Niky Tamayo is a car writer in the Philippines with a refreshing take on things automotive... oh, and he's also an all around good guy. He's a member of the EcoModder forum and he recently let me know he that was going to be reviewing a "poverty spec" bare bones Mirage 1.2L, 5-speed for a week.
I asked (pleaded?): would he please try to put together some speed vs. fuel consumption stats if he got the chance.
Well, Niky has come through for us!
(Note: graph uses averages of the values from the table below.)
Conditions & setup
- Temperature: 30 degrees C / 86 F
- Air conditioning on
- Bridgestone Ecopia tires, 30-32 psi
- bi-directional runs 40, 60, 80 km/h; unidirectional runs 100 & 120 km/h
Results - fuel consumption at steady speeds, in top (5th) gear:
Speed Engine RPM
(approx.)km/L
L/100 km
mpg (US)
mpg (Imp.) 40 km/h
25 mph~1200 34.5 - 34.8 2.9 81.2 - 81.9 97.5 - 98.3 60 km/h
37 mph~1800 28 - 32 3.1 - 3.6 65.9 - 75.3 79.1 - 90.4 80 km/h
50 mph~2000 24.5 - 24.8 4.0 - 4.1 57.6 - 58.3 69.2 - 70.1 100 km/h
62 mph~3000 20.4 - 21 4.8 - 4.9 48.0 - 49.4 57.6 - 59.3 120 km/h
75 mph~3600 16 - 18 5.6 - 6.3 37.6 - 42.3 45.2 - 50.9
Caveats
- The car had only ~2000 km (1200 miles) on the clock (economy likely won't be as good as when it's better broken in).
- No cruise control - driver trying to hold constant speed as best as possible.
- It had the optional upswept "sport" spoiler that likely hurts the coefficient of drag a little bit:
- The figures were taken by resetting the Mirage's factory fuel economy gauge (uncalibrated) once up to speed.
- The refresh rate of the the gauge made it hard to get accuracy at higher speeds (running out of room on the stretch of straight & level test road before the gauge updated).
- Because of the above point, the 100 & 120 km/h figures were taken on a different road and Niky is not as confident in the 120 km/h figure owing to road grade - so it's a best estimate.
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UPDATE, November 7 ... fuel economy vs. speed results for the CVT
The website CleanMPG has done a review of the CVT equipped Mirage in the U.S., and posted numbers for fuel economy vs. speed. Here are those numbers superimposed on our initial graph for the 5-speed.
Not surprisingly, it shows the CVT outperforming the 5-speed, with the exception of the last data point. Because of that, I'd say we need to take this comparison with a grain of salt (see explanation, below)...
Grain of salt: despite what these plots indicate, I'm skeptical that the 5-speed and CVT switch places once speed exceeds ~105 km/h / 65 mph. Why? Because the vehicles were tested under very different ambient conditions and on different roads, which makes a direct comparison risky.
An ideal comparison would see a CVT and 5-speed compared back to back on the same route, in the same weather conditions. Maybe we'll still get a chance to do that.
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2017 Mirage G4 CVT
(From thread: Darin's test drive review notes: 2017 Mitsubishi Mirage G4 sedan CVT  
Notes:
- Values are averages of bi-directional runs on a level road *
- (* except for the highest speed, which should be considered an estimate only)
- Weather: 21 C / 70 F, dry, with negligible wind
- no traffic ahead in my lane (no aero / drafting effect)
- A/C off
- Driver only on board
- Headlights on
- Tires at manufacturer's recommended pressure (35 PSI)
- Readings were taken from the car's MPG display (which was within a few % of calculations at the pump based on 2 fill-ups).