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I've mentioned some of the low numbers cited here to the service manager at my Nissan dealer and his reaction is that you'd REALLY have work at it to get mileage that low. It's hard to imagine getting roughly 30% lower mileage short of a mechanical problem or extreme driving circumstance.
A friend who owns a Mini was looking at my Versa yesterday and asking me about it. When I told him the mileage I was getting he was very impressed and said his Mini doesn't even sniff 30 mpg. A little later in the conversation, we were talking transmissions and he said, "Around town, I have trouble getting past 3rd gear".
We drive the same roads, so I know that you CAN get into 5th or 6th gear most places. If you want to be in a lower gear and keep a sportier feeling of more torque going to the wheels, then you're choosing to do that and your mileage is going to suffer as a consequence.
Assuming no mechanical defect with the car, driving styles and habits are pretty much what determines your mileage performance.
4th tank was 293 miles at 10.6 gallons = ~27mpg
Bought it in March '07...car has yet to break 1000 miles. Conditions have been primarily city, stoplight driving with a relatively gentle touch on the pedals (I have even experimented with the 1st, 2nd, 5th shifting regimen). I like seeing the improving numbers.
As an aside, I am really liking the more upright driving position. I can't stand to drive the wife's Civic anymore, the position is just to low. I was somewhat remorseful at first...but I am really liking this car.
Tony
I know a lot of it is that the snappy, sportier feel of being in a lower gear is seductive :P We like that feeling of zipping around. But mileage is the price for that.
My mileage on my 2rd tank was only about 28.5 and that was an all highway tank, so as the car breaks in, I assume you'll start to see some improvement as well.
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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I cannot say enough about this car.
Just filled mine, 30.4 mpg, again this is 70% highway (70mph) and 30% city. The car is starting to get the mileage it was supose to.. This is with 12,500 miles on the car.
I use Mobil 1 only 5w30 change it every 5k
Reg gas.
75 mph I get 29.6
70 mph I get 30.5
65 mph I get 32.8
62 mph I get 35.8 This seems to be the sweet spot.
55 mph I get 37.2 But this is way too slow for my area.
If my wife drives the car I will get around 5 mpg less.
It's been a great car so far. Best for size for the road.
The way you drive makes a really big difference.
Used 38.98 gallons for overall trip avg of 36.9mpg. Love this car!!
In the city driving which I don't do much I get round 28. On the road I am now getting in the 34 plus. I drive from my home to work it's 61 miles one way. So I put in at least 122 to 124. 23 is far too low and I would check tires pressure first and how your driving.
You didn't say, but I'm assuming you do not have a 6-speed Versa, so that 95% city driving is going to be keeping you in lower than top gear a lot of the time and your mileage will be lower than someone facing different driving conditions.
Might be interesting to have a passenger take some short videos of the driving conditions we're all facing and put them on our CarSpace pages to make it easier to compare our different situations and driving styles. My "light foot" is no doubt different from yours, and when you say "city driving" that brings a picture to my mind that might not match yours as well.
The first couple of tanks on my 6 speed only got about 28.5 mpg and most of that was long distance highway driving. Closing in on 6000 miles right now and driving basically short trips of about 8-10 miles one way with some traffic light starts and stops and the last fillup worked out to 33.3mpg which is about 17% better than the highway mileage I was initially getting.
Your driving conditions are going to affect it a lot, especially with the automatic, since it's going to decide what gear it needs to be in. We've been driving nothing but sticks since 1979 and I my approach is to always be in the highest gear that I can without "lugging". So I generally find myself in 6th gear as soon as possible. For example, yesterday I was stopped at a red light on a downgrade. When the light turned green, I went from 1st directly to 6th, just a habit. I'm CERTAIN my mileage would suffer if I wanted to enjoy a snappier feel from the car wanted to runit up and down through the gears all the time and play "sports car" :P
I have to run some typical errands today, so I'll try to keep a log of how long the trip was, how much time it took, and how much of that time I spent in 6th gear. I have NO idea what that percentage is going to be, but I'm going to guess 60% and see how close I get.
When I post my "travel log" I'll include some deatils, and maybe photos, of the roads and conditions I'm facing on a daily basis so you can make a better comparison with your own situation.
As an aside, I'm also in the middle of another mileage experiment. I just did my first tire rotation, and my buddy who owns a tire shop now fills tires with nitrogen because a lot of people are demanding it due to the purported benefits. Since I keep track of my mileage a bit more closely than most, we decided to see what effect, if any, the nitrogen will have. The nitrogen is supposed leak slower out of tires over the long haul. MY theory is that folks who generally don't monitor tire pressures might get a bit of mileage improvement because the tires that they normally would have run on at lower pressure (which decreases mileage)will be closer to normal than they usually have them. I'm not expecting any difference in mileage beacuse I pay attention to my tire pressures and don't ever run around on low tires.
We'll see.
Fired up the Versa at 9:25AM and headed to town. I have a stretch of rural two lane that's 5 miles long to start and end the trek, so that's why I'm thinking my average speed will be biased upwards. Had a stop watch that I started each time I shifted into 6th gear and stopped when I came out of 6th into a lower gear.
From home to back home was 1 hour 6 minutes. Total time that the engine was running was 45 minutes, 35 seconds, and during that time I was in 6th gear for 26 minutes, 12 seconds. That's 57.4% of the time the engine is running that I was in 6th gear. I had 4 stops on the trip.
The total distance I traveled was 23.7 miles, so my avereage speed, while the engine was running, was a scorching 31.19 mph!
Talking about this with one of the techs at my local Nissan dealer (great place for the daily gossip...LOL) and he's thinking that 700 miles isn't quite through break-in yet. My experience with my Versa showed a noticeable increase once I got into that 1000-1500 mile range. It definitely had increased by the time I got to the first oil change at 3750. I'll be keeping to the every 7500 mile service schedule, but that first one was to give the car the once over. They used to have me bring new Nissans in for an oil change at 1000 miles, so this was that initial change.
In any event, I think you're still breaking the car in and things will improve for you. Check out your driving conditions if you can. Maybe there are some surprises there that you didn't expect!
PS - If I get a chance, I'll try the same thing with a passenger so I can get a better idea of how many MILES I drive in 6th gear. No way to do that safely by myself!
However, if you read the other posts, you will see that it would be more unusual if you had great gas mileage in a Versa.
It seems to be a struggle to go higher than 30 MPG unless you do 95% highway driving and if you did 95% highway driving, you could about match the Versa's MPG in many bigger cars.
The gas mileage seems to be a disappointment for most owners.
And it's not the size of the molecules that matters. In a tire filled with compressed air, the oxygen molecules tend to "migrate" through the wall of the tire over time. That's why, when you open the garage to check on your dust-covered AMC Pacer the tires are often flat. But nitrogen molecules migrate 3 to 4 times more slowly than oxygen, so tires stay properly inflated longer. Staying properly inflated longer is why some places are able to claim a gain in mileage. Those folks who normally don't pay attention to tire pressures will see less of a decrease in mileage when they are not running around on flat tires, or I guess Ishould say spending less time running around on less than properly inflated tires. I guess some would look at less of a decrease as an increase.
In any event, I'll continue my little mileage experiment/driving conditions survey to see where it leads me.
3/19/2007 279.3 mi 10.899 gal 25.63 mpg
4/7/2007 242.6 mi 11.462 gal 21.17 mpg
4/15/2007 172.4 mi 3.982 gal 43.29 mpg must be error
4/17/2007 228.7 mi 11.2 gal 20.42 mpg
5/1/2007 231.0 mi 9.197 gal 25.12 mpg
5/13/2007 231.7 mi 10.41 gal 22.26 mpg
So after 5896 mi we have a running AVG total of 23.38 mpg
Tony
I've been following nearly all the subcompact threads and every model has dissatisfied owners with the exact same issue.
Pretty much: city miles + A/C + automatic + short trips = low mpg numbers (below EPA figures).
If you has more of a mixture of highway and city or a manual transmission, your mileage would be better. The new smaller cars (Fit, Yaris, Aveo, Versa) don't seem to be very fuel-efficient under the circumstances above.
Also, 700 miles on the clock is WAY too early to be freaking out -- every car I've owned has gotten quite a bit better over time. I'm currently getting my best mileage numbers with an Aveo, at 129K miles.
I'm happy to see some people getting over 30 mpg, since the Versa would be on my list of potential cars to look at when I replace my current vehicle.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
I drive a 2001 Echo (automatic) which has essentially the same drivetrain and I have never gotten less than 35 MPG in pure city driving.
With city driving I mean an average of less than 20 miles traveled per hour, lots of stop and go.
Of course the Yaris is lighter and has a smaller engine than a Versa.
Last week I rented a Versa (4 speed AT) and over 438 miles I used 12.33 gallons of gas resulting in 35.5 MPG. My typical commute these days is 40 miles each way, 50% city stop and go and 50% highway. Average traveling time is 85 minutes.
I drive like there is an egg under the accelerator pedal, I brake as little as possible without being an obstacle for other drivers and I never exceed the speed limit on the highway (62 MPH = 100 KPH). Not much fun to drive that way but very effective in terms of the amount of gas used.
A CVT equipped Versa would be about 10% better for fuel economy than the 4 speed AT.
If you drive mostly highway miles, you lose most of the fuel economy benefit of a hybrid.
I've put over 25K miles on my 2006 I-4 Accord and have only dipped under 30 MPG TWICE! The first time was on the very first tank of fuel and the second time was heavy city driving and heavy on the gas pedal.
I regularly get 35-37 MPG on the highway and I don't drive like a grandma.
I have a 2007 MT Accord 4-cyl, and get around 40 mpg at 65 mph (best is 41.3 over 549 miles with a few city miles). Higher speeds drop mpg into the mid to upper 30's and lifetime average for about 5,000 miles is 31.7.
The Versa should be able to handily beat the Accord, but that does not seem to be the case.
300 miles/12.3 gallons = 24.39 mpg
Now don't worry my milegage was low when I first got my versa, also don't listen to the people who talk about accords gettting 40 MPG, the versa well make you happy, again I have 12K miles on it, and love it to death...
tony
That's worse than our seven-year-old Subaru Forester (2.5 L and AWD). I WOULD be disappointed if I were you.
But hang in there. Some cars do break in after a while. 1200 miles is not that many miles in.
They do get 40 - read the Accord MPG board - some are even pushing 40 with the MT V-6. CR got the automatic 4-cyl Accord at 38 highway in their test. That was a 2003 automatic, before the engine mods that upped the mileage (and hp). The 06 and 07 models do better and the stick shift models better still (though the automatics regain the lead at the highest speeds because of their taller gearing)
CR tested 2 Versas CVT and MT - the highway mileage of both was below the Accord. Your local library has all the details.
The Versa is far from a guzzler, but for its size and the size of its engine, I agree with hbfever that the mileage should be better. I think the situation is made worse by the early projections of 38 mpg combined EPA.
I was originally considering the Versa along with the Fit et al, but my wife wanted more room, and we had heard/read a lot of good things about the mpg of the Accord. I actually liked the Versa better than the Altima for seating comfort. The Altima has terrible rear head room and the Versa has plenty.
In their tests city lowest was 16 mpg, highway best 32.
CR's overal mpg for the Versa is 28. In their tests city was lowest 21 mpg, highway 36. So all over the map like many posters have noted.
Overall means combined city/highway.
Just what you would expect since the Accord is a bigger, heavier car. So you wouldn't be comparing it to a Versa.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
Nobody said the Accord had 40 mpg overall - just highway.
Yup.
Nobody said the Accord had 40 mpg overall - just highway.
Yup again. The previous exchange on the Accord and 40 mpg was about whether or not the Accord can attain this number. No one said a word about the overall mpg.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
My 2003 Accord 4 cylinder manual averaged 30mpg and got 33-36mpg on the highway over 40,000 miles. I must say I am not sure I have seen hardly anyone get better on their Versa here.
Versa = 28
Accord = 24
I have to say that generally small cars don't get as good gas mileage as they used to. I had a '95 Civic (MT again) that regularly got between 30-40 mpg. But it only had 109 hp. I think recent generations have added much more hp and probably weight too with all the technology like air bags, ABS systems, etc that my old Civic didn't have. The current Civic size wise looks like the old Accord!
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
Yes, both on the average and on the absolute numbers. When it comes to attaining 40 mpg, for instance, all of the four cars you have listed above can attain it (fairly easily in some cases too). With the Versa, you pretty much need a tailwind on a downhill and maybe get 40 mpg. Maybe.
Then again, if you don't need a number like that, but rather enjoy a comfortable and spacious vehicle that is relatively economical, I would say that the Versa still fits the bill.
A good point! I, too, owned a '95 Civic (hatchback and MT), and the worst mileage that I ever got was 29 mpg in one of the worst snowstorms plus below zero temp for a week, driving purely on big city streets. Under normal driving conditions, I would have had to put a parking break on and drive in the first gear the whole time in order to get below 30 mpg (slightly exaggerated, of course
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
When you say that the Fit, for instance, is too narrow, are you referring to the exterior, interior, or both?
To me personally, what matters is the interior, and in that area, the Versa is only 5 mm wider than the Fit (1390 mm vs. 1385 mm; sources: nissan.co.jp and honda.co.jp). That is such a small difference. When it comes to the Yaris (sedan), the interior width is exactly the same as the Versa, at 1390 mm wide (source: toyota.co.jp).