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I have SL 6 spd. Versa. It has about 2700 miles on it so far. I drive almost exclusively in the city. I drive pretty conservatively, I am not a gasser or a racer by any stretch. My mileage per tank has been consistently hovering at 290 (w/AC). My city economy hasn't come anywhere near the advertised 30mpg. I know that the EPA rated fuel economy is highly over-optimistic.
The only time I topped 300 miles was on the descent from Flagstaff, AZ to Tucson, AZ. For those who don't know, that's a highway trip of about 250 miles, 140ish of which are downhill. The trip from Flag to Tucson took up a couple ticks over a half tank (250 miles). I spent the rest of that tank on city driving and finished with 350 miles. Conversely, the trip up to Flagstaff took over 3/4 of a tank.
I have almost 19K miles on Versa SL w/CVT at first I was getting 27 combined City/Hway, the last 6 months, I'm getting Low 30's this is with A/C (I live in PHX) on all the time...
I'm not too worried about the MPG of the car, if I wanted the wunderbar car I would have bought the Fit, or Prius. The more I drive the Versa the more I like, I have 11 months left on my lease and now starting to look at my next Nissan.. Looks to be either the new 08 Murano or Rouge.
I have about 800 miles and the average is about 25~26mpg AC on most of the time. I am easy on throttling and look way ahead coasting for stops. Highway is about 45% (about 70~75mph) and city is about 55%.
Try not no exceed 2500 RPM. Inflate your tires to at least 35 PSI. Don't take short trips. Try to adapt to the flow of traffic, anticipate slow downs. The less you have to brake the less you will have to accelerate.
You should be able to achieve at least 30 MPG under the conditions you describe, especially now that it is summer.
Take a look at www.scangauge.com. The cost of this device may be the best investment you can make and it will teach you to save gas in no time.
Back in Aug of 06 I was complaing that I was getting 26-26 MPG with my Versa, but today I'm getting low 30's. The only thing I can think is the engines much be really tight from the factory and they need time to break in..
I have a 6 speed, and I was getting about 28mpg for the first 1000 - 1500 miles and then things gradually started to increase. Right now I'm getting like 32-33 in my normal local driving and 35 if I get any extended highway miles. Highest I've gotten yet on a tank that was basically 100% highway was 35.8
Why do you say that ? Go back to the beginning of this thread and read all the post. You well see many people having te same problem as you (just as I did) and the mileage started getting better.
I have driven a lot of automatic cars, Camry, Accord, altima, Civic, Corolla, Golf, Neon, Sienna, Dodge Caravan, Odessey, Cobalt, Cavalier, Saturn Ion etc. all with better accerlerations due to bigger engines or same engine sizes, I thought Versa has slower accerleration will improve mpg a lot by driving a slower acceleration Versa from 10 mph to 45mph will give me more mpg, I was wrong. I wish mpg could really improve as time goes by.
I should have bought that Versa SL (or FIT ) which give better accerleration as Versa S with slower accerleration did not improve mpg. Older Civics, Echos with 1.6 liters have better accerlerations and mpg.
Neverthrless, I am generally happy (interior space and features and accerlerations from 60 to 80mph on highways) with Versa S, overally speaking.
My SL with CVT now has 7100 miles on the clock. Overall mileage pretty much stabilized by around 2500 miles as the engine broke in. Now averaging 31.6mpg in mainly in-town driving, and 34.4 on the highway. Have not used AC much, even this summer.
I have read most of the responses and recall that I have tried these suggestions. My versa has 7,000 miles on it, it it's 6spd and gets an average 23.4 mpg with A/C. It has actually gotten worse. It started at 25 mpg. I too live in AZ so A/C must be on, but 23.4? gimme a break. Any idea why this could be happening? Seems so matter what I try the mpg stays the same. for this gas milage, why didn't I just buy an SUV?
Well for the most part its not the car, if it was, everyboy with a 6 spd would be getting the same mileage. I'm sure it comes down to your driving habits. Shift no higher then 3K. I have a CVT, and when I'm in town, I never go over 3K, there is no need for that, the CVT and engines tourqe are well matched. My last tank was 33.45 mpg, granted this is 85% highway and 15% city.
While my Sentra was being repaired (it took them almost 3 weeks to find the source of a noise caused by defective welding) I drove a Versa SL with CVT. Over this period and almost 1400 miles I got 35.2 MPG.
This with a daily commute of 40 miles each way, with lots of stop and go that typically takes 80 to 90 minutes, about 60% highway and 40% city, AC on about 50% of the time.
It all comes down to driving styles and conditions. I've always attained the mileage estimates on all my vehicles, yet people with the identical car do not. How you drive will certainly affect things as well the roads and traffic conditions you face day to day.
Always seems kind of silly when someone proclaims "the EPA sticker is lying" when there are so many variables and those numbers are estimates.
I got it driving 65 MPH on the highway and braking as little as possible. As you know, any loss in speed will have to be recuperated later using more gasoline.
I always wonder why people in the lane parallel to mine speed up, break sharply and the repeat the game.
I, on the other side, just let the car roll and try to keep a steady speed. Even at purely city driving mileage never drops below 30 MPG.
What destroys good mileage is lots of cold starts and short distance driving.
It all comes down to driving styles and conditions
I think part of it is driving style and conditions, but not all. If it were, then you're assuming that all Versas are identical and that's not the case. If it were, then you wouldn't have one person with transmission problems at 10,000 miles, or another person with a waterpump go out at 20,000 while another lasts 150,000 miles. Every part in every car is slightly different and you add up all of those very minor differences you can end up with a car that may have worse mpg (just like you'll have a car where the transmission will fail early).
And for those specific cars with transmission, water pump, or any other mechanical problem that appears earlier than normal, the early symptoms may be poor mpg caused by a poor running component.
Bottom line is that it's a combination of car, driver and conditions.
I humbly suggest that this new crop of mini-cars (Versa, Fit, various Toyota offerings) are not the mileage champs that marketing suggests.
A high-revving engine under 2.0L gets high mileage only under ideal conditions. Add passengers, speed, hills, accessory use (a/c) and mileage, quite literally, stinks. In Europe, where these cars were designed, people drive much slower and use a/c less, if at all.
A Versa with a/c constantly blasting is reducing its potential mileage by 25 percent, if not more....
During several weeks of using a loaner Versa, using AC 50% of the time, I still got a little over 35MPG.
Contrary to what you say about speeds in Europe, and this is strictly my own experience, people drive way faster than here.
In Germany, on the autobahn I regularly traveled at 100 MPH or greater. No one there travels at less than 70 MPH unless there is congestion or, near major cities, speed restrictions.
The right lane speed is normally around 75 MPH, the left lane around 100 MPH, and many cars pass you at 100 to 120 MPH. You only stay in the left lane to pass and then quickly move back into the right lane.
I forgot to mention that most of these cars are offered in Europe with smaller engines, most of them with manual transmissions, optimized for premium fuel and regularly achieve better mileages.
My real world experience tends to make me respectfully disagree. We took our Versa on vacation this year, carrying the wife and kids aged 15 and 18, our luggage for the week, in hot and humid conditions that forced AC use, and still got 33 MPG combined for the trip including driving in Washington, DC for two days.
I just got 34 MPG in combined driving of course this was 90% freeway with the A/C on ALL the time. I use the cruise control on the freeway and its set at 70 MPG.. So I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting these days.. I havet changed my driving habits at all and the car is getting better and better mileage..
Either I'm the luckiest guy around, always getting the car that's put together just right, or it's driving habits and conditions, because in the 28 years I've been buying cars I've never had a single one that didn't achieve the mileage estimates on the window sticker.
I'd say about 1/2 of the folks in general get the EPA estimates, so your case is pretty much the norm. Have you also had luck with car reliability...have you had many breakdowns in your previous 28 years of driving?
There is actually congestion in Germany and it isn't unlimited speed on every autobahn. People do not drive 100MPH+ 24/7 as people assume. In some places, people have to wait until night to to find roads open enough to go very fast.
That's what I said. Near cities and in congested areas it's not possible to drive those speed.
Last May however, when I visited my sister in Offenburg, she let me drive her 328 and I had to drive (I was speed starved) at high speeds and exceeded 120 MPH a couple of times.
I've had a brand-new '08 Versa S HB ( with VO Package, 4sp AT)for about 10 days now. The car didn't even have 50km's on the clock when I took it on a long highway trip including climbing the highest and longest grade in Canada, the Kootenay pass. We drove a total of 921km's and the Versa consumed 64.6 litres of regular. For you non-metric types, that works out to just over 40 MPG. I'm a believer.
Using imperial mpg in US is misleading US consumers as no gas pump is using imperial gallons in the US. Why mislead US consumers with imperial gallon if the intended audience is the US market. I thought entire Europe has converted to SI units or previously known as Metric units. England has abandoned it over 30 years ago. Imperial gallon is history.
I drove a rental Saturn Ion in April, 2007 from Charlotte to New York City and back with around 1200 miles trip, I got 31mpg. Ion has a bigger engine with more weights, I don't feel Versa is very good with 7 litres per 100km or 33.5mpg. A lot of vehicles including local brands and oversea brands can do that now and in the past. I would say Versa is at par with Ion at best. My Versa has now about 3300 miles, the mpg has improved from less than 26 to 28mpg recently, maybe due to less use of air conditioning recently or less traffic jam as I moved to another part of the suburban Charlotte. My drive habit is gentle and look ahead to minimize braking. My revs seldon exceed 3000rpm even in the accerleration lane to Inter-States. I normally drive in about 50% highway and 50% suburban environment.
The fuel economy of the Versa disappoints many, however you would have to drive the Ion on the same route at the same time compare the mileage. Trips taken on different routes at different times are completely useless for comparison.
While I tend to agree with the opinion that Imperial gallon is no longer a widely used unit, I would not go so far as to say that our Canadian poster who used it was trying to mislead American consumers. Besides, this forum is accessed by many people beyong the U.S. border, which is one of the reasons that make these boards really informative.
I came from Canada so I knew they don't use imperial gallons. Canadians use litres per 100km which is a far better unit with own experience. Normal Canadian knows US does not use imperial gallons and it is meaningless to exaggerate with a bigger number in a car forum that no one in the NA (or even in the world) will use any more except those car dealers try to mislead people. Perhaps, nowadays only US still uses mpg, in this case should use US gallon.
Apparently you miss the point 33.5mpg or 40mpg (imperial) is not any outstanding nor very good as many vehicles can now have this kind of fuel consumptions. I would just say, standard mpg achievement in similar class of cars.
I tend to agree comparing trips are meaningless for accurate comparison, so to take a bit further is stating mpg for a type of vehicles is also meaningless as there is no 2 cars are identical and no two cars are driven by the same person simultaneously, no two cars running at the same track at the same time.
It does provide a kind of mpg expectation in the real world.
I'm looking seriously at one of these for purchase next summer. Has anyone run the tank to empty or extremely close to it (as indicated by fuel taken on next fill)? In that case how many miles +/- did you go after the low-fuel light, and then the important question, how many gallons did you take to the first shut-off? I'm interested in the real driving range, coming from an Escort LX hatch. Thanks for any input.
As a corollary, is there a definitive answer on topping off vs stopping at the first shut-off? On the Escort that is only 1/2 gallon, and I have always gone for that extra, with no observable ill effects over many years.
USNEWS rated Focus better than Versa. I would buy a Corolla instead. Corolla has better accerleration (in the 20~50 mph range) and the LE was only $1000 (my friend bought one with me negotiating price with the dealer last month) more with better mpg, better range, and better equipped than my Versa 1.8S automatic. The extra $1000 is well worth it.
I never ran it empty. No problem ran it another 30 miles after fuel empty lighted up. YMMV as instruments like this is usually very crude on any car. I doubt if it was calibrated b4 shipping out of factory.
I guest the toatal gas tank is about 13 gallons. My full tank runs about 350 miles.
Thanks for the info, but Ford has dropped the compact wagon/hatchback from the Focus line and Corolla doesn't offer a hatch either. Matrix is still on my choice list though.
What is the max fill you recall in gallons? The tank on the '07 and '08 Versa is 13.2 gal on the spec sheet. I'm trying to learn the useful capacity, after reading warnings about topping off. The useful capacity will determine range for a given driving style and conditions. I would have assumed about 13 gal useful before reading the warnings about really filling the tank. I also want to learn if that is just silly talk or there is some basis for not topping off.
I do topping all the time with my Versa or any previous cars I owned, no big deal. Just don't overtop to the point of spill onto the ground.
I think the 13.2 gallon is the actual overtop figure, I might be wrong.
Overtop can be very dangerous when you fill it in the cold morning and let it idle at the car park with hot temperature in the afternoon. The reason being, the gas (petroleum) is a very expansive liquid that pressure build up in the tank could explode (exaggerate a bit). But, luckily there is a charcoal canister that stores the expanded liquid temporary and eventually vaporised and goes into the engine thru the air manifold inlet.
Thanks. That's what I've always done too and I was quite surprised to see forum comments warning against it. With my current car that's .5 gal after the first shut off, without spillover.
What is the point of topping and trying to stuff in an extra half gallon beyond the intended fill level? So you can drive an extra 10-15 miles before the tank goes completely dry? If you succeed, you will have gas in an area that is supposed to be clear air space. Kind of a dumb practice.
You could argue that but You might also appreciate that forestalling the next fill is time saved. Who says that space is intended to be just air?
I started the thread because I read comments indicating that the useful capacity of the Versa fuel tank might be as little as 11 gallons. I wanted to dig through that talk to the truth. How far have you driven past the low-fuel warning and how many gallons have you pumped on such occasions? What I don't want is to find myself with a car that I like except that it needs to go to the gasroom too frequently for my taste.
People buy Versa (or any small cars) for economy otherwise you will buy something else. If half a gallon can get you to the next gas stations with cheaper prices on a long trip, or get you to where you usually fill up cheaper gas station each week. The saving is not much but it helps in a lot of situations, such as on the edge of running out of bread. Saving a little each time may buy yourself or your love ones a gift on a special day. A lot of Americans are lucky enough not to be in such a situation.
Is that a joke? That makes no sense. You shouldn't be driving so close to running out of gas for an extra half gallon of gas to make a difference whether you can make it to a gas station further across town.
this isnt a true statement. I bought it for what the Versa was, a car with lots of technology for little money. I could have bought a Honda Fit, but then again, I would have been busy a go kart.. I wanted something that was easy to drive and had some of he features I wanted.. ALso if I wanted MPG, I would have bought a VW diesel.
Comments
I have SL 6 spd. Versa. It has about 2700 miles on it so far. I drive almost exclusively in the city. I drive pretty conservatively, I am not a gasser or a racer by any stretch. My mileage per tank has been consistently hovering at 290 (w/AC). My city economy hasn't come anywhere near the advertised 30mpg. I know that the EPA rated fuel economy is highly over-optimistic.
The only time I topped 300 miles was on the descent from Flagstaff, AZ to Tucson, AZ. For those who don't know, that's a highway trip of about 250 miles, 140ish of which are downhill. The trip from Flag to Tucson took up a couple ticks over a half tank (250 miles). I spent the rest of that tank on city driving and finished with 350 miles. Conversely, the trip up to Flagstaff took over 3/4 of a tank.
I'm not too worried about the MPG of the car, if I wanted the wunderbar car I would have bought the Fit, or Prius. The more I drive the Versa the more I like, I have 11 months left on my lease and now starting to look at my next Nissan.. Looks to be either the new 08 Murano or Rouge.
You should be able to achieve at least 30 MPG under the conditions you describe, especially now that it is summer.
Take a look at www.scangauge.com. The cost of this device may be the best investment you can make and it will teach you to save gas in no time.
I should have bought that Versa SL (or FIT ) which give better accerleration as Versa S with slower accerleration did not improve mpg. Older Civics, Echos with 1.6 liters have better accerlerations and mpg.
Neverthrless, I am generally happy (interior space and features and accerlerations from 60 to 80mph on highways) with Versa S, overally speaking.
This with a daily commute of 40 miles each way, with lots of stop and go that typically takes 80 to 90 minutes, about 60% highway and 40% city, AC on about 50% of the time.
How you drive will certainly affect things as well the roads and traffic conditions you face day to day.
Always seems kind of silly when someone proclaims "the EPA sticker is lying" when there are so many variables and those numbers are estimates.
I always wonder why people in the lane parallel to mine speed up, break sharply and the repeat the game.
I, on the other side, just let the car roll and try to keep a steady speed. Even at purely city driving mileage never drops below 30 MPG.
What destroys good mileage is lots of cold starts and short distance driving.
I think part of it is driving style and conditions, but not all. If it were, then you're assuming that all Versas are identical and that's not the case. If it were, then you wouldn't have one person with transmission problems at 10,000 miles, or another person with a waterpump go out at 20,000 while another lasts 150,000 miles. Every part in every car is slightly different and you add up all of those very minor differences you can end up with a car that may have worse mpg (just like you'll have a car where the transmission will fail early).
And for those specific cars with transmission, water pump, or any other mechanical problem that appears earlier than normal, the early symptoms may be poor mpg caused by a poor running component.
Bottom line is that it's a combination of car, driver and conditions.
A high-revving engine under 2.0L gets high mileage only under ideal conditions. Add passengers, speed, hills, accessory use (a/c) and mileage, quite literally, stinks. In Europe, where these cars were designed, people drive much slower and use a/c less, if at all.
A Versa with a/c constantly blasting is reducing its potential mileage by 25 percent, if not more....
Contrary to what you say about speeds in Europe, and this is strictly my own experience, people drive way faster than here.
In Germany, on the autobahn I regularly traveled at 100 MPH or greater. No one there travels at less than 70 MPH unless there is congestion or, near major cities, speed restrictions.
The right lane speed is normally around 75 MPH, the left lane around 100 MPH, and many cars pass you at 100 to 120 MPH. You only stay in the left lane to pass and then quickly move back into the right lane.
I forgot to mention that most of these cars are offered in Europe with smaller engines, most of them with manual transmissions, optimized for premium fuel and regularly achieve better mileages.
Last May however, when I visited my sister in Offenburg, she let me drive her 328 and I had to drive (I was speed starved) at high speeds and exceeded 120 MPH a couple of times.
I drove a rental Saturn Ion in April, 2007 from Charlotte to New York City and back with around 1200 miles trip, I got 31mpg. Ion has a bigger engine with more weights, I don't feel Versa is very good with 7 litres per 100km or 33.5mpg. A lot of vehicles including local brands and oversea brands can do that now and in the past. I would say Versa is at par with Ion at best.
My Versa has now about 3300 miles, the mpg has improved from less than 26 to 28mpg recently, maybe due to less use of air conditioning recently or less traffic jam as I moved to another part of the suburban Charlotte. My drive habit is gentle and look ahead to minimize braking. My revs seldon exceed 3000rpm even in the accerleration lane to Inter-States. I normally drive in about 50% highway and 50% suburban environment.
Trips taken on different routes at different times are completely useless for comparison.
I came from Canada so I knew they don't use imperial gallons. Canadians use litres per 100km which is a far better unit with own experience. Normal Canadian knows US does not use imperial gallons and it is meaningless to exaggerate with a bigger number in a car forum that no one in the NA (or even in the world) will use any more except those car dealers try to mislead people. Perhaps, nowadays only US still uses mpg, in this case should use US gallon.
One you want to be high, the other low. Just different ways of measuring the same thing, how efficient a vehicle is.
I tend to agree comparing trips are meaningless for accurate comparison, so to take a bit further is stating mpg for a type of vehicles is also meaningless as there is no 2 cars are identical and no two cars are driven by the same person simultaneously, no two cars running at the same track at the same time.
It does provide a kind of mpg expectation in the real world.
As a corollary, is there a definitive answer on topping off vs stopping at the first shut-off? On the Escort that is only 1/2 gallon, and I have always gone for that extra, with no observable ill effects over many years.
I never ran it empty. No problem ran it another 30 miles after fuel empty lighted up. YMMV as instruments like this is usually very crude on any car. I doubt if it was calibrated b4 shipping out of factory.
I guest the toatal gas tank is about 13 gallons. My full tank runs about 350 miles.
Whoops. This is a Vera forum, isn't it? I'll shut up.
What is the max fill you recall in gallons? The tank on the '07 and '08 Versa is 13.2 gal on the spec sheet. I'm trying to learn the useful capacity, after reading warnings about topping off. The useful capacity will determine range for a given driving style and conditions. I would have assumed about 13 gal useful before reading the warnings about really filling the tank. I also want to learn if that is just silly talk or there is some basis for not topping off.
I think the 13.2 gallon is the actual overtop figure, I might be wrong.
Overtop can be very dangerous when you fill it in the cold morning and let it idle at the car park with hot temperature in the afternoon. The reason being, the gas (petroleum) is a very expansive liquid that pressure build up in the tank could explode (exaggerate a bit). But, luckily there is a charcoal canister that stores the expanded liquid temporary and eventually vaporised and goes into the engine thru the air manifold inlet.
Kind of a dumb practice.
I started the thread because I read comments indicating that the useful capacity of the Versa fuel tank might be as little as 11 gallons. I wanted to dig through that talk to the truth. How far have you driven past the low-fuel warning and how many gallons have you pumped on such occasions? What I don't want is to find myself with a car that I like except that it needs to go to the gasroom too frequently for my taste.
That makes no sense. You shouldn't be driving so close to running out of gas for an extra half gallon of gas to make a difference whether you can make it to a gas station further across town.
http://www.epa.gov/donttopoff/
http://ask.cars.com/2007/07/gas-top-off.html