Just home from my own 2458 mile European road trip. 47.1 mpg form my 2.0 ND1. I had some fun in those miles too. No speed limits were exceeded and I did concede and do a few more autoroute miles than intended but I didn’t target MPG once.
Great trip but next time I’ll be picking a destination to stay for a week then spend a combined week getting to and from there on interesting roads.
MPG is what it is. You had fun and great mpg to boot.
What’s not to like
I drive 42 miles each way daily for work (pre 07:00 and post 16:00), much of it along the M6, M61 and A580 East Lancs in my 2017 ND 1.5. Being a bit sad, I often check out what MPG the old girl is giving (currently on 70k miles but regularly serviced) and was this week astonished. Dropping into the city I took a look and it was averaging on that drive 63.4 MPG. I’m pretty chuffed at that although many ‘5’ owners would say I drive her a little sedately but even when driven hard, she usually returns well over 50 MPG. Gotta love these cars eh unless one of you bursts my bubble by saying this is not possible! 
That is pretty good! I have the 2.0 so not really comparable. Were you looking at the little screen for that or did you do the math on fill up? If the latter then the “real” figure might be a bit different but calculating that would give you a better idea.
Either way, this is a pretty good number!
I used the screen YoanH via the maintenance app and it offers a live fuel consumption chart as well as start to current MPG. So it may well be inaccurate but in 3 years of owning the 5, I do believe it’s a very economical motor compared to previous cars I’ve driven. Not complaining mind as I get 45p per mile when I use it for business trips (insured as such before anyone comments).
I’m currently averaging 41 in my MY 23 ND 2L. I also compare the computed MPG on the dash, with that calculated by brimming the tank. Currently, the dash figure averages being 1-2% optimistic (reads high) which is better than my Audi A3 which is optimistic by about 4%.
The 45p/mile will be to cover the whole cost of running the car, not just fuel, right?
Not saying that’s not good in your case, but when you add all costs, including depreciation, servicing and repairs etc, the headline figure for the ‘mileage’ rate never looks so good 
.
Some say that “they have the car anyway” but if you do a lot of business miles in your own car, it becomes clearer that the rate should indeed be in proportion to the total cost of having the car when you’re driving on company business.
My type of person
45p per mile doesn’t cover all running costs.
That was the limit set by the taxman in 2011 and has never been raised!! Allowing for inflation it should be 70p per mile, but if you got paid 70p per mile the taxman would tax you on 25p per mile…Doesn’t seem fair!
I’ve been a bit disappointed in the fuel consumption of my ND2. It’s a 2019 RF automatic with about 20,000 miles on it. The consumption has been about 10-15% on average worse than my ND1.
The ND1 would often get well over 50mpg on a long run, rarely dropping below 40mpg with an overall average of over 42.5mpg.
The ND2 is showing about 40.3mpg according to the on board computer.
Last weekend I took a trip from NE Derbyshire down to deepest South Wales for the road racing at Aberdare Park. I brimmed the tank the day before departure (Shell V-Power obvs) and took a route down avoiding motorways.
The car averaged 45mpg on the way down and this dropped to an overall 43mpg after the return leg using motorways (and some spirited driving on some lovely Welsh B roads).
By the time I was nearing home the fuel warning light was on so I filled up after about 390 miles and it took 36.1 litres.
Imagine my surprise when I did the sums and found that I had recorded 49mpg!
I was well impressed!
I’ll be keeping a record of the calculated mpg in future to see if it is consistently better that the onboard computer.
ND is clearly better than NC on mpg.
Return trip (about half on A1M) to Lincolnshire over the last few days in the 25AE (NC), including some pootling while there, recorded 39.92mpg for the 352 miles. Maccy’s ND would easily have been 10mpg better.
25AE lifetime (?) average shown on the trip button is 35.5.
Recent similar itinerary with the 2016 Mazda3 gave me 51mpg; bigger heavier car, but with higher gearing and the brilliant skyactive engine.
I dont get much better than about 35mpg from my 2L nc it doesn’t really seem to matter how i drive it
Have you ever reset your E CU by disconnecting the battery for a while.
It’s my new thing to advise everyone to do, so do not feel special (
).
You’ll need to make sure you have the code for your radio unit before doing that, and when you do reconnect the battery, you’ll need to turn your sterring wheel full lock both ways to reset the traction control too.
Then you start the car and leave it idling for a bit, before taking it for a leisure drive, and give it the beans a couple of time when the engine is warm.
Someone will correct me if I am wrong here…
But that’s what I did after my car stood still for over 2 years, and my mpg has improved greatly.
Wonders never cease!
On my current trip to and around Newcastle, my mpg hasn’t dipped below 42.5.
That’s despite the constant stop/starts in the city (worst at the moment as there are roadworks everywhere).
So: out of the window goes my theory about town driving killing the mpg.
It’s the second time this car improves its fuel consumption after its battery was disconnected…
I think it is like a puppy dog:
you leave it for a few days, and it greets you with happiness and rewards when you meet again…
On the battery disconnect/MPG improvement theory, I’d also make sure you do some brim-to-brim calcs, just to confirm your theory.
Do you mean me? My figures are all based on brim to brim checks.
My trip computer is usually only 0.5 mpg over-optimistic.
Mine doesnt have a trip mpg computer just a normal a trip and b trip so im calculating it between fill ups
I’ve done 2 full fill-ups with VPower, and 10 liters getting home from the lakes since taking ownership on 29th July.
I’m happy with the mpg so far, I know I can probably get it higher but where’s the fun in driving an MX-5 if you’re being careful with the fuel?
DISTANCE
45026 mi - 45472 mi 446 mi
FUEL CONSUMPTION 39.74 mpg
AVERAGE COST PER MILE £0.19
Nugget is now refusing to average less than 42.5 mpg.
And he is doing even better than that on the motorway, roof down.
So I am taking him on a road trip to the Alps in the autumn.
I can’t stand flying anyway.
My MY23 ND has averaged 41.03mpg in the last ~8000 miles (now at ~9500). Very rarely under 40, best tankfull had it at 45. Recent 1750m road trip to/from/round IRE averaged 42.8mph. I can get high 40’s on specific trips if I drive like the brakes have failed! (Try it, it certainly makes you look ahead and anticipate what might happen 
)
Currently trying to judge if V-Power pays for itself. I suspect not just in terms of improved fuel consumption, so just put a couple of tanks in occasionally to try and ‘keep things clean’…
