7th tank totals:
529mi @ 40.8mpg
refilled 12.0 gal @ $2.68/gal
3948 total miles.

 

Keep up all the good work, Matt. Are you getting better with the car? This last tank is surprisingly low (40 mpg) but you make a ton of short trips and I have found that to absolutely wipe out an otherwise good tank fuel economy. I'm tellin' ya - if you make a 100-mile trip every weekend just to tour the countryside then you will help your tank's FE and get better numbers. It is still odd to think of it as "so I have to put more miles on the car to put less gas in it" but it really does work out that way. I think most of us are tickled to even be in the 30s-40s when our previous cars were in the 15-20 mpg range so anything is better than what we had.

As comparison - my 7th tank was at 3,378 miles with 545 miles on the tank at 49.6 mpg and was filled with 10.98 gal @ $2.799/gal on 08/28. Very similar on total miles and miles per tank mind you.

P.S. Your listing in the Mileage Database shows 3,948 miles for 7 tanks - which is correct?

 

oops, you're right. its 3948 miles. typo.
weather has been colder, still, this last tank. i have been off work for the past two weeks, and my trips have been even shorter than usual and mostly at night, which really killed my fe this tank, but i'm still in the 40s, which tickles me to no end.
no doubt, longer trips are better, fe-wise, but no way can you convince me that driving more than i need to will save me money.
watched the documentary "who killed the electric car" this weekend. have you seen it? bring on the plug-in hybrid mods!!!

 

I haven't seen that documentary yet actually. I just can't imagine what it is like to fill up the car once every 4-8 weeks. I fill up once to twice a week and the fact that I get reimbursed a flat mileage rate for my work it only makes sense to use a car with one of the lowest $/mile costs. Last week for example I covered 1,200 miles for work which gets me $396 in reimbursement (a paltry $0.33/mile) but I only filled up 2 gallons over two fill-ups or about $48 so that is $396-$48 or $348 in my pocket just for that one week. Mind you my monthly car payment is around $460. Normally a week of driving is not that many miles but still it takes a mere two weeks of "mileage profit" to pay the monthly car payment. Quite fun to think about it that way sometimes. It is almost like driving a free car. Like I said, only because I put on so many miles do the numbers work in my favor some times. The fuel cost doesn't always help though because I have to fill up when it is $3.00 and others who fill up once every 3 months can skip these price peaks and fill up when the prices are always low.

 

tank 8 totals:
481mi @ 38.8mpg
4429 total miles
refilled 11.5 gal @ $2.36/gal
colder temps and driving at speed, faster on fwy.

 

Ouch, Matt, you're getting worse and worse. Those temps must be frigid for you over there. Like I said - if you drive more miles then that will help. I've been in 25-35 F temps for the last week and keep getting 46-50 mpg. I'm just glad I drive enough miles to keep up my average.

 

Matt - I have been meaning to ask if you have ever done a sort of "soft reset" on your car yet. I'm guessing not as I don't think anybody knows what it is or how to do it. One time very early on with my car there was a Check Engine Light due to a silly move on my part and that resulted in some very poor FE for the next week (in the neighborhood of 35-40 mpg on a 300-mile Interstate trip across the state when it should have been closer to 48 mpg). I decided to try doing a "reset" on the car because it never seemed as though the car was running like a normal Civic and not as a Hybrid and wanted to see if the reset cured anything.

I'm not sure if this is the preferred method or if an OBD-II device can do the same but the process is:

1. Start the car while in Park
2. Rev the car to 3,000 RPM until the cooling fans kick on automatically (about 3-5 min)
3. Let the car idle until the cooling fans kick off automatically
4. Turn off the engine

On the return trip I achieved about 52 mpg instead of 40 mpg so the reset definitely helped my condition at that time but I also had a CEL showing at the time. I don't know if this helps anyone without a CEL but maybe give it a shot at some point when you "are feeling low." =)

 

Thanks for the info Flash. That goes down for the future!

 

thanks, flash, for the suggestion. i'll give it a try.
its getting warmer:
last tank: 489mi @ 40.0mpg
refill today: 12.0gal @ $2.28/gal
4918 total miles.

 

Hey you or anyone through the middle band of the States -- wave hello to my parents if you see them (PA plates) and last I heard they were in San Diego yesterday. Stop tempting us with those warm temps you keep posting. So are you telling me that my last tank of 490 miles during average temps of 25 F yielded me 46.1 mpg compared to your 40.0 mpg?!?!?!? Wow. See what longer trips gets you? =)