OK, I confess, I monitor my mileage (actually all costs for both cars) closely with spreadsheets.
Over the last four and a half years my 2008 5 speed 2litre NC has averaged 37.3mpg. The best tankfuls were around the 45 to 47mpg mark (gentle holiday cruising on A and B roads) the worst 29 to 32mpg (heavy town traffic almost stationary), and typically 38mpg when trying to keep down to the limit on motorways (cruise control might help restrain the over eager right pedal as the engine comes on the cam).
With my lowish mileage if the NC was written off with nothing back from the insurers it would have cost me 135.79p per mile. And it would have been well worth every penny!
Compare this with the bigger, heavier, less powerful, but more flexible (and surprisingly willing in the upper revs) 2l Skyactive Mazda3 bought new as a pre-reg two and a half years ago and double the annual mileage. If written off similarly it would have cost 180.4p per mile, even though averaging 40mpg around town with my dearest lady-lead-foot driving it and me averaging 50mpg in it four up on long-distance holidays-by-the-sea; not so much fun though.
You can always select a lower gear for those brief moments of hooning around, but for boringly steady light-footed long-distance cruising and fewest bangs per mile find a car with the highest possible top gear (31.2mph per 1000rpm in my Mazda3 compared with 21.7mph per 1000rpm in 5 speed NC).
To sum up, go for a Skyactive engine with a good high top gear, eg ND with 2litre engine. Alas, I don’t fit into the ND without the rapid onset of backache, so I’ll be sticking with NC and Mazda3.
An afterthought. A couple of years ago I considered changing the NC tyres from 205/45/17 to 215/45/17, I may yet do this when the current set reach five years old or loose their grippiness. Then, according to my Garmin satnav, the speedo would be only 1.5% optimistic instead of the current 3% at 30 and 70, and the extra width would help reduce the risk of kerbing the rims, and the actual miles per gallon would go up by 1.46%, even though the indications would remain the same (but journeys would appear to be 1.46% shorter).
i dont really bother about what MPG the car gives as its mostly sat in the garage (and the NC1 doesnt tell you what it is and i cant be bothered working it out) however i do notice a huge difference with the roof being down! I may be wrong but a lot of these high MPG figures must be with the roof up especially at higher speeds where with the roof down this would be much worse
Really useful so far. So it looks like the later 6 speed car is the way to go as the earlier 5 speed 2 litre and 1.8 share pretty similar figures. The down side of this is it puts me up to about £9k which is 3 more than I was planning on.
You can get a early 6 speed 2 litre, we have a 06 sport which has got a 6 speed 2 litre. Not sure but I think all 2 litre NC had 6 speed?
See the guide below, it seems all 1.8 cars have 5 speed and also some 2ltr models. You get an LSD with 2 ltr models too.
The guide below is pretty accurate and is regularly updated.
I must be doing something wrong (or maybe right) in my 1.5 ND - 31,000 miles - average 43 mpg. Best tank 50 mpg- mostly Norwich to Blackpool in the snow. Worst tank 35 mpg - NC500.
It’s interesting that the NC2 has better fuel economy, apparently much better looking at the figures quoted here. Does anyone know what the changes were? Can they be retro fitted/adjusted to match?
For the record my 06 Sport has peaked at 37.8mpg on a long run on Super plus with the roof up and a low of 29 on std unleaded roof down mixed driving. The next tank will be long run, super plus with a hard top fitted. Be interesting to note the difference
My average over the 2896 miles ive owned the car is 33.3mpg
Had mine I believe 4 years this year and never once worked out the MPG, but then I didn’t buy it as a tool, but purely as a toy.
I’ve absolutely no idea what it does, I fill it up, I drive it when the sun shines, I fill it up again 4-6 weeks later.
I guess I can conclude, I’m getting about 40mpg based on what others have said.
I’m off on a jaunt next week so will easily use a full tank. Just curious to see how much it will get, last similar trips returned 37 & 39 mpg. It’s the only time I try and take note of the mpg. I’m also going to try some super fuel I always intended to give it a go but the price puts me off
Try Tesco Supreme 99 fuel. 99 octane and still cheaper than Diesel (where i am anyway)
You will however have more drag from wider tyres.
You would be far better off putting more air in your tyres. Do an experiment. Set them to 35psi and see how much you improve the mpg.
Agreed, in principle. In the past with my DD cars I always ran them slightly high and watched the wear pattern to make sure it was not too much in the middle. eg my 1994 Astra 1.4SE did 45,000 miles with even wear on each front pair of Contis, and averaged 45mpg for its 205,000 miles commuting around the M25 mostly at 70mph.
However, with 35psi the grip for my MX5 will be somewhat odd… and mine is intended for fun and not commuting. While I monitor everything, it is mainly to keep a look out for something unusual starting to happen before it becomes serious; the running costs come third after safety and reliability.
And while going from 205 to 215 is about a 5% increase in width, it will not be a 5% increase in rolling resistance. The side wall will have gained a slight bit of height and therefore have a very slightly less acute deformation with rolling and thus perhaps actually lose slightly less energy.
But what really matters are the compounds involved; how hot do they get with flex losses - a perfect spring remains cool, a lossy spring gets hot. So simply changing to a different make of identically sized tyre could make a bigger difference. eg on my old Vectra a temporary spare Fateo tyre with identical dimensions to the Goodyear Eagles on the other three wheels caused the ABS light to come on after about ten minutes at 70, simply because the rolling resistance was so much higher. When the replacement Eagle finally arrived and was fitted then the problem went away.
Surely if you’re running a fun car/sports cars and you’re worrying about what mpg you’re getting then you should be driving something more sedate and frugal, although the ND is pretty frugal by any standard.
That’s all very easy to say if you can afford more than one car or only need to use the one car you can afford at the weekends for jollies. If on the other hand you have the budget for one car and you don’t want to be bored out of your mind by running an eco box for the 5 journeys to work and back then suddenly that 5 mpg can make a big difference
A lot of vehicles that are used for commuting seem to have mpg figures worse than “5’s”, unless they’re oil burners of course.
None of the MX5 cars are economical.
MK1 25 - 35 MPG - typically 30
MK2 - same as MK1 for 1.8, add 5 MPG for 1.6
MK3 - 35 - 40 MPG and think yourself lucky for so much fun:-)
And MK4 - 45+ MPG Well for the 1.5l anyway!
Very true, economy still has to be a consideration for most people who use their 5s daily. It certainly was when i bought mine. Much more juicy and it would have been a no no
My 2007 6 speed 2.0 is about 30 mpg but its just a weekend high day car so I’m prob lower than average with my driving. Happy with that compared to the Rx-8 i had at 18 mpg on a good day.
Oh but the fun you had!