A couple tanks of fuel ago I decided to make sure octane rating didn't make a difference. I can only get 91 octane at the gas stations around here but there is a gas station that happens to also sell 95 and 100 octane fuel. So I ran the GX down near empty (or as close as I dare with the incredibly inaccurate fuel gauge) and pumped in 9.25 gallons of 91 octane in and then 9.25 gallons of 95 octane. That's 18.5 gallons of 93 octane average on top of the 2.6 gallons of 91 octane that remained in the tank, so my true octane rating was 92-point-something. My fuel average was lower than average at 12.21 gallons based on miles driven divided by gallons burned. And the tank was much more expensive than average thanks to the $6/gallon 95-octane gas.
I'm finding that the main contributing factor is the type of driving, and economy mode also does make a difference. On my current tank (the tank after the race fuel experiment) I filled up at the local Costco and for the first three days my only driving was taking my boys to school, picking them up, going to karate lessons, baseball practice, etc. All local city driving, lots of stop lights and stop signs, inching through waiting lines, etc. and no highway at all. I was at 9.X mpg. So yesterday I put it in economy mode doing the same city driving and the fuel indicator inched up over 10 mpg. Then I did about a 20-mile highway run last night and I'm currently in the 11s. I also noticed that economy mode sucks. Feels like I'm driving a Yugo, or what I imagine a Yugo would drive like.