2017-10-06
I recently retired my 2003 Mazda 323 (BJ), that sported a 1.8 litre FP petrol engine. I kept a logbook of the refueling from the day I bought it, originally on paper. I digitised this a few years ago and kept a CSV file on my computer before moving to an iPhone app a couple of years ago.
Here’s the complete logbook as a CSV file.
- Over the 14 years I owned and drove the car I spent more money on petrol than what I originally spent to purchase the car.
- Average fuel economy (any octane): 8.58 L/100km
- Average fuel economy (91 octane): 8.49 L/100km
- Average fuel economy (95 octane): 8.70 L/100km
- Average fuel economy (98 octane): 8.67 L/100km
- Fuel economy isn’t affected by octane rating (but the engine certainly ran smoother and produced more power on the higher octane fuel).
- Fuel economy looks to have gotten slightly worse over the life of the vehicle, as one might expect as the engine wears out.
Yesterday I replaced my Mazda with a new petrol hatchback. I’ve moved back to a European brand despite my previous experience; the Peugeot 205 GTI I owned prior to the Mazda nearly bankrupted me, but it was a joy to drive. It would have been nice to buy something electric, but the infrastructure isn’t quite there and the economics doesn’t quite add up for my use case. Maybe my next car will be electric. I hope to keep my new car for more than ten years and I’ll post fuel data for it when I’m done with it. Stay tuned.
