I am down to half of the tank after driving for 180 kilometers.
From the internet, the car is supposed to have a 44-liter capacity but 9 liters are the reserve. So doing the math, the car is consuming around 9 litres/100km which seems excessive for a 1.5 litre engine. I drive in a low-density town where the speed limit is 60 KM/hr, and there is rarely any form of start-stop traffic. It is hilly, sort of, you meet a couple of non-steep climbs here and there, but I doubt they are the reason behind all of this.
It is a Mazda 2 (2013) with an automatic transmission and a 1.5-litre engine. It had a previous accident history; therefore, it was cheap, and the mechanic I bought it from told me it was just body damage. None of the mechanical parts (engine bay) were affected and restored to an almost new condition. Which is in line with its history as it lists the accident as a rear collision.
The ball bearings on one of the rear wheels sound like they need replacement, but otherwise, I had no issues with the car. The engine sound, torque, and even AC work really well. The engine air filter looks almost like new. Should I be concerned?
I’m spouting from very old memories here so please google this and verify, but I think Mazda set the range/empty warnings to be extremely conservative because the fuel pump is submerged in the fuel tank and running the absolute full range can cause the pump temp to increase at the very bottom of the tank capacity.
So the useful capacity is less than the actual specification for a full tank. There may be some reduction in fuel efficiency because of the auto being a 4 speed and you driving in a hilly area, but the range being less than expected was a common complaint when the car was new.
Owners would test this by running until the fuel light came on and then filling until the auto shutoff hit the first time (don’t fill into the fuel neck). Whatever that amount of fuel is, is the capacity you should divide by to determine MPG. Back in the day this math, dividing miles driven by actual fuel consumed, returned a fuel efficiency within the expected range.
Some owners then made a habit of driving every tank “past empty” because they knew the warnings were conservative.