Look, we know Kenny is a god and we know Mr. Kite is a god. High mpg is cool, and high tank is cool too, and a fascinating challenge.

I'm driving down to Tempe next week, estimated at 650 miles, and wondering/wishing I could make it in one tank *at highway speeds*, which I define in Utah and Arizona as 70-75 mph.

I could claim that driving no faster than 55 mph is an equally "cheap" way to achieve high mpg and high tanks as FAS and topping off (which, by the way, I have never heard noted as morally suspect until I read this thread).

The fact is that few of us could agree on what is a "standard" trick and what is not for high FE, and we all have different levels of acceptable. MPG is the only common denominator.

But high tank is pretty cool too, and the fact that 943 is the highest in database suggests that not just anyone can do it by stacking up the right number of "non-standard" tricks.

Peace, y'all, and love each other's numbers!
--doug

 

Good post Doug!

It's all for fun anyway, and I agree it's silly to bicker over the details.
Sorry.

 

I disagree with your basic math. On my last tank of gas, I did not run it dry and I put in 13.727 gallons in. I filled it up to the filler neck. As you said, some top off, some don't. Anyway, we know that there are at least 13.727 gallons in the tank, but it is likely that there are 14.1 gallons or more in the tank. Assuming there are 14 gallons in the tank, I would need to average 71.4 mpg to achieve a 1,000 mile tank.

Who knows if I'll be able to do it, buy you are saying if I go 1,000+ miles at 70+ mpg in city driving, all I've accomplished is over-filling my gas tank. That's a strange conclusion you've come to.

 

Yes, that was a nice post Doug. I totally agree with you.

Just buying and replacing another vehicle with an HCH II saves a lot of gas. Sometimes, I like to take in even further and have some fun. I'm pretty much hosed in the winter and there aren't many opportunities where I get to keep a whole tank to myself. But the weather is warm now and I'm keeping my current tank to myself for its entirety.

We all have different commutes and they are not easily compared to one another. Also, we all have our own boundaries for what we will do to improve fuel economy. I'm not trying to attribute anything I do to some special skills that I have. I'm really just demonstrating what the car is capable off under a certain set of conditions. Is anybody else here doing differently?

 

"On my last tank of gas, I did not run it dry and I put in 13.727 gallons in."

You somehow bought a Civic Hybrid with a 13.2 gallon tank, not the standard 12.3 gal. capacity. On that basis alone, you cannot compare your odometer readings to those of owners with smaller gas tanks.

Anyway, if you put 13.727 gallons in your 13.2 gal. tank when it wasn't dry, then you over-filled. Doing so is not a crime, it just skews the odometer reading.

Like I said, only MPG matters.

 

I object to calling the 12.3 gallon tank "standard." (But I absolutely take 1stpik's and others' point that when we talk about high tank we need to know stated capacity and fill level.)

The foggy consensus is that the 12.3 is a metal "California" tank for cars sold in locales where plastic tanks are prohibited. Most states and cities have no such prohibition. So while I don't know for sure, I'll bet the 13.2 is a lot more common than the 12.3 -- at least in the HCH II.

Maybe we should set up a poll where people report the figure given in their owner's manual for tank capacity. (And while we're at it, what figure people's manuals give for remaining capacity when the fuel light comes on.)

I don't know how to set up polls . . . . ??

--doug

 

According to my manual, my tank capacity is 12.4 gallons. Filling it above 12.4 gallons does not skew the odometer reading. The odometer reading is simply a measure of miles driven. The number of miles driven on a tank is simply the number of miles driven between fillups. I last filled up at an odometer reading of 17,508 miles. If I do not have to fill up again until after 18,508 miles, that will be a 1,000 mile tank. I would hope this would clarify it for you.

 

The gas tank on my 07 HCH is plastic, not metal, and it holds 12.3 gallons. According to Honda, that's the only size offered. See for yourselves:

http://automobiles.honda.com/models/...rid&Category=3

If some of you bought HCHs with larger tanks, good for you. But over-filling them, then bragging about getting a bunch of miles on "one tank" doesn't impress anyone. It simply presents a skewed number as if it were a superior achievement.

Now, we can all dive into the Orwellian breakdown of sentences to twist basic logic, like saying that over-filling "does not skew the odometer reading. The odometer reading is simply a measure of miles driven. The number of miles driven on a tank is simply the number of miles driven between fillups."

Sure. And John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Reagan. Reagan later died. Therefore, Hinckley killed Reagan.

All gas tanks are equal, but some are more equal than others.

So, go ahead, put 14+ gallons into a 13 gallon tank, then display your odometer reading to folks with 12 gallon tanks. It's a free country. Just don't expect us to genuflect at an apples-to-oranges comparison.

On the other hand, if you can show 74.0 mpg for 1,000 miles (not 142), then THAT would impress us.

 

As I stated in my last post, my manual says my capacity is 12.4 gallons.

Why must you complicate this so much? Miles driven on a tank is a very, very simple concept. Of course there are many factors that determine how many miles I can drive between fillups, but that does not change this basic concept.

I'm working on it. We'll see what happens.

 

Geez, dude, who soured your milk? See, this is what happens when you ask for live-and-let-live. Ugh.

The webpage you link to doesn't say "that's the only size offered." It says *a* size and nothing else. "According to Honda" needs to mean all their published material, and we now have manuals with *three* specs, 12.3, 12.4, and 13.2. All are backed up by owners' actual fill experiences, so we can trust they're not typos.

So, anyway, you claim topping off is a sort of cheating that invalidates comparisons with our moral betters, who follow this mysterious new "first-click" rule the church of You has just invented. But let's think about this:

Filling to where you can visually measure the level of gas in your tank is the only way to know exactly how full the tank is. "First click" has been proven not to be a reliable, repeatable level of fuel in the tank. Evidence? Those of us who fill to consistent, visually measurable levels have found a .2 gal variance in first click off -- after first click off, we can put between about 1.8 and 2.0 more gal. until fuel reaches the top of the filler neck. That range has been established by at least two different owners over a lot of tanks, and in my case, it's at the same pump at the same station.

So, if you only fill to the Holy First Click, at the same pump, at the same station, the amount of gas you've actually put in from fill to fill varies by up to .2 gal. In a 12.3 gal tank, that's a nearly 2% variance, and that variance creates the same amount of imprecision in your mileage calculations. And, within the 1.8 - 2.0 gal it takes to get fuel to the top of the filler neck, none of us have any idea when the tank actually got "full" (although most people simply define this as "can't hold any more," which would be -- wait for it -- the top of the filler neck). All we can really say is that the filler neck does not have a variable capacity (of 1.8 - 2.0 gal). And we can really say the holier-than-thou "you're OVERFILLING if you go past first-click" guy hasn't thought this through before getting obnoxious.

So you're going to claim that the toppers-off are cheating, but they're the only ones who know more precisely what gas mileage they're getting because they're the only ones who know precisely how much fuel they burned because they're the only ones with visual evidence of a consistent re-fill point. So the ones with the more reliable numbers are the cheaters, in your formulation. Nice work.

This is a pretty nasty post, though, so I think I'll just go cool and shut up for a bit. I'm sure I look like an angry idiot, though perhaps not the only one.
--doug