21-22 MPG FUEL CONSUMPTION

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by IQ4two on August 8, 2008 at 11:54pm

I am in the greater Los Angeles area too. We get 31 to 36 MPG so far. Since we are driving pretty fast and not for economy, my guess is that there is a problem. My wife cruises up the Conejo grade at 77 MPH and rapid starts too. This is in a 2008 451 with a thousand miles.

Permalink Reply by lydan on August 30, 2008 at 4:19am

i live in sun city and my last three mpgs were 36, 42 and 40mpg. i don't drive much, but i have about equal town and highway driving. it is real hard to stay at 70 so my run to san diego ends up at 75+ even on the hills. i've been told if i go 55 - 65mpg my mileage would be better and it would be good for the enviornment. a horror thot is going 55mph on i-15. you should take your car to another smart certified dealer. it may be covered under the warranty, but ask first. 21mpg is a problem. i register my fuel purchases at www.fueleconomy.com and their are several smarts listed so you can see mpg they get - some more and less than me. good luck.

Permalink Reply by Amir Reza on August 3, 2009 at 4:23pm

are you putting 91 octane in ????

Permalink Reply by Foothill on August 3, 2009 at 6:13pm

good point about needing to use premium, not doing so can kill your mileage, also running the air conditioner will drop your mpg, doing both is a killer and jack rabbit starts and cruising at over 70 mph will also do you in - but all that being said, I have never seen anyone get mpg that bad, you should have it checked. I just drove fom Albany, NY to Phippsburg, Me. and was doing 70 to 75 with the air on and I still was getting 42 mpg

Permalink Reply by Walter Johnson on August 3, 2009 at 6:14pm

I live in Miami, a very flat place. I drive normally, in automatic, Its a hot summer and the AC is on all the time. I do mostly city driving. The car a 2009 passon has 1600 miles, and I have gotten 26 MPG. I have not had it back to the dealer, but the Mpg is so far below what I should get, I'm getting ready to take it in.

Permalink Reply by Raymond E. Martin on August 3, 2009 at 7:22pm

My overall average after 6900 miles is 38.4 mpg. Much of this is freeway driving between 65 and 75 mph and about half is with the top all the way down on my cabriolet. Open windows do lower the mpg but only by a few mpg. The a/c does impact milage a lot but it still seems to be above 30 mpg. I would also recommend premium if that's not what your using. I also have do deal with some serious cross winds and headwinds on the Eastern shores of Lake Michigan.

Permalink Reply by L. R. Valenzin on September 24, 2009 at 1:18pm

I'm about to take my SMART Passion in to the dealer as well. When I first got the car I was driving some highway miles and was getting 36 mpg. I'm mostly driving in town these days and my last 3 tanks got 26 mpg. I only have 3500 miles on the car. I tell everyone who asks me about the car...and there are many of those....I'm dissapointed in the gas mileage. They all agree I need to take it in and have it checked. I use premium gas so that is not what's going on. The Mini owners are laughing at me!

Permalink Reply by Kevin Warren on December 10, 2009 at 6:17pm

I'm getting 40 regularly and the lowest I have gotten is 37.

Permalink Reply by TnPD on January 14, 2010 at 4:19pm

2009 Passion 11,000 miles, (northern PA, southern NY), lots of hills

40-43MPG, (city / hwy don't matter) if you can stay under 63MPH, over 63MPH, 37-40MPG. My wife and I have taken the passion for several 400+ mile trips and octane under 91 bites into MPG, and Speed also bites. One other thing that has helped MPG is letting the automatic shift take place without "helping". Leave the throttle at one place until the shifting is over, if you take your foot out of the throttle to help it shift, it gets confused, and the MPG will drop.
Definite agreement on anything electric (AC, Fog lights, Heated seats) all take a bite out of MPG.

BUT 33MPG, I cannot imagine what I would need to do to have it drop that low.

Permalink Reply by Richard Higday on January 14, 2010 at 7:39pm

I average 40 mpg for over 23000 miles. I get 38mpg when I go 75 to 85mph or do a lot of city driving(errands and stuff) under 50. If I drive 55 to 60 I average 44 to 47mpg

Permalink Reply by Tommie Fantine Lauer MD, FASAM on January 14, 2010 at 8:18pm

Above 65 mph mpg goes down, wind and it goes down, allowing your foot to get heavy, goes down. I drive in semi urban and get 38-40 all the time. But in the city stop and go, I accelerate very slowly and as the clutch disengages , I lift slightly so as to have a silky smooth shift. On the highway at 62 mph I get about 42-44 unless the wind is blowing. There is nothing so satisfying as to accelerate slowly, have the jerk behind you blow by with his BMW puffing soot out the tail, then pull up behind him at the next stoplight. Happens all the time.

Permalink Reply by Herb Bell on January 14, 2010 at 8:48pm

I bought my 2008 SMART used with 14,000 miles on the clock. At first, I got about 25 mpg, so I took it to Mercedes for a check-up. The results came back as 36.9 mpg! I have no idea if they did anything to the car or not, but I too suddenly got city mileage in the upper 30's. Hm-mmm! Since then I've gotten as much as 47 mpg on pure Interstate runs. In addition, I drive the car hard and have noticed a gradual increase in acceleration off the line. It doesn't hurt to use the paddle shifters in the manual mode to overcome the transmission upshift lag problem. Just floor the gas and hold it down when the light goes green and upshift manually right off the line to get into second. You will literally be amazed and stupefied at your little car's performance.

I've installed an Autel MaxiTrip TP100 Auto Computer on my dash to verify these figures. It's a bit hard to set up, but the price is right. It also provides all the OBD-II test set readings you might want on engine condition, etc. It also gives you a tachometer, but it's hard to over-rev this engine since it has an electronic rev-limiter. Did I say that there are dual trip-meters too?

Herb

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