Echoing others, when you get a chance, take a trip out of The City, do some freeway driving no faster than 60 and some country road drives out in the valley and you're likely to find your mileage is the same as most others here; 35-45 MPG.
I get my best fuel mileage when ....
Use Top Tier fuels.
Try to keep rpm's at or below 3000.
Coast to stop signs and red lights.
Remove anything not needed in the car.
Keep it clean and check tire air pressure.
I too live in SF. I'm actually on my second smart (long story) so I only know from my first one.. but my mpg in SF was around 22. I drive hills and believe it.. they KILL mpg faster than leak in the tank. A small engine has to work that much harder..
Also, per the Prius question of comparison, I rented a Prius a year or two ago for 3 weeks. I had it in hilly San Francisco for the first 10 days then drove to LA and kept it there for the rest of the rental. In San Francisco the car got around 26-28 city. I drove it to LA (and we're not talking about hwy mpg..) but once I was in Los Angeles, with better timed lights, flatter, better planned roads.. the city mileage shot up to 46. Proof that SF is very, very hard on mileage. I suspect your car is ok. It's your zipcode that's the problem.
don't normally drive over the hills. but you're right lots and lots of stop signs
Do you have a lead foot? What was the car you were driving before the smart?
Reason I am asking is I came from a BMW and I do have quite a bit of a lead foot. The BMW is a darn good car that handles really well so I tend to take the corners, and off the line a little harder. When the smart was delivered, I find it a little slow off the line. So I would drive it like it was a BMW. Guess what...25mpg for city driving. And I am in LA.
Over the weeks I "learn" to drive the smart. These days I am averaging 35 for pure city driving. I realize that although the first gear sets the momentum going, it's the second/third gear that really drives the car.
One advice perhaps. Fill up half a tank next time. Then go for a long trip. See what the MPG is. Even when you merge into the highway, just go 50% on the throttle. No pedal to the metal, no kickdown switch.
You need to use a grappling hook to hitch a ride with an unsuspecting cable car going uphill. The smart's so small the cable car won't even notice. That should boost your mileage a bit.
[quote=VinceLA;107098]Do you have a lead foot? What was the car you were driving before the smart?
Drove a saab 9-3 convertible before and got around 25 mpg in the city here. I do not drive with a lead foot, in fact the opposite, easy does it! very defensive. I was driving in manual most of the time and thought I'd try the auto for a ew tanks, doesn't seem to make much difference mileage wise, but really interesting though: there's a slight incline in the road when I leave my house and in auto would shift into 2nd until 4000rpm's, which is ridiculous, so now I start in manual and move over the auto once I'm in 2nd. Anyway, the point is, it's defineately not my driving style, use 91 octane only, shell, tires are appropriately inflated. I do expect more from this small car.
It's inarguably frustrating. I agree. The smart's hardest vice to explain is its mediocre mileage. Maybe yours really has a problem, but methinks it's the terrain.
The Saab 9-3 is a totally undervalued-eco performer. My 9-5 gets only about 16-18 in SF, but still it's leagues above most stealth, fun cars in for this region. Our BMW gets about 14 in The City. Were we to have the MHD feature on our cars, that would really help in San Francisco. Our lights are poorly times, and killing the fuel waste at signal lights (which are pretty long here) would help tons.
I spent a vacation month there in 1987 with my new Turbo Mirage.
My mpg dropped from 32 on the trip from Canada to 17-20 in the city.
Those hills suck up the power.
Frisco has billions of hills, as stated before... take those out of the equation and find time to drive out of state to level roads. You don't need 3 tanks of driving for the experiment if you use something like a ScanGauge. Factory settings are within about 10% of true value (you do need 2-3 fill ups to fine tune it), so you can use it to see if the car's getting 30mpg or 40mpg on the highway.
At 75mph,A/C on I get 35MPG on level highway and I expect most anybody would as well.
At 65mph I get about 40MPG with A/C on, 45MPG with it off.
At 50mph (forget if my A/C was on) I get 48-50MPG on level highway, until I have to speed up to let someone pass me safely.
On hills, my smart gets between 13mpg and 30mpg depending on hill angle, approach speed, pedal position, and A/C (hills really benefit from not having A/C, but you're not using it here). That's why you really need to look at the cruising speed before determining a problem exists. Even the same hill can double or halve your mileage one day to the next. Stop signs, stop lights have different timings and will cause havoc. If you hit 3 stops per mile you'll be lucky to get 25mpg in almost anything non-hybrid; that's the laws of physics there. The smart's best economy is from 30-60mph. Time spent outside that range will frustrate economy efforts. Most cars are similar, but I think the smart really shows the impact of stop and go traffic. It's only rated 33MPG city, so if you're getting 25 with hills and lots of stop and go, you may be in a 'severe service' kind of city life.
Also, in city traffic I can get 25MPG if I hit all 7 stoplights on my 4 mile trip to work, or 43MPG if I hit only two or three. Same trip, average speed either 12MPH or 25MPH. Those stoplights are killer. I say we ban 'em. The smart can fit through the gaps between trucks.
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