Ford Focus: MPG-Real World Numbers

Karen_S

This topic is for Focus owners to share their actual MPG with others.

"Real World" Fuel Economy vs. EPA Estimates

Save Money on Gas

We Test the Tips

inhaliburton

I did a 550 km. trip from Haliburton to Kingston and return today and got 44 mpg in my 2000 Focus SE Stationwagon.

igor2

wow that's great.. I did a trip Philadelphia to Baltimore (200 miles) and with some traffic got just shy of 30mpg...(2005 ZX3 AT)

overall, on 7 tanks i average 24.3 mpg... it seems that there is no way to get above about 22mpg in city driving (which is what I do mostly)...

Igor..

explorerx4

epa 25/33.
lowest 25(2 tanks), highest 33(1 tank)
summer 30-31, winter 27.5-28.5.
no long trips.

rwgreenberg

Open road wtih some hills: 35mpg
Suburban: 25mpg
City with severe traffic: 2mpg

whahappan

inhaliburton is in Canada, so I believe his figure is in Imperial Gallons. 44 Imperial MPG translates to 36.6 US MPG. Still quite good.

explorerx4

thanks for the translation. is that based on an imperial gallon is 4 liters?

igor2

currently at 3k miles.. the mileage has been creeping up... as I am breaking in the engine especially my city mileage goes up.. no easily around 20mpg.. and should go up further.

Igor

kevm

Get about 280 miles before low fuel light lights up

chartbear

Just bought a used 03 wagon. Dissapointing,
only getting about 23-24 in mixed city/highway. Just bumped up the tire pressure and put in a new air filter. We'll see how that does.

explorerx4

2.3 5 speed. 18k miles, 28.8 average. worst tank 24.7, best 32.8. epa 25-33. longest trip 90 miles(45 each way). conserative driver.

joshstte

My Focus if i really try and drive right ( slow take offs 55 on the freeway) I get about 400 Miles on a tank when the light comes on. When the light comes on it's about 10 Gallons used and still has about 4 Gallons Left. But usually I can't drive right because i'm always buzzing around (fast take off, sometime peeling out and pretty fast on the freeway) So i usually get about 300 Miles or 75Miles every quarter tank. So it's about $.10 a mile (10 gallons used) when I drive right or $.13 a mile (10 gallons used) when I'm buzzing around.

explorerx4

what engine do you have? i have the 2.3, 5 speed also.
my low fuel light goes on around 380 miles, although i have stretched it to 400 a couple of times. mine usually goes on after about 13 gallons.

harrydogyo

Looks like the 2007 Focus Fuel Econ numbers are out and they're better than the 2006. Does that mean there were changes with the car in 07 or just luck of the draw with the testing?

radar1

With 25,000 miles, I had come to expect about 28 MPG on highway trips, since that's what I usually got over the life of the car. This summer I was pleasantly surprised that on a 4,500 mile trip I averaged 32 MPG, and was able to travel over 400 miles on one tank for the first time. The 1,200 trip I took last month only averaged 24 MPG, although some of that was in 30+ MPH headwinds at the 75 MPH speed limit. I changed the fuel filter to see if that helps, but won't know til the next long trip.

explorerx4

for the first time before the 'low fuel' light went on.
just my normal driving.

vanace

EPA rating is 31 hiway for my 2005 focus ST. I have gotten a high of 36 mpg.. and regularly (in the summer with the good gas) get 32-35 mpg back and forth to work.

explorerx4

430 miles 12.8 gallons. best tank ever. just my normal driving. tank lastest for 3 weeks. i don't drive far.

pantherdan

I got a little over 31 MPG on my last tank. I live in a rural area, so there is only a few traffic lights (and therefore no true city driving). I also drive 95% highway to work.

explorerx4

loves hot weather. it finally did a somewhat extended trip (200 highway miles round trip). took advantage of relatively cheap gas on the mass pike to top off. overall, 575 miles, 16.6 gallons = 34.6 mpg. epa highway rating is 33 mpg.

loolala

My car is six years old last month, and it's been very good to me. My highest mileage on one tank was 425 miles. Average lately has been 32MPG (85% highway), highest approached 34mpg. In the city it goes down a lot, but I don't have much time in the city!

gypsy_tech

I just received some info from Superior Ford in MN. The motors are the same for 06 and 07. The 07 has been tuned slightly different for fuel efficiency. My 06 was rated at 144 hp while the 07 Duratec 2.0 is rated at 136hp but the hy mpg was upped to 37. I have got as high as 33.9 and as low as 21 (pulling a trailer). My average has been 29. 2.0 SES 5sp. I am thinking about doing some mods to the intake and getting it re-tuned. Happy driving :-)

jupp

First tank after buying new (full fill up to spout done by me) 270 miles to light-on. About 23 mpg BUT keep in mind, this was the maiden tank of gas on a new car and I assume things are still tight and need to wear a bit before optimum mpg is attained, and also this tank was pretty much ALL city driving with three occupants at all times. Air cond. running at least 50% of driving time. Still waiting to see the improvement on second tank.

jupp

First tank after buying new (full fill up to spout done by me) 270 miles to light-on. About 23 mpg BUT keep in mind, this was the maiden tank of gas on a new car and I assume things are still tight and need to wear a bit before optimum mpg is attained, and also this tank was pretty much ALL city driving with three occupants at all times. Air cond. running at least 50% of driving time. Still waiting to see the improvement on second tank.
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Done my second tank now, 311 miles to light on, averaged a much better 27.1 MPG in mixed city and Hwy driving. Things must be loosening up.

explorerx4

24.5k miles. same driving i alway do, but this summer averaging about 33 mpg. there was to 200 mile highway round trip included. in other words, i can't believe i'm matching the epa highway rating doing my regular commute (just over 27 miles round trip.)

fapar47

I'm shocked and disgusted: 20.5 mpg in around-town driving, A/C used more than half the time. I just bought this car with 34000 mi on the odo, and high gas mileage wasn't a big consideration in the purchase. That said, my previous car was an Olds with a 3.5L V-6 and 700 lbs heavier; I would have got 19-21 mpg on that car under the same circumstances, and would have done so in greater comfort.

jupp

First tank after buying new (full fill up to spout done by me) 270 miles to light-on. About 23 mpg BUT keep in mind, this was the maiden tank of gas on a new car and I assume things are still tight and need to wear a bit before optimum mpg is attained, and also this tank was pretty much ALL city driving with three occupants at all times. Air cond. running at least 50% of driving time. Still waiting to see the improvement on second tank.
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Done my second tank now, 311 miles to light on, averaged a much better 27.1 MPG in mixed city and Hwy driving. Things must
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Third tank, 100% hwy with air cond on 50% of the time and trunk well loaded with LOTS of stuff and got a VERY GOOD 33 mpg. NOT BAD!!

explorerx4

newer cars take a long time to break in the drivetrain.

bamich

First tank on ours was 32MPG, mostly 1/2 hour highway commutes. Pretty happy with that, hopefully will continue to improve.

comp386

I started out getting about 28 MPG in 50/50 city highway driving. A year and a half later I'm getting about 32 MPG. This is the first car I've driven where I've actually gotten better milage than the EPA 26 city 32 highway.

bananaboat

I'm on the 2nd tank for a 2007 sedan with a 5-speed. Roughly 50/50 driving and I've averaged 32 and 32.5 mpg so far. My driving is usually about 80% highway and after more miles, I'm hoping to see around 35 mpg based on my past two Fords with Duratec engines.

comp386

Wow my MPG suffered after going to 100% highway. I recently moved and I go about 70 (yeah I follow the speed limit) on the freeway for my entire commute and I'm down to 29-30 MPG. I was getting better fuel economy going local with some minor gridlock. Very odd :confuse: .

fapar47

Update: well, I've got a few more miles on this now but I'm still not too impressed. On two different in-town mileage checks, 20 and 24.7 (acceptable), and a 180 mile day trip that was 80% highway cruising got a hair under 29 mpg, with no A/C usage. As said previously, I could have done as well in the Olds Intrigue (except for the 24.7 city.

bnordberg

I turned over 20k miles. My last trip from SLC, UT to Olympic NTL Park, WA - mostly highway 65-75 mph, but some urban (Portland, Boise, Olympia). I averaged 36 mpg. I also was able to remove the back lower seat (only 2 bolts), drop the back rests, put my luggage behind the front seats and create a 6ft 5 inch X 4ish foot bed. Inflate the thermarests... Perfect for those windy nights when camping outside was just too loud!

basiliskst

These results are for a 2005 Ford Focus ZX4 ST with the 2.3 liter Duratec engine and 5-speed manual transmission (as are all STs)and 25,000 miles. I bought the car used but there are no obvious signs of wear. It is fully optioned (so I assume the heaviest version.) It easily passes for new. It does mean someone else did the initial break-in of the engine. The original owners were happy enough to replace the Focus with a new Ford Fusion -- a returning customer is a good sign with a used car.

So far with about 2,000 miles of experience, I am averaging 27-28 mpg. My standard gasoline is a 10% ethanol blend that may cut economy some as ethanol has a lower energy density than pure gasoline. My mix of highway and city is about 60/40. The lowest measurement was an all-in-town tank at 24.8 mpg.

Interstate driving at 70 mph + is yielding right at 30 mpg with several runs between Des Moines and Minneapolis at around 70-75 mph (the prevailing speed).

I've really only done one long road trip on 55 mph roads and as an experiment pegged the cruise at 55 to see how much better I could do than at Interstate speeds. Pretty good as it turns out. Over 250 miles it yielded 37.9 mpg.

I'm happy with these results as the 2.3 liter manual is a very flexible drive train in the Focus. In town it cuts and thrusts with verve. Freeway entrance acceleration is great. My only complaint is road noise at highway speeds, but it is an economy car, not a Buick. The road noise is more tire noise than wind noise. The throaty exhaust note is great and part of the fun and I wouldn't change it.

The ST delivers a fun, flexible sedan that can be sporting when your foot is heavy and efficient when you're willing to go slow. It is tempting when the engine responds so willingly.

There are cars that do much better but the cost of acquisition is generally much higher or they are much smaller. I had a much loved Suzuki Swift for many years that was reliable as could be but frankly a tin can for safety. I never tested the Swift's crash worthiness but was always aware I didn't want to hit anything in it. The Focus by contrast is a real car, larger and more solid, with only slightly less fuel economy and a huge boost in perceived power and sophistication. I still don't want to hit anything but the ST has better active safety (serious P6 tires, ABS and traction control) and reasonable passive safety (side air bags and reasonable front collision scores for a small car). In the value equation the Focus ST scores well in my experience.

explorerx4

imo, great review. i have an '04 zts with the same drivetrain. the engine is amazingly flexible.
my car has slightly smaller tires, so it gets a bit better mileage. it has never been on a 250 trip.
wish i had that exhaust system to 'st' has.

svt_rs

i thought this forum was for svt focii strictly, all i see is focus wagon and sedans , whats up ???

explorerx4

thre are several ways to get to a particular forum. they are not always obvious. 2.3 kicks butt!

fnewby

2001 Focus, 2.0 liter 16 valve engine, 5sp trans. I get 32 mpg on a regular basis - 35-36 on trips (drive to DC from the Philly area 1-2/month). One trip to North Carolina got 40mpg. Best car I ever owned!!
FTN

focusowner2

28.25585295 mpg
140517.6 miles
4973.044 gallons

11/26/2000-2/22/2007 (Purchased 11/20/2000 with 20 miles)

2000 Ford Focus SE
16 valve 2.0L Zetec

Also:
$5779 in maintenance costs
Maintenance Cost per mile: $0.04/mile
Gas Cost: $.08/mile
Total Purchase Price: $21000
Cost per mile (200000mile lifespan): $.105
Total CPM: $.225/mi

waynebengston

I've got 9950 miles on my 2007 ST.

The comments on the 2005 ST also pertain to the 2007. It is a wonderful little car, IMO, the best "bang for the buck" in compact cars today. If I could change one thing, it would be to make it RWD. I traded a 1999 Miata in for the Focus, and the Focus is as much fun, in it's own way. If it were convertible and RWD, I'd not miss the Miata at all.

I've only made 2 modifications to the car. I replaced the stock rear sway bar with one 1mm larger, which gave the car near neutral handling, and replaced the mediocre Pirelli P6s with Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3s, of the same size as stock. Those two things really transformed the car.

I have kept very detailed records of fuel economy.

Overall is 27.01MPG with roughly 75% of that on cross country trips.

Worst fuel economy has been 20.41MPG with pure short trips and lots of idling. The next tank under the same conditions got me 21.96.

Normal Houston city commuting has been in the 24-25 MPG range.

Highway fuel economy has been higly dependent on speed.
Best has been 32.33MPG keeping speed in the 65-70MPH range.
70-75 usually gets 29-30MPG, while 80-85 nets 27-28MPG.

Looked at on a graph, fuel economy has been steadily climbing, especially in the first 5000 miles.

I wish the car had a higher final drive like the 2004s. I'm sure the fuel economy would be a good deal better, and I doubt acceleration would be hurt much, as the engine has torque to spare.

dball1

Ditto to most everything written here. I too bought a used 05 ST with 25775 miles on it. My mileage has been consistently at 29.8 for the past three months. I gave up a fully loaded 05 Altima and paid cash (11288 incl tt&l)for this car and I absolutely LOVE it. I had a 96 Escort all the way till last summer when someone hit my daughter on the highway at 70 mph ad spun her. She was hit two more times by two other cars before coming to a stop. She had a cut on her foot and her two passengers were uninjured. The car was a total loss but actually, still started one more time even with the pulleys on the right side of the engine smashed in! I carry a piece of the front grill in the trunk of my Focus. I know, that's nuts but I can't help it. The car had 160000+ on it and still had the original clutch! I had recently replaced the original hoses and radiator on the car... Original hoses!!

This ST is like the Escort on steroids. Very fun to drive, loaded like the Nissan was and I'll take Ford reliability over Nissan any day. If you're thinking Focus, you owe it to yourself to test drive an ST!

lee292

We have two Focuses (Foci?). The '07 SE with standard engine, 15" wheels and auto gets between 27 and 33 mpg, while the '01 ZX3 with the Zetec engine, 5 speed and 16" wheels varies between 24 and 35 mpg. They have 48K and 85K miles, respectively.

jimtx

I drive my 200 ZX3 a mix of city and highway, mostly to work and back, and have consistently gotten an average of 29.5 mpg. I tend to drive at about 70mph on the highway and could probably improve my mileage by slowing down a bit. On the other hand, I have gotten 80,000 miles on my first set of front brakes, so I must not be wasting too much gas mileage to braking.

mark1960

I purchased a used 2001sedan LX earlier this year. White in colour and very clean, although I have found out it has had a respray, it had 105,000 miles on it. I purchased it after seeing it advertised online from a five star dealership ( Chrysler ) after running a carfax report on it which turned up no nasties. I paid $3900 plus fees and tax. I am very impressed with the economy, I drive 125 miles a day to and from work, and about 70% of my miles are freeway, and after five tanks of gas I am getting 33.4 MPG overall which is excellent.
A nice easy car to drive and park, smooth manual gearbox, an all round nice economy car. So far very pleased.
Mark.

leroyan

I have about 2,000 miles on my Focus now and bought it Feb 13, 2008. I average about 35 mpg. I wanted to get a car with good gas mileage and able to fit a lot in the trunk and the Focus does that. I have a 5 speed transmission which is the first vehicle I have owned with a manual transmission. My last tank I got 450 miles on the tank. I have noticed that with a strong head wind driving 65mph the mpg does drop down to 32 - 33. I also did some experimenting and noticed that driving 40 mph I get 45 - 50 mpg. Of course no one drives at that speed much but it tells you what speed differences do. At 55 mph I get 37 - 38 mpg. Back and forth to work I get about 35 mpg. That includes interstate at 65 mph, two lane road at 55 and a small amount of town driving. My 97 Taurus that also does good on gas mileage only averaged about 27 mpg going back and forth to work. I also like the Sync which is really cool. Nice car so far.

rincon1840

Usually between 27 and 31. Pretty good for a 124K car.

gearslammer1

I bought my 2007 Focus SE 2.0l about 2-3 months ago when it had about 1200 miles on it. I have been getting about 34-37 MPG with about 80% highway. I had one trip on the interstate where I did get 40 MPG. I have a little over 4000 miles on it now and I wonder what kind of mpg I will see in the future. This is a big improvement over my 2003 Ford Ranger I was driving it was getting around 18 mpg. Since I drive over 80-100 miles a day this car is paying for itself in gas savings alone. Its always nice to give your money to someone else or save it instead of giving it to the oil companys. I am also a big guy and having a car that gets good gas mileage and is comfortable I thought was going to be a challenge but not with this car it has plenty of room.

randomness

Do ALL the focuses have the "low fuel" light?

I always refill my tank around 293 miles because that's when it's practically on the E. Once I let it get lower and at one point while driving it seemed like it was going to run out soon it was acting werid.

Also I average about 26mpg with my 05 Sedan...mostly highway driving and I tend to speed but I don't do a lot of braking or stop and go.

carlt1

My 08 Automatic SE has 3500 miles on it and gets better and better mileage. On a 60 mile trip to New Haven (mostly I-95 rolling hills) I hit 50mpg at the end of the trip just as I got to the slow down at the usual construction slow down outside the city. I drive very carefully to maximize efficiency. Passing up a Prius ws not that bad an idea since most of my trips are short.
carl

0311vn

I just put 3800 miles on my 01 Focus wagon that had 101K on it when I left San Diego two weeks ago. I had never surpassed 34 mpg before in it, but on a stretch of Rt. 50 going east from Reno toward Ely I got a tad over 38 mpg. I clocked every tank on the trip and averaged 34 to 36 mpg on each one.

I noticed, however, on one tank in South Dakota with 87 octane blended with ethanol that the mpg dropped to 32 on all Interstate driving in terrain much flatter than where I had been more west of there. Does anyone else notice that with ethanol blended gasoline than the mpg drops off a bit?

In Colorado I went over some passes eight to eleven thousand feet while staying in the 33 to 34 mpg range.

I kept the tires a pound or two over the recommended 32 psi. I also kept the cruise below at around 65 mph. I only drove over 70 when passing as I wanted to save fuel and not push a seven year old car with 101K plus on it.

Also, at most up hill grades, I shut off the AC. Does this save much on mpg, or does it merely give the engine a bit of a break?

I told my neighborhood mechanic that the mileage had dropped off on the Focus after he did the 100K tune up on it. He said he had put 20w oil in it because it was an older car. Before I left he replaced it with 5w20 as recommended by Ford, which he said might be an mpg factor; I never heard of oil being much of a mpg factor.

The cheapest gas I came upon was around Cheyenne, WY at 3.85. Mapquest.com lays out 2300 miles San Diego to Detroit. I did the equivalent of Detroit to Anchorage on this trip. My only complaint for a car this old with over 100K on it is that when temps hit 90ish the AC struggled to cool the car. I suspect a wagon with more glass and more interior volume involves more cooling than a sedan.