2003 325i FUEL ECONOMY Question..

[Bmw 325i 7803]

For some reason my car gets 10-11mpg city driving, with a little highway..... but its only short distances say under 5 miles one way and about 5 back, even though BMW claims 19 in the city. I spoke to the SA at about 3k miles and he told me to wait till it gets over 5-6k miles to judge fuel economy and that "It's no lemon" (interesting that he said that) However the cars over 5k, and back then I complained about 13.5..... now its 10.5 ironic how it seemingly is getting worse. Any thoughts??????

Also the SA said "If I got between 150-200 mpg a tank in the city in that car I'd be happy" Maybe, it is the weather but I find it interesting that a 2.5ltr engine eats almost as much gas as an old Lincoln Town Car or SUV, both 5.0+ ltr V8's........

Oh and When I drive the car hard in the city we're talking about 9mpg and such.... Babying it gets me around 12.5mpg....

Only on a nice highway road trip I've gotten 385miles on 14 gallons.... [???1] strange

 

[Kirby]

Hmmm...sounds odd. I average 18.5 mpg in a 330 city & hiway mixed.

You mention:

" but its only short distances say under 5 miles one way and about 5 back, "

is this cold startup driving? If so that *might* explain it. Mileage will always be worse on cold startup than warm driving.....

 

[Bmw 325i 7803]

But this worse? I would expect in 50-60 degree weather in NYC to get 15-16mpg. And in this weather around 13-14..... But not in the 9-11 range no way, maybe the engine does slightly burn more gas than it should, is this a possibility?

Afterall, I've always thought since I drove it off the lot that it was a little bit unusually gas hungry, and taking the SA's word, blamed it on a new engine.....

 

[aNoodle]

faulty sensor?

Sounds like a faulty sensor. Calculate the actual fuel mileage yourself...by filling the tank all the way up...doing some driving...then fill it back up again and note how many miles you went and how much fuel it took to fill the tank back up. Do the math. If it doesn't correspond to your onboard computer...make BMW replace it. They previously announced problems with the sensors giving GREATER mpg than actual...but your problem is the opposite.

Just a thought

 

[SFCA-325i]

We get about 13.5 mpg

Similar situation to yours, Bmw 325i 7803. Commute distance through the city is about 5 miles, one way. Average MPH is about 15 mph, so you get a sense of how much stop and go traffic there is.

Funny thing is the 325i gets virtually the same city MPG as my Honda Pilot, which weighs over 2 tons and whose 3.5L V6 produces over 240 hp.

 

[bmwrocks]

For some reason my car gets 10-11mpg city driving, with a little highway..... but its only short distances say under 5 miles one way and about 5 back, even though BMW claims 19 in the city. I spoke to the SA at about 3k miles and he told me to wait till it gets over 5-6k miles to judge fuel economy and that "It's no lemon" (interesting that he said that) However the cars over 5k, and back then I complained about 13.5..... now its 10.5 ironic how it seemingly is getting worse. Any thoughts??????

Also the SA said "If I got between 150-200 mpg a tank in the city in that car I'd be happy" Maybe, it is the weather but I find it interesting that a 2.5ltr engine eats almost as much gas as an old Lincoln Town Car or SUV, both 5.0+ ltr V8's........

Oh and When I drive the car hard in the city we're talking about 9mpg and such.... Babying it gets me around 12.5mpg....

Only on a nice highway road trip I've gotten 385miles on 14 gallons.... [???1] strange

How are you calculating MPG? Are you using the OBC, the instantaneous guage, calculating it manually, or all of the above?

My 330Ci gets around 18-22 city and 29-31 highway consistently since day 1.....

 

[codex57]

My car gets 16-17 mpg in pure city stop and go traffic. Less than 200 miles per tank. Highway, it jumps to around 28. Mixed, I get around 22 mpg.

 

[Bmw 325i 7803]

Re: Re: 2003 325i FUEL ECONOMY Question..

How are you calculating MPG? Are you using the OBC, the instantaneous guage, calculating it manually, or all of the above?

My 330Ci gets around 18-22 city and 29-31 highway consistently since day 1.....

Calculated based upon the OBC and instantaneous gauge....... I have noticed that I usually get 50 miles per quarter tank in the city. Thats about 50 miles on 4 gallons.... Meaning I get about 12.5mpg in the city at an entire tank, regardless.

On the last reading I got 11mpg city/highway at an average speed of 11.7mph. On the last tank the OBC shows on 107.5 miles I got 11mpg which matches up with the guage. Therefore the readings are accurate. This was babying the car towards the end, and a bit more idle time..

Which means The car burned 10 gallons running for about 9 hours.... if the avg speed is correct.

 

[SFCA-325i]

I think it's real important to evaluate your MPG in conjunction with your MPH. The lower your average MPH, that tells me that you spend a lot of time sitting in traffing and accelerating for short distances. There's no way around the result, this kills your gas mileage. The fact that you got decent MPG on the freeway suggests that there isn't anything wrong with your car, just the city traffic.

I noticed this when every car I bought NEVER got the EPA city mileage. In fact, I usually got about 70% of the EPA city number. This rule of thumb has been true with my Pilot, with my wife's 325i and my daughter's matrix. The price of city traffic, I guess.

 

[codex57]

On my Civic, pure stop and go traffic (like on Los Angeles' many freeways) got about 27 mpg. Highway running at 75-80 got about 29. The only time that car ever got a huge dip in gas mileage was when I'd visit my g/f's family in SF. Those hills really took their toll on my mpg.