Paying over $3.60 per gallon last week really blew my mind. With 3 cars on the road and everybody driving - wife plus the kids commuting to school - I'm in for $500 per month. So I changed my driving habits just a little and went from an average 23 mpg to just over 25 in mixed rural and highway driving. I personaly do about 300 miles per week. I guess I'm botherng to mention this simply out of increased respect for this car that keeps doing everything so well. I don't know the real mpg ... anybody have a correction factor for my tires? I run 195 70 14. Speedo seems just a litle faster than actual. Thanks guys and girls.

I have a lead foot, and the prices are finally high enough to make me rethink things. I also just got my '93 wagon and I want to treat it nicer than I treat my 850.

My 850 was getting 15mpg on me this winter. On the highway it'll get 27mpg sometimes.

Meanwhile my 245 got 30.2mpg on my last interstate trip with an average speed of 72mph with the AC on. Slowing down about 10mph really helps. I usually have the cruise set at 85mph.

My diesel VW beetle can run all day long with the AC blasting, cruise set at 85mph and still get 45+mpg.

But, spread out among all of my vehicles, my average MPG isn't too bad. My motorcycle gets 55mpg consistently. My Vespa scooters get 72 and 64mpg typically. My '54 Ford sedan gets about 18mpg. My 4x4 isuzu pickup gets about 17mpg.

Somewhere between all of them, I'm probably getting an average of 25+mpg when I figure out what vehicles drive what miles, including my horrible winter mileage.

I swallow a bit hard when I figure out that the fuel + insurance cost of owning 8 licensed vehicles costs me about 3600 dollars per year with 4.00/gallon gas.

Then again, my 240 has a D24 :)

I took a trip up to my families lake house a few weeks ago with the my 240 and got about 27 MPG using 93 octane. I'm even more impressed what I got with the S40 though. I changed my driving habits (stuck to the posted speed limit!) and managed to get 41 MPG on the 100+ mile drive. I think I'm going to try that trick with teh 240 and see what happens...
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1993 240 Wagon / 94,600 miles and a 2001 S40 1.9T / 75,400 miles

I took a trip up to my families lake house a few weeks ago with the my 240 and got about 27 MPG using 93 octane. I'm even more impressed what I got with the S40 though. I changed my driving habits (stuck to the posted speed limit!) and managed to get 41 MPG on the 100+ mile drive. I think I'm going to try that trick with teh 240 and see what happens...
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1993 240 Wagon / 94,600 miles and a 2001 S40 1.9T / 75,400 miles

$3.60?!? I'm paying $4:10 a gallon here. 87 octane

That was last week. $3.73 87 octane today.

Heres a website to do the tire size calculation

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

If the stock tire was 185 70 14 and you are running 195 70 14, then you are actually getting 2.3% better gas mileage than your odometer indicates.

Okay ... good response. I think though that the original tires on a '91 245 were more like todays 185 75 14. My speedo reads 67 or so through a electronic speed sign reading 65 so I think my tires are a little shorter than original.

Not bad. The cars will do quite well. I still consistantly get 31 mpg highway, about 26 in-town, with my 87 245 (manual) with half a million miles and know the automatics can get over 25 anyway.

I've done the same. Went from 21mpg to about 23.5 - and I still drive faster than I should.

Keep up the good work.
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'93 244: 'A' cam 4 deg. advanced, 25/22 sways, custom heim endlinks, poly bushings, and a lot more styling customization than I care to recount.