be???

I definitely agree speed and highway kill the mpg. Where I live I'm on a ThruWay and even though that is highway driving I'm going at least 65 mph and having to pass quite a bit surging up to 75 mph. My mileage drops to around 27.5 mpg on highway tanks...

Lastly yesterday I recorded the highest mpg yet (29.8 mpg). The reading was based on a tank of normal use. Daily commuting on country roads, occasional stop light, occasional passing, occasional highway jaunt, average speed 37 mph. I attribute this reading to the car finally being broken in. Early on my readings for the exact same type of driving were lower. They generally increased throughout time...

 

[CX-SV]

Over the last 7000 miles my dash Average MPG has been 4% over actual milrage which is about 1MPG. Or in other words 96% accurate.

 

[mobius120487]

I will say with calculating I am getting 32-33...didn't think to double check the computers work

 

[V8toilet]

V8 and Mobius - are you folks going by the reading on the onboard meter? I have found that meter to be off as much as 2mpg. It's usually off by about 1 mpg compared to my actual calculation at the pump. It always shows me getting more mpg than I'm actually getting. I've divided miles driven on a tank by gallons needed at fill up with no extra squirts for 6500 miles now and the results are very consistent (lower mpg than the digital meter). How accurate can that meter be???

I definitely agree speed and highway kill the mpg. Where I live I'm on a ThruWay and even though that is highway driving I'm going at least 65 mph and having to pass quite a bit surging up to 75 mph. My mileage drops to around 27.5 mpg on highway tanks...

Lastly yesterday I recorded the highest mpg yet (29.8 mpg). The reading was based on a tank of normal use. Daily commuting on country roads, occasional stop light, occasional passing, occasional highway jaunt, average speed 37 mph. I attribute this reading to the car finally being broken in. Early on my readings for the exact same type of driving were lower. They generally increased throughout time...

I'm using the miles traveled divided by the gallons of fuel put in at fill up. This is shown in Fuelly in my signature. My ave mpg on the dash also reads higher than I actually get by about 1 mpg but I do not use that for my figures given in this thread. When I accelerate, I accelerate so that I get up to speed just quickly enough so that I can either coast or get into steady state driving quickly in order to get the best mileage. Accelerating very slowly actually wastes more fuel because it takes longer to get up to speed where the Skyactive engine gets the best mileage. Watch the instant display and you can see what I mean. If I accelerate very slowly my instant display is in the teens for too long a period of time and that hurts the overall average. I have to watch the traffic and the lights so that I get all the green lights as much as possible and so that I don't have to slam on the brakes because I built up too much speed behind a slower driver. When I come to an offramp or on ramp I let off the throttle in advance so that the car can coast all the way through it without touching the brakes. Most drivers charge these area's and then hit the brakes hard before entering them. This is a huge waste of fuel and it saves no time. If you time everything just right you will hardly use your brakes and your average mileage will soar up.

 

[milkyxj]

I have noticed as well that if I set my cruise between 60 and 65 I get above 35mpg on the highway and average about 32 going between 70 and 75. I have an auto as well so I'm limited on what I can do but I generally feather the gas and coast as much as I can as well as turn off the a/c going uphill. The best part of going slow like that is I don't have to deal with traffic. Usually I get irritated by all the people going slow in the fast lane but by going a little slower I save some gas and just cruise in the slow lane listening to music. Also, I noticed I catch all the lights and catch back up to all the traffic that passed me over the last few miles as they stop at the traffic lights ahead. Also I don't worry about the speed traps anymore, even though I know where they all are. This is on a divided highway between Atlanta, GA and Athens, GA with a speed limit of 65. MPG is calculated by an app on my phone not the dash display, my goal is to beat 38MPG on a tank

 

[V8toilet]

So I filled the tank up last night. I spent more than half the tank driving as everyone else does and doing 70-75 mph on the highway. The last 1/3 of the tank I slowed it down some. The computer was reading 34 mpg at the end of the tank. I went 374.5 miles and put in 11.77 gallons of gas at fill up for 31.7 mpg. After filling up I was kind of ticked that I ruined a tank so I reset everything with the new tank and set the cruise to 65 on the highway for the last 20 miles home. I accelerated from the tolls so that it accelerated as quickly as it would let me without revving above 2500 RPM. The computer average mpg went up to 41.2 mpg when I got off the highway but by the time I got a picture that didn't have glare from the flash I was down to 40.7 because of the city driving and lights. Point is driving habits affect the overall average mileage greatly and that is why there is such a discrepancy in mileage among the many CX-5's here. Like I said before, if you can adopt some basic hypermiling techniques, keep the highway speeds down, and apply the techniques correctly than you can get much better #'s from the CX5 or any vehicle.

 

[plemieux]

Think I have you beat V8

last weekend 500 mile trip from Knoxville, TN to Washington D.C. Did 65 mph the whole way with cruise control on. A couple places dipped to 55 but mostly the speed limit stayed between 55 and 65. A/C was on periodically, maybe 40-50% of the trip. Drafted behind a couple of semis. Think I got like 425 miles on that tank.


correction: I just saw that pic of the 40.7 you posted. Dang....

 

[Noirish]

got 33+mpg during last fill up, pretty good for 90% 70-75mph driving.

 

[watermelon]

For a MT and coasting in neutral.

That costs you gas - what else is keeping the engine turning over? The driveline is disconnected.

Coast in gear, the injectors stop firing gas unless you apply the gas pedal since the driveline will keep things spinning.

Try getting up to around 80km/h and coast, but then shift down to 2nd right away and watch the rpms skyrocket. As the transmission connects the dots, the tires force the engine to spin up. Due to the mismatch of ground speed and gear ratio, said revs skyrocket.

Anyways, all this is to say that yes, coasting in neutral is useful to keep momentum, but letting it ride in gear is also useful since you don't waste any fuel you would have letting the engine idle.

I generally do both, coast in neutral and gear, to whatever makes sense at that moment

 

[CodyZoom]

Just took an 1800 mile round trip with the AWD/Auto. 2 people, 1 70lb dog, Tons of camping gear. We drove about 70-75 mph and got an average of 32.5 mpg on the way up there. That's 1.5 better than the spec sheet. When on the way home we did much closer to 80 and received a huge hit which brought us down to 30.3 mpg. Driving 65mph vs 75mph is a HUGE difference. On a 180 mile trip earlier I kept it to 60-65 mph and got 34.5 when I'm rated for 31 mpg by the manufacturer. It truly is how you drive it. Like CX-SV, here in DC I'm sometimes forced to go 70-80 mph to be safe. This vehicle blows me away with its fuel efficiency.

 

[MikeM.]

Just took an 1800 mile round trip with the AWD/Auto. 2 people, 1 70lb dog, Tons of camping gear. We drove about 70-75 mph and got an average of 32.5 mpg on the way up there. That's 1.5 better than the spec sheet. When on the way home we did much closer to 80 and received a huge hit which brought us down to 30.3 mpg. Driving 65mph vs 75mph is a HUGE difference. On a 180 mile trip earlier I kept it to 60-65 mph and got 34.5 when I'm rated for 31 mpg by the manufacturer. It truly is how you drive it. Like CX-SV, here in DC I'm sometimes forced to go 70-80 mph to be safe. This vehicle blows me away with its fuel efficiency.

Those numbers are pretty close to what I get with my AWD gasser on the freeway at those speeds. One thing to note is that the speedometer on my CX-5 is spot on while the odometer will under report the distance traveled by about 1% (at least with new tires properly aired up). So, when calculating MPG the old fashioned way it is necessary (on my CX-5) to add about .3 MPG (or 1% to the distance traveled). Ironically, this brings the calculated MPG almost exactly to the reported MPG on the trip computer. I have not reset the trip computer for over 1800 miles so I can calibrate this over multiple tanks of fuel and minimize errors caused by a slight over or under-fill at the fuel up. The trip computers of all of my previous cars and trucks report unrealistic MPG figures by at least 1-2 MPG while the trip computer on my CX-5 is uncannily accurate.

Also, since most other cars have speedometers that read too high, you are going slower than you think. In the CX-5, 65 MPH means 65 MPH.

 

[V8toilet]

minimize errors caused by a slight over or under-fill at the fuel up.

I'm starting to realize this too. My last tank I filled it up and the pump clicked off at 10.4 gallons with 396.5 miles on the trip. The trip computer indicated 35.5 mpg average but doing the math 396.5/10.4 came to 38.1 mpg. My next tank the computer indicated again 35.5 mpg average and the pump clicked off at 12.3 gallons with 384.3 miles on the trip and this came out to 31.2 mpg. I do reset the computer average at every fill up. I guess if you keep a running average it irons itself out but I'm starting to think that relying on the pump to top off at the same point every fill up isn't as accurate as I thought.

 

[under200]

Damn, good job people. I am always in the low 20's. Understandable though, all city and short trips. Living close to work is great but does not put up high mpg's. I'll take the trade off though, going home for lunch is a nice perk.

 

[speedtrader]

Best way to save gas is to drive less. The closer you live from work, the less the mpg's matter. I have a long commute and simply love to drive. This car just about perfect for me.

 

[CX-SV]

I track my MPG on a spreadsheet. I drive the CX normally with no attempt to hypermile, I appreciate that I still get good MPG in less than ideal conditions.

 

[Macksma]

I've been tracking mine on a spreadsheet too and am very happy with my mileage. Especially since I have had the AC going almost 100% of the time for the last couple of months. Now that it may actually cool off, I'm interested to see if the mileage changes at all. I'm already getting 28-29 on my daily commute and am more that happy with that, so even if it doesn't change, I am still one happy camper, great mileage and a car I like to drive!