When I first got my ZX3, I thought the same thing about the gas milage being horrible. But if you read in the manual, it says that when you fill it, to pump gas until the pump shuts off, and then do that 2 more times before you stop. After I started doing this my milage went from about 22mpg to about 27mpg. So it really doesn't get bad gas milage, it just doesn't have a full tank.

I have heard about this and it doesn't make sense to me one bit. For one thing every gas pump tell you not to do this because of the risk of spilling gas.<br><br>If you slightly underfill your tank if anything you should get ever so slightly BETTER gas mileage as you are pulling less weight in fuel around.

What it is by filling your tank that full is putting more gas in it. It really doesnt change the mileage. Just changes it in the mathematics of figuring it out by have more gallons.

Some people just don't know how the heck to do gas mileage... I know one guy who would do his gas as follows. I'll use my focus figures, cuz I don't know what his car was getting.<br><br>He'd fill up his car when the light came on. Since the tank is 13.5 gallons, he'd think: "Oh, I got 220 miles out of my tank" and divide it by 13.5 or so, and boom. That looks a hair over 16 MPG, doesn't it?<br><br>Well... if he topped it off (by the way, that can be almost 1.5-2 gallons on my focus!!!), then he all of a sudden would be getting 275 miles or so out of a tank... That's damn near 21 MPG...<br><br>OF course the mileages are off, as I yanked 'em out of my ass... and they're still totally inaccurate... If i fill up right when the light comes on, I'm looking at almost a perfect 10 gallons to fill up. That means I have 3.5 or so left in the tank. Count that into the equation?<br><br>Use the gas mileage method you find in your manual. I never get less than 26 MPG, and that's after bodacious revving and streetlight racing riced-out civics and integras for a whole tank of gas in the city and never hitting the highway. I almost always get 30 or so, and I've gotten 38 MPG out of my tank at least 3 times, driving like an old lady when gas prices floated around the 2.00 mark.

here's a more accurate way to check gas mileage (assuming the pump shuts off at about the same point each fill up). I thought this was common knowlege but maybe not.<br><br>1)Fill your car up until the pump shuts of automatically.<br>2)Hit the trip odometer button.<br>3)Drive around till you need gas again.<br>4)Fill your car up until the pump shuts of automatically.<br>5)The amount of gas you put in is the amount used per the miles on your trip odometer.<br>6) divide miles/gallons<br>7) you have miles per gallon

This is what I do and is probably the best you are going to do without going to extreme measures.<br><br>It helps a lot if you go to the same pump when you do your fillups as it is much more likely to shut off at the same place.