gas mileage

[Melissa]

We purchased an MDX about 6 weeks ago - and I am quite disappointed in the gas mileage. The sticker said 17(or 18?)-24mpg - - I figured since I mostly drive in the city I would get around 17 or 16mpg -- - well, I have gone through a handful of tanks of gas already and am averaging 12 mpg!!! I called the dealership and they just said that b/c the car is heavy its mpg is not as good - - he told me not to be so heavy on the peddle starting out.... whatever!! Has anyone else heard of this - - or do you know if a place I can chat with other MDX owners to see if they are having the same issue?

- Leadfoot

[RevHappy Cowboy®]

Originally posted by Melissa

- Leadfoot

There's your problem

the factory mpg rating is a rating based on normal driving (driving in the highest gear all the time) I'm a bit of a lead foot too and I get 10L/100km in my EL (I'm from Canada), the car's rated at 9.6L/100km.
So try to ease off the gas for one tank and see how you do, if it's not improving then there might be some problems with the car or the rating Honda gave the general public, most likely the latter

[Sandman]

Melissa,
From other message boards like the one on www.acuramdx.org people have stated that their gas mileage was bad at first then slowly improved as the SUV broke in. The manual states that there is no break in period required, but from what I know about cars is that they all have one even if it is just a few 100 miles.

Some people also complained of inacurate mileage from the trip computer when then did a pen and paper comparison, due to a bad DVD in their NAV.

The only other advice is to just ease on the accelerator, I know it took my wife some getting used to and she would always floor it and chirp on take off, she did the same with our TL Type S...

Give it a few weeks and try some highway driving and see what you get.

[gang$tarr]

it's never as good as the rating

but it should be pretty close... oh well, it's only gas, north america doesn't pay that much compared to alot of other places in the world, i don't worry about it

[F20C]

People should understand how manufacture come up with MPG ratings. They have old grandma driving behind the wheel.

[nimadifob]

I've been running 22.0mpg for the past 10k miles

[originalmike]

Mine's been going 20 mpg at least but thats on the navigation so idunno.

[Ehscrewdude]

yeah, my pilot gets about 18-22 all the time, but it was a lot lower at first. Try taking it out on the highway and maybe thatll help lube up and "naturalize" your engine...lol

[lorunner]

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ratin...cription.shtml they explane how the ratings are arived at.

[bpeitzke]

Our 2003 (Sep 2002) Pilot is getting 12.7mpg in all-city driving. Our mileage has always been in this range since new, except for long trips.

I'm disappointed but not sure whether we could expect more with our mostly short-trip driving patterns and oversized tires (265/60-17's, dealer had put this wheel/tire pkg on this car & we bought it). I know we're overgeared almost 2% with these tires, but my wife likes them. I'll try to convince her to downsize to a closer-to-oem size when these wear out.

[ctgrain]

I've had an '04 Pilot and now an '05. Runiing about 70% highway, maybe a little less I get 19 running A/C in hot weather. I can't complain about that.

[a5d]

There are a couple of things worth considering (actually three or more):

1) As a sop to us consumers, EPA and DOE have a web site that compares user reported mileage with EPA estimates at:

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG....ion=browseList

They list no users reporting on a 2002 MDX (or 2003 for that matter), but the following information is available:

2004 MDX user reports 12 MPG based on one car, 70% stop and go driving.
2005 MDX user reports 15.8 MPG based on one car, unspecified driving
2004 Pilot users report avg 17.0 MPG based on 4 cars. Range 14 (mostly stop and go) to 21 (70% highway)

2) To the forum member using oversize tires: I calculate that the 265X60R17's (30.7" OD) are 5.5% oversize compared to 235X70R16's (29.1" OD). You are permitted to multiply your odometer reading or your calculated gas mileage by 1.055. Therefore if you calculated 14 MPG, you really got 1.055X14 or 14.77 MPG (almost 1 MPG increase). Remember to add about 3 to 4 MPH to your speedometer reading, also. A Michelin oversize would be 5.86% bigger than a Goodyear OEM according to manufacturers' published specifications of overall diamter.

3) Don't believe trip computers. Some are off on actual miles traveled, but, all I have ever had any experience with underestimate the amount of fuel used and tend to give average mileage figures about 15% too high.

[xtreme barton]

i was gonna say that no window tag is accurate ...

they did a dateline nbc investigation on ratings and actually mileage... found them to be way off


is your butt very big ?? that may have something to do with it ?? j/k'ing



you could always do some reverse performance mods

[nick bamberger]

Has it been "broken in" yet?

[fly-by]

Originally Posted by Melissa

We purchased an MDX about 6 weeks ago - and I am quite disappointed in the gas mileage. The sticker said 17(or 18?)-24mpg - - I figured since I mostly drive in the city I would get around 17 or 16mpg -- - well, I have gone through a handful of tanks of gas already and am averaging 12 mpg!!! I called the dealership and they just said that b/c the car is heavy its mpg is not as good - - he told me not to be so heavy on the peddle starting out.... whatever!! Has anyone else heard of this - - or do you know if a place I can chat with other MDX owners to see if they are having the same issue?

- Leadfoot

My wife has a 04 MDX and she gets 10.5-11 MPG in city. I get abot 13 when I get the lead out. It is a far cry from 17!!!