Hello, I'm a new user here and I'd like to ask about something that has been bugging me for quite some time.

I'm trying compare the fuel usage with other users. Maybe I am wrong, by the mpg in my 2004 TSX seems to be on the poor side. The car has just a little over 30,000 miles. I tried the usual method: fill up, drive for x miles, fill up again and compute mpg. During the tests I usually drove for around 100 miles before refilling. The mpg in my car turns out to be between 15-18 maximum. Is this normal? It must be noted that 95% of my driving is city only. I do not know what the mpg was when the car was new. I drove it a bit faster back then. I only started measuring mpg when the prices hit $4+ per gallon. Right now I drive not too aggresively and usually try to keep the rpm under 3k, but I am not driving like a cow either.

I visited my dealer about 3-4 weeks ago. They did a 10 mile test and told me that the mpg was decent. They gave me a decimal of gallons used, but I do not remember it now. They fixed the tire pressure. Apparently it was too high. After the dealer visit I tried one of the additives that supposedely cleans the engine and what not. I never used any additives before and I always use premium gas, shell's vpower most of the time.

I had slightly better results on the tank with the additive, but that's probably coincidence, maybe I did some highway miles then. I filled once more week or so ago. I noticed that the tank was 3/4 full and I had only 50 miles on the counter. Today I have about 70 miles and the tank is 2/3 full. I usually have 200-240max before the reserve light goes on. Does my mpg fall within reasonable range? Any insights?

 

I've had an 06 5AT since November 06 and since then (44K miles) my car computer says 26.9 mpg for the life of the car. I used to drive roughly 50/50 city/highway now it is more like 70 highway/30 city. I have heard many say things about the mileage, I fortunately cannot complain too much. I use 91 Sunoco 99% of the time.

 

I forgot to add that I have 5 speed AT. The 2004 do not have the mpg computer (and a few other things)

 

For 95% city, that's about to be expected. I have an '04 6mt and I typically drive 99% city/suburban. I get anywhere between 16 an 22 per tank. I've noticed that your fuel economy is extremely sensitive to driving style when it's so dominated by non-highway miles. My snow tires definitely push the average down too.

 

I've also noticed that if I Only drive for 100 - 200 miles before a fill up, my MPG is worse than if I were to drive till when my low gas light comes on...

In mixed driving.. i'm averaging about 25mpg if I were to fill up before the half way point (the less I drive before a fill up, the worse the MPG seems to be).. if I fill up near the 400+ mark.. then it's about 30 - 31 mpg.


I was thinking could it be the extra weight of the fuel attributing to the bad mileage? But 1 gallon = approx 6lbs so a full tank would only weight about 90 or so... that's not enough to cause such a sharp drop off

as for the OP .. try filling up when you are on empty next time and see if you get better gas mileage..

 

I did that once, I filled up when the tank was nearly empty. I averaged 18mpg then. Shouldn't the city mpg be closer to 23 according to the factory specifications?

 

Just like Fox137 I have noticed lower MPG if I don't use up the entire tank before re-filling on my 04 AT. I average between 25-28 with mixed driving. If I spend most of my time on the highway I easily get around 30.

Stop and go in any car is going to get you lousy MPG. The TSX is no fun to drive in the city either. Too heavy and low torque. I have the most fun when I get to open the engine up a little.

 

I have an 04 5AT, my average mpg has been around 24.5 (mostly non-highway), this is down from 25.5 that I get during spring/summer, I believe they add some type of additive to the gas during winter which contributes to lower mpg.

 

I have an 04 6mt, and I get about 23-24mpg with city only driving, and 32-35mpg on the freeway (depending on speed).

 

I have an '06 with a 6mt. I get in the low to mid 20's in the city (23-24 usually) and low to mid 30's on the highway depending on speed (30 at 80-85mph and about 35 around 70)
I'd have to drive like an idiot to get down to 15.

 

I've never driven an entire tank worth of just city driving. My combined mileage is around 26. Best I've gotten all highway was just over 34mpg. I have an 04 AT.

 

When I had my 04 TSX 6MT I would get anywhere from 17 to 20 mpg with 95% city driving. I had Navi and the trip computer, so it also showed how many hours and minutes your engine was running for the tank. I noticed with the low mileage I had a lot of hours and the average speed would be like 20 mph for the tank.

You have to remember city driving is going to be different based on how much city traffic you drive through. Rush hour in NYC will yield you terrible results. You also have to take into account how long you idle the car from just warming her up, or getting stuck at traffic lights or sitting in a parking lot waiting for someone with the engine idling.

However if I do 100% highway and average 70mph I was able to get 29 to 34mpg. So the city driving mpg will vary depending on how you accelerate at traffic lights and how long you are stuck idling. Just my

 

I highly doubt the computer is accurate. I manually do the math on my 05 5AT, and I get about 20 in the winter if I do local and highway. If I do all local, it'll get 17-18 mpg. My highest ever was in the summer and was 33 mpg.

 

06 6MT I run 91oct and get 450 miles to the tank. Run reg and get below 400. If I do more HWY with a/c off i get 31MPG on and drop to 28. Do more city and it keep dropping. I nitrogen the tires and found it help to give a better Avg. also seting them to 35PSI helps and help in saving the rim from potholes. Air cleaner can play 3% part in you MPG if it is dirty.

 

I run 93 octane and drive 99-100% city since I live in Chicago. I usually average from 15-19mpg per tank. Its not that great. When I drove here from CA over the summer, I averaged 35-36mpg all highway, so I'd say its pretty accurate.

 

I've never done city only, but with my average mpg in my 04 TSX 6MT with mixed driving was 24-25 mpg. My guess is that you should be getting 20mpg if you do City only. If you idle a lot, then it will be worse. the K24 engine is thirsty in the city..but a miser on the highway.

Try to shift at the recommended rpm (3100rpm), and shift up quickly. High RPM and heavy foot can really eat gas in this car.

 

I have an 2004 TSX, 6-speed, and have gotten almost 32mpg, but usually average in the mid 30 to 31 mpg. Most of my driving is at 55 mph on the freeway. I'd like to open it up a bit more, but I live in second most expensive state for gas prices (still over $2.20/gallon). When the gas prices were less, I was getting about 28mpg, and having a lot more fun.

 

2004 6MT - I averaged low 30's per tank in the summer, high 20's in the winter with approximately 80% highway driving. Highway speeds average about 65 mph, not very aggressive in my city driving.

 

mine is a 2004, and it has the mpg computer. i am 100% city. 4 miles to work, 4 miles back home. with about 12 stop signs/traffic lights. mine is typically now reading 23.1.
lately i've been using my remote starter though so it has dropped accordingly, now shows 22.6.
i drive it like grandma getting groceries on a sunday afternoon to get those numbers from it though. (at)

 

That doesn't sound right. Have you tried manually doing the calculations?

 

Sounds spot on, actually. Mine is also around 22-23 now that it's colder. He has a short commute like I do (2.5 miles for me), which kills mpg.

 

Those #s seem awfully low to me ... which may be more of a result of your driving methods (heavy foot?) than the engine. Another thing besides being the amount of stop lights/signs, could be the amount of uphill driving required that could be bringing down your mpgs.

When I 1st got my 2004, I averaged around 300 miles/tank & the trip computer said around 23mpg ... this being about 50/50 city/hwy. About 1 year later & 10,000 miles, it suddenly improved up to like 360 miles/tank & averaging around 29 mpg. I also have always used 93 octane.

 

That's really weird. If I do all city driving in the winter, I get between 15-18 mpg. I've tried to do slow accelerations, but it's not practical. It takes 4 seconds for me to get up to 10 mph. Is that not light-footed enough? I've had this car for over 2 years and I have only once barely went over 300 on the tank.

 

hey i'm driving an 04 tsx with an automatic transmission. when i bought the car with 54K miles on it I did check my mileage two times. I drive back roads and main roads(no highway or congested city roads) to work and averaged between 24 and 27mpg which i found to be pretty decent and right where the factory sticker from the EPA claimed. Id check again make sure u got the figures right and if not you should get that car checked out cuz TSXs get way better than that! hope this helps!

 

Today my tank is almost empty (the needle is 1/16th away from the empty mark) and i've made 208 miles so far. As I said before, I do not drive like a crazy maniac, but I accelerate moderately fast. I usually keep rpm under 3000 and rarely go over 5000 (for the sake of saving gas). I drive about 3-4 miles to work everyday and I have 5-6 stop lights at most. My city has some uphill roads, but the number of those is insignificant. Since I started measuring this, i NEVER reached 300 miles per tank. My record was 280 with mixed driving. Depressing...

 

For that kind of driving you really need a much lighter vehicle if you want to get good mileage. There's the insurmountable obstacle of the amount of energy required to get a given amount mass moving (at a particular speed via a particular rate of acceleration). Your driving conditions are more or less a worse case scenario as far as getting good mileage goes in any vehicle. It's also the perfect use case for a plug in electric vehicle but I doubt you're interested in any of the (very expensive) options currently available if you're driving a TSX.

 

You're doing city driving, and usually my TSX estimates itself at 15-17 MPG in 35MPH, multiple stop areas. I wouldn't expect great mileage if that's what you're doing 90% of the time.

BTW, if you use Shell V-power (91-93 octane), you oughtn't need to use fuel injector cleaners much; a top-tier gas like Shell has plenty of cleaners in it.

At this point, if you still have your notes from measuring your fillups, go to FuelEconomy.gov,[1] create an entry for your year and model, fill in their Excel spreadsheet, and upload it. You can compare your mileage with other 2004 TSX owners. Be aware, though, that you're logging predominately city driving, so your average should be compared to the EPA city driving estimates, not everyone else's overall averages.

[1] VERY cool site, not only can you review your purchases over time, but your "fuel purchase history" page charts your averaged MPG for each fill-up, over time.

 

Gas Data for my 2005 Acura TSX 5AT

 

More recent peek at my mileage chart:



I like your logic about savings over a year on 89 versus 91 octane. Not everyone does this kinda math.

You've inspired me to assemble my FuelEconomy.gov data and chart the prices myself. This years record from April to December ought to be a hoot!

 

I just bought a 2004 TSX (5 speed AT w/Navi) and do not see any obvious "mpg computer." Are you referring to the trip computer in the "hidden" menus (accessed via menu/map/cancel). If so, can you explain how you use it and how to interpret the different fields? Thanks!

 

DO NOT EVER USE ANYTHING LESS THAN PREMIUM FUEL!!!!!!!! ANYTHING LESS WILL DESTROY YOUR VEHICLE!!!! Well for newer acuras hell maybe even older acuras as well

 

Yikes. If you're going to go in to hysterics, at least know what you're spasming about. Regular gas will not destroy the car, even in the long term. Performance will be reduced but for the most part, the ECU can compensate for the lower octane.

 

If you're turbocharged, with a high boost, then using lower octane fuel may cause damage, but otherwise, it won't damage your engine. Your ECU will compensate for the change in octane if it needs to.

 

One one tank of gas, and with very heavy foot I got only a little over 400kms. This time around I've been driving like a puss, and I already got 300kms and my tank is only half empty.
This is on a 2006 6-speed TSX with 40000km, mostly city driven.

 

I just got my TSX 2 weeks ago ('04 6MT) and my mileage is quite poor (12L/100k) just below 20 mpg, which is quite poor in my mind, the acura site says aroung 8L/100K, I believe there is going to be a variance from the standard but 50% more? Does anyone have any input on what I can get checked other than tire pressure or air filter. Maybe I just got a lemon, who knows. Thanks!

 

What about a supercharged TSX? Is 93 required at that point or continue to use 91?

 

91 should be fine.

 

My understanding is that if you use a lower octane and the engine anti-knock sensor detects pre-detonation, it (the ECU) compensates. Not exactly same as "ECU compensates for lower octane" (unless there's an octane sensor in the fuel delivery subsystem).

Does this "Detect knock -> retard timing -> avoid the knock" do long term damage? Some say it can (as if the anti-knock sensor will "wear out"), but I haven't heard anything but hypothesis.

I started driving my gf's 2002 Echo this week after she bought it. You haven't seem mileage until you've experience Echonomy. 100 miles and the fuel gauge has only started to move down.

 

If the engine were to be audibly knocking, there might be some chance of damage occurring before the ECU could compensate. However, the knock sensor (it's just a microphone, it's not going to be damaged) is way more sensitive than your ear. I think the

That's nuts about the fuel economy on the Echo.

 

The Echo rivals your runofthemill Prius for sipping petrol. I dared her to get license plate PREPRIUS.