My mental arithmetic is not what it was. I used to be pretty good at the usual quiz time mathematical conundrums but age is taking its toll.
What has this got to do with motoring, I hear you ask. Well, I took delivery of a Mazda 6 TS earlier this week and, so far, I am more than happy with it - in fact it is absolutely superb. However, the trip computer is causing me problems. The fuel consumption figures are shown in 'Litres/100 miles'. This information means nothing at all to me. I seem to remember that there are 4.545 litres to the gallon but trying to convert that to gallons whilst driving through leafy Cheshire is more than I can manage. Is there an easy rule of thumb to make the conversion and (possibly more important) is there a work around to convert the trip computer to 'miles/gallon'. I can't find anything in the Owner's Handbook.
The other readings ('average speed 'and 'fuel left before empty' are in Imperial measures).
Help would be appreciated.
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I would say it is more likely to be litres/100km and to be able to be changed to record in MPG - unless Mazda's sop to imperial(ism) is to offer litres/100 miles alongside litres/100km which is no help to anyone.
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Cheddar, Mazda's really do display litres/100miles :-) Mine does. If it was litres/100km then the figure would be really low. And it does not let you change it to mpg (or litre/100km either).
How about forgetting about it and measuring via brim to brim method.
Or convert some figures from mpg to litres/100mile and remember what they are?
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Well that's a bit weird.
However, I would like to invent something please. A gizmo which you could recalibrate every time you fill up with the price per litre of fuel you have just bought. The readout would then give you a cost per 100 miles figure. Much more relevant if hugely more depressing than mpg.
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Yes, I agree that the mixture of Imperial and metric is confusing but that is how the read out is displayed. It is, so far, the only gripe that I have with the car.
Humph's suggestion is excellent and, I am sure, definitely achievable ,but doesn't help me at the moment!
And the read out is definitely litres/ 100 miles not litres/100 kms which seems a strange correlation.
I am still hoping that there might be a workaround from our more enlightened contributers.
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Thinking about it fuel is sold in litre, not gallons, so Mazda are correct in their display.
that said, I like to work in gallons!
this may help. 1 Imperial gallon = 4.54609188 litres
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Workaround:
All I can suggest is carry a calculator on the passenger seat or a chart ...
4.5 ltr/100 miles is 100 mpg
6.75 ltr/100 miles is 66 mpg
7.875 ltr/100 miles 57 mpg
9 ltr/100 miles is 50 mpg
10.125 ltr/100 miles is 44.5 mpg
11.25 ltr/100 miles is 40 mpg
13.5 ltr/100 miles is 33 mpg
15.75 ltr/100 miles is 28.5 mpg
18 ltr/100 miles is 25 mpg
Near as damn it!
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To convert litres/100miles to MPG, divide 454.61 by the reading.
Example - 11.9 litres/100 miles
MPG = 454.61/11.9 = 38.2mpg
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Not really something you could do in your head though is it...
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Not really something you could do in your head though is it...
Well ... yes. I'm sure I could work that out on the way home after filling up, though I might round the numbers a bit. At least until there's a law against hands-free mental arithmetic while driving (due soon).
If you don't like sums, it's easy enough with a calculator, and you can leave a cheap one in the car, or use your mobile phone. 455 is near enough and easy to remember.
Press ON button. Type "455 / 11.9 = " and the answer 38.2 will appear!
Those with an i-Phone can google, for example
"11.9 l/100 miles to miles per UK gal"
and the answer
(11.9 l) / (100 miles) = 38.2024528 miles per Imperial gallon
will appear. Don't forget "UK" or "imperial" or you'll get miles per US gallon. Google's pretty clever at conversions.
Mazda really should have more sense though.
Edited by Manatee on 16/10/2009 at 00:44
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I am sure the OP is thinking instant fuel consumption display. The average one as you say can be worked out when stopped.
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How strange.The readout on my Mazda 5 is in MPG. The readout on my previous Mazda 6 was also in MPG.
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I can see how litres/100 miles could be useful - I've got 200 miles to go, the readout says I'm doing about 15 (litres/100 miles), so I'd better put 30 litres in the tank. I'd like that on my trip computer.
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I wonder how accurate these computers are anyway. Mine, on my Hyundai 130, changed my average mpg from 40 to 45 following a flat battery. Nice. But a full tank should therefore show 450 miles to go whereas it shows 360. Not nice. Maybe even the mileage reccorder is unreliable.
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I wonder how accurate these computers are anyway. Mine on my Hyundai 130 changed my average mpg from 40 to 45 following a flat battery. Nice. But a full tank should therefore show 450 miles to go whereas it shows 360. Not nice. Maybe even the mileage reccorder is unreliable.
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on brim to brim measurements. The tankfull MPG readout on my mazda 5 is within 0.5 to 1 MPG of the brim to brim measurement every time. My weekly commute is mainly outside of the rush hour(v. early and v.late!)and is motorway and dual carriageway, so my journey's are consistently repeatable every week. It would be interesting to see how accurate it would be in crawling traffic.
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There's a Mazda 6 owner's manual online, for the US market. In there it shows either gallons or litres on the trip computer, marked up as "US" and Canada" respectively.
So that at least implies it's possible, even if it's a dealer only job, to switch between the two, unless they are putting different physical bits in for different markets.
Certainly on my previous car there were a billion features and options that could only be turned on and off by the dealer, but at least they publicised the list so you could choose what you wanted.
Edited by Dipstick on 16/10/2009 at 12:09
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Many thanks to all who have taken the trouble to comment, particularly cheddar for his chart, a copy of which will henceforth live in the vehicle.
I might mention to the dealer at service time the possibility of changing the display.
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particularly cheddar for his chart a copy of which will henceforth live in the vehicle.
My chart was rough, you could quite simply create one that gives you the ltrs/100 miles figure for, say, 2 mpg increments between 36 and 56 mpg, in fact:
MPG | Ltrs/100 miles
36 | 12.61
38 | 11.94
40 | 11.35
42 | 10.80
44 | 10.31
46 | 9.86
48 | 9.46
50 | 9.08
52 | 8.73
54 | 8.40
56 | 8.10
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Surely these brilliant Japanese designed cars have means, as my Golf does, of going into the Computer's display and changing it to a more appropriate measurement. I can choose from Imperial or US gallons or from mpg to litres/100kms.
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There may well be a way of changing the parameters of the display but as far as I can see there is nothing in the handbook to indicate how to do it. That was the point of my original post. I imagine that they prefer to make it a dealer only operation for obvious reasons (ie CASH).
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Interested in this, as- as the fates would have it- the Mondy got chopped in for a Mazda 3 1.6 petrol this week, and this has been annoying me. (For those who are interested, ie, Humph, the Mondy started to exhibit signs of impending injector problems and hence I thought: ooh, a nice reliable Japanese petrol would be good right now versus a potential 2k bill.So I dont have 330 lb/ft of torque- I will miss this but its still 40 mpg. And I'll need to get a roof rack for the Ancient Marin[er].) Anyway:
seems there are tricks you can do with this model, ie:
www.mazda3club.com/showthread.php?t=44448
Although mine is an '04 and hence the above doesn't apply. But that was a couple of minutes of googling, so maybe a straight mpg display is possible? However, I dont see an 'mpg' indication on the lcd matrix.
tt
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I'd love to chat more with you about the Ancient Marin(er) Terranaut, but unless we can get away with pretending it's a car no one else has ever heard of, I guess we're in trouble......
;-)
Sold the Mondy eh ? I can't bring myself to do that yet. Old bike rack going on in the morning and down to the woods we go.......
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What a bunch of loons.
To convert l/100km into mpg or vice versa you divide 282 by the number you want to convert assuming imperial gallons (4.54 litre approx).
This 400-odd figure is way wrong, as is cheddar's chart.
Edited by Lygonos on 17/10/2009 at 20:57
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>>This 400-odd figure is way wrong, as is cheddar's chart.
RTBQ. The question was about converting l/100m to MPG, not l/100km.
Edited by Manatee on 17/10/2009 at 21:04
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LMAO sorry - never heard of L/100 miles before - Mazda invented it I guess!
On a tangent, I generally don't believe trip computers unless I've checked them manually, brim-to-brim for a month or two.
My CRV one is pretty accurate, whereas the Mrs old Citroen one was 15-20% optimistic!
Edited by Lygonos on 17/10/2009 at 21:12
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All we need now is Scouseford to come back and say he meant kilometres ;-)
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...... never heard of L/100 miles before - Mazda invented it I guess!
It's better than litres/100 kilometres. In the UK we buy petrol in litres and measure distance in miles.
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>What a bunch of loons.<
It always pays to read the question before committing oneself to paper.
Cheddar's chart was spot on as I have confirmed on a brim to brim check. 11.9 litres per 100 MILES gave me an average consumption of just over 38 mpg as was indicated on the chart.
The lygonos method has me averaging just over 23 mpg.
Who's the loon?
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I've rather enjoyed this late flurry of interest on this thread. I thought that it had died with cheddar's second chart.
I've only just seen Lygonos' mea culpa. Just one more query from me. Many of the acronyms that are used confuse me - what does LMAO stand for?
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LMAO = "laughing my ---- off"
ROTFLMAO = "rolling on the floor laughing..."
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Many thanks.
My own version would have been LMCO !!
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Only just spotted this but I also picked up a new Mazda 6 TS last week - my fuel consumption readout is in MPG so I would imagine it's a quick and (if my previous experience of Mazda is anything to go by) free fix.
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BigDai, is that new as in "brand new", i.e. a mark 2 Mazda 6, or new to you as in a second hand, mark 1 Mazda 6? Mine's a 2006 Mk1 and I can only get it to read litres per 100 miles. Perhaps they realised the mistake with the Mk1 and programmed the Mk2's computer to red in MPG.
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Brilliant!!
Laminate the chart to make it more durable.
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I know this is an old thread, but I always struggled to do this conversion in my head so I created the following Android app for my Mazda 6 TS2:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=consverter&hl=en_GB
Or just search for Consverter on the Google Play store if the link doesn't work.
It should work on most Android phones and tablets.
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282/litres per 100=MPG
282/mpg=litres per 100
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