My 91 318ic gets on average 31mpg - not bad for being 18 years old w/ 122k clocked on it. I could probably even get more mpg if my driving was not a combined 25% city/ 75% highway route... On multiple occasions I have easily seen 400+ miles out of a tank, with 1-2 gallons of fuel remaining... I ran it only once until the "R" lit up one time, and the trip odometer was reading 442 miles...
The fuel gauge & consumption is like clock work. On every single fuel fill, I reset the trip odometer and can tell exactly how many miles I will have within the gauge marks. The below represents my accumulated miles in between the fuel marks on the gas gauge - and this is what I see EVERY time like clockwork (R = empty, F = Full) :
R 400 \ 300 ][ 200 / 100 F