Short distances are the biggest kiiler of fuel mileage and engines. So if your travel time is 10 mins or less, you can expect poor mileage.

Personal example: 15yrs ago I had an AWD Plymouth Colt Vista w/a 5-sp. When my daily trip was only 2 miles one way the car gave only 15mpg. Then I moved to nearly 20 miles from work and my mileage jumped up to 23!! An 8mpg difference. I thought that pretty significant.

 

It matters not where one lives, there are government and industry fuel quality standards that all of North America use, and said standards are more than enough to keep fuel injectors clean. Granted one may get a bad tank (filling such as when the levels are low from a gas station that is very old and hasn't updated their tanks in decades) now and again, but the next couple of tanks of fuel should clean that right up. Any perceived difference in how an engine runs after an application of fuel injector cleaner is most likely more "perceived" than reality.

A common myth, there is no such a thing as "less restriction" vis-à-vis non-wide-open throttle operations and the cleanliness of the air filter. None, zero, zip, nada. Why? Because gasoline engines are throttled by intake restriction. Said another way, any given engine will develop some given amount of power (and fuel consumption) at some given level of restriction (atmospheric conditions being equal); if the air filter is really-really dirty, the throttle plate is opened a bit more to compensate. The result is the exact same amount of air and the exact same amount of fuel entering the engine which in turn produces the exact same amount of power for said air and fuel.

Yup, sounds about right; my Mazda3 has the 2.0 liter motor and a 5-Speed (a car that is significantly quicker than my neighbor's Mazda3 2.3 automatic by the way), and I typically get about 25-27 mpg when I drive mostly city driving (a rare occurrence in my case). Currently my "normal" driving environment is about 50/50 which yields fuel economy in the 29-30 mpg range, and before I got laid off and changed jobs I was doing about 90% highway driving where my fuel economy was up between 33 and 35 miles per gallon. Not too shabby.

 

Mine is a 2.3. And what ever im not gunna argue with you on something i know

 

What is it that you think you know? Asked another way, are you willing to go through life believing you understand how some process (induction systems of modern engines in this case) works and not look at data that might suggest you are making an incorrect assumption on said process?

 

I'm stayin' outta' this one... (I hope.)

 

I just don't understand how it is that so many folks have been sucked in by the "lower restriction equals better fuel economy" urban legend. Those that should know better seem to think if they repeat it often enough it will become fact. Nope, just fallacy.

 

This does seem low to me. I have a 2009 Sedan GT and do about the same city/highway mix that you do and I can get 500+ km per tank....

 

A couple of questions:

1. Is your car an Automatic, or do you have a Manual transmission?
2. How do you manage to drive 90% city when you live in Alberta?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

1. Automatic.
2. Uh, because I live in a city....