Hi Folks - first time car message board poster, so bear with me...

I own a 2009 Mazda 3 GT hatchback, bought new, and have about 10K miles on it. I get a paltry 16.7 MPG, according to the dash reading. I know that the factory lists this car's fuel efficiency as 21 city/29 highway, and I do mainly city driving, but this atrocious gas mileage has really soured me on the car.

Anybody else's car get similar mileage? Do I need to just grin-n-bear-it, or is there something that can be done? I took my car into the dealer a few months after purchase to look into the poor MPG, and they found nothing wrong...

Thanks in advance!

 

Manual transmission or automatic?

 

Automatic, sorry!

 

Got it. I've heard from a number of folks over on another board that driving with a heavy bias on short (less than five miles) urban trips can generate lousy mileage in these cars, especially when coupled to the wheels via an automatic transmission.

As a suggestion to give us a baseline to work with, take a long trip of say two to three hundred miles at a steady speed of say 70 mph and report back both the OBC calculation as well as to good-old-fashioned mpg calculation of dividing the fuel used into the miles driven. FWIW, your car should approach if not exceed 30 mpg on such a trip.

 

Thanks. My only road trip of decent length with the car was in the 200-300 mile range, and while I didn't take note of the specific fuel economy on that trip, looking back it felt respectable. I'll keep a more accurate gauge the next time...