Here's my challenge, it is to stay off Assist as much as possible, paticularly when climbing hills.

For example, if you encounter a hill that you climb every day on your commute and are in the habit of using a little Assist, my challenge is to keep it off.
Often times Assist will come in at 40 or 36MPG. If it comes on then back off ever so slightly to turn it back off, and take the hill engine only.

Often times if you are surfing that 40MPG range on the edge of Assist you don't need it at all.
Take my challenge and see what your MPG does.
Does it make sense? Maybe or maybe not - Just try it and let us know..

 

Hi Hot_Georgia_2004:

___That is just one of the reasons why the Insight had such high EPA busting FE …

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

I tried this on my morning commute today, and I found it detremental (sp?) to my mileage.

I find that using the assist (why else is it there?) for a short burst of controlled use is far better than letting the speed slowly die down to the point of needing to downshift.

 

I have three big hills on my drive. I find that if I don't use at least a little assist, the people behind me get very mad. My mpg would be so much better if there were no one else out there on the road.

 

sigh, if only............

as i filled my car this morning there were at least 3 pickups idling while their owners were in the store.....again, sigh

i will try the hill thing when i take the backroads home, this thursday and friday. it's hunting opener and the main road will be too crazy to even contemplate.

 

Charlie, I can see your point about no assist destroying FE even though I drive a CVT - IMA is what allows me to accelerate quickly enough to get into lean burn ASAP and long, slow climbs upward actually hurt.

And okay, is there any other '05er that has trouble not activating assist, even with the most gentle and benign accelerations? Seriously, is it just me? Did Honda lower the threshold of accelerative rate or RPMs on its 2005 HCHs or what? I mean christ, I sneeze toward the pedal and it senses enough pressure increase to trigger IMA. I'm honestly not sure your idea can be done in an 05, H_G, but someone else let me know if I'm wrong. I've been getting outstanding mileage since I've tweaked my habits and I know my car pretty well, but not for the life of me can I keep IMA from jumping every single time I start from a dead stop or accelerate anywhere close to the average driver, and I've tried on some painstakingly slow accelerations this week, all to no avail.

 

Thanks all, I had assumed it would be the same for the MT, and didn't know if honda had changed anything for '05.

In my own car I can often choose to trigger the IMA to come on (or off) @ 40MPG.
It always comes on @ 36MPG, if going a steady pace 40-55MPH.
Above 55 that seems to be skewed, but I can still surf the edge of Assist or non-Assist with a tiny pedal movement.

In my own experience if I pull a hill @ 40MPG with Assist and get a loss of .8 MPG, I can pull the same hill under the same circumstances @ 40MPG without Asist and loose .2 or not loose anything at all. (The numbers here were examples)

While around .6 MPG may not seem like much, over multiple hills it adds up.

Guessing from the comments of many, I guess I must be living in a benign area of the country- at least as traffic agression goes as there hasn't been any problems at all...

 

i can't quite figure out what you are explaining here. i tried on the way home last night, where i took the backroads where there are hills, and ended up going even slower than i could stand. was the idea to get up to where the assist comes on and then back off from there, or to never have it come on? my mileage was good, 'course i only had about 40 miles on the tank. i have a MT, does that make any difference to your question?