2012 Mazda3 SkyActiv: Real-World Mileage

Small cars and 40 mpg are quickly going hand in hand. Of the 30 sedans, coupes and hatchbacks that start under $18,000, more than a dozen have a 40-mpg non-hybrid variant — and most of them are selling well. Not to be left off the bandwagon, Mazda gave its Mazda3 a mileage makeover for 2012.

Called SkyActiv, the car's new 155-horsepower drivetrain — a direct-injection 2.0-liter four-cylinder with a six-speed manual or automatic — builds on aerodynamic tweaks to eke out competitive mileage: 28/40 mpg city/highway in the automatic Mazda3 sedan, 27/39 mpg with the stick. Aerodynamic shortfalls and a few extra pounds dock 1 mpg highway off the SkyActiv hatchback with either transmission.

How does the Mazda do in the real world? I took a stick-shift Mazda3 SkyActiv hatchback from our Chicago offices to the Detroit auto show to find out.

Comments

Mazda needs to get their 1.8t out immediately, which replaces the gas guzzling 2.5.
The 1.8t uses the small bore, and cylinder head of the 2.0 skyactiv, and the shorter stroke of the MZR 2.0.
180hp 180ft-lbs, and way better mileage than the Ford 2.5.

just saying, but if your average speed was 50 mph, that means a good majority of your driving was done over 70 mph if you had done ANY city driving. if you were "puttering around Detroit" and racking on city miles, then your mpg figure is right where it should be, especially if you were tacking on highway miles so fast that your average speed was 50 mph. if you had been traveling around the optimum speed for efficiency, say 55-65 mph, then your average mph figure would have been lower and your mpg figure would have been higher. for a combined rating, the 3 is getting exactly what it should be. the 40 mpg figure is on the highway anyway, so stop painting it like any of these 40 mpg cars are supposed to get 40 mpg all of the time. you guys know better.

JM,
I don't think so. I drove a GMC Terrain V6 for the same trip -- plus another longer drive if you can believe that -- and it returned it's highway figure of 24 nearly exactly. Little different weather conditions but the variance is much greater on the SkyActive. In general terms I hit city mileage figures when I drive a test car on my daily commute which is mostly bumper to bumper. This type of trip averaging 50 mph should have seen much closer to highway figures.

Not being an expert just a four year veteran of carefully driving a civic hybrid (07), small cars seem much more sensitive to factors such as aerodynamics, weight, hills, wind, temperature and driving style (lead foot v steady acceleration), while larger vehicles show much less variance. In ideal conditions these small non-hybrids will achieve great highway numbers but a small hybrid will also show hugh numbers - even exceeding published highway numbers - under the same conditions. So 32.9 mpg sounds pretty spot on.

its been proven repeatedly that you need ideal conditions and very modest speeds to hit the lofty highway figures on many recently introduced midsize and small cars. I wouldnt ever expect realistic real world driving to match the EPA numbers on these cars. The Sonata and Elantra have come up short in quite a few tests by the auto media so this isnt unique to the 3.

yeah, i think what we are starting to see is that the auto industry is 'engineering for the test'. it happened with the previous standards.

for a couple of years after the update it was pretty easy to hit the fuel economy estimates, but lately it's becoming more and more difficult.

My 2011 Mazda3 rated @ 33 mpg hwy constantly returns 36 mpg hwy.
with 80% hwy it gets 30-31 mpg.
My 98 Protege never cracked EPA numbers. But for some time was right on it.

Yes, gas mileage for small cars seems to vary quite a bit from the window sticker. My 2008 Toyota Yaris with an EPA of 29 city / 35mpg returns 38-39mpg in mostly highway driving and 35mpg with more city driving and warming up the car in winter, etc. I should not that I drive congested highways outside Boston.

" if you had been traveling around the optimum speed for efficiency, say 55-65 mph"
JM, if they drove like that, this would not be much of a car site.

Interstate speed limit in Michigan is 70mph in most places so I imagine freeway speeds were more like 75+.

My question would be how the Mazda3 compares to other high fuel economy small cars driven under similar conditions. To just state that something "underwhelms" absent any comparative context doesn't say much.

I recently purchased a Mazda3i Touring and so far, I've been averaging 32-33 MPG in mixed driving (average calculated at the pump) with a lot of accelerating and decelerating to help break-in the drivetrain. 32 MPG is the combined rating for the Mazda3 Skyactiv, so I'm getting exactly what the rated economy says. Going only off the trip computer during a recent 30+ mile constant speed highway run (cruise control set to ~72 MPH), I got 39.0 MPG, which matches the EPA highway rating for the hatchback. The MPGOmatic site got 45 MPG in highway driving at speeds more in the 60 MPH range. Mixing in any city driving or stop-and-go conditions will bring the average mileage way down. But, of course that applies to any non-hybrid vehicle.

I currently own Mazda 3 i Touring with SkyActiv and I have no problem getting avg. 35-37 mpg in city/interstate mixed commute. I think the reviewer is a kind of a lead-foot.

I drive a 07 Yaris Sedan with epa 32/39 (I think). The most I squeezed out of it was 42 on PA highway, which is hilly. My current Avg is 32 in winter and 37 on spring and fall. One thing I'm sure is that the best outside temp to get the best mileage is between 70 to 80 degrees. Anything more or less greatly affects mileage. My highway speeds are 70-80 and I have 225k on it in the past 5 years so I know what I'm talking about.