Thanks! Will try that tonight.

Regards.

 

there is, of course, no way to prove ANY of this ... but i, for one, believe MOST of the mpg-related information / statistics i find on these discussion threads and throughout this site.

that's largely because of my own experiences with the 1997 Dodge Stratus that my wife and i have owned since purchasing it new.

i use the cruise control, drive a bit below the speed limit and try to minimize braking on longer, highway trips, but other than that i do very LITTLE that might be regarded as a "hypermiler's" habits. still, the car often exceeds the recently-revised EPA-rating of 28mpg highway by 20% or more ... which would be 33.6 miles per gallon.

as an example, a few weeks ago, "Stone White" eked out 35.1 mpg on a trip from Lafayette to Dayton, Ohio, and back ... with about 500 pounds of people in the passenger compartment and perhaps 75 pounds of "stuff" in the trunk.

 

I've done pretty good with my 2004 HCH1 I was able to beat 50MPG after the first month or so, and 60 a little later.

I did my personal signiture record (below) in August 2006 in a perfect off-hours commute in great weather doing almost every wacky, non-practical technique in the book. It took all the training up to that point to achieve the goal.

Since then my hours have changed from great to worst regarding traffic, and so have my habits. I'm not striving for records anymore- that's too laborious (And no longer possible) but still maintain a goal of +60MPG.

I drive alone on my 50 mile freeway commute and always take the right lane and a bit slower than other traffic.

When I see traffic stopped (gridlock) I switch engine off perhaps 3/4 mile beforehand and drift into the line. Going 0-5MPH in stop/go traffic really consumes gas, so I'll also have engine off and coast often as possible. I might stop/restart 10 times in a mile. (But also just roll, engine off twice that distance or more)

My tires are at 51PSI, I use regen instead of brake, time lights and other lighter economy techniques.

The distance of my commute is the largest factor of my economy, if I had a shorter trip it would be less- if longer would be a little more.

Whether folks believe it or not is up to them. I drove 772 miles on my last tank with 1 bar of fuel lit before refueling.

-Steve

 

No one here really has a need to lie. I'm sure there are some that fudge their numbers, but most including many of the best mileage claims are reporting honestly.

In my current commute I'm getting about 60ish mpg (pretty much all highway) over 20 miles. Though in the winter I get 20 mpg less.

I just moved from chicago to MA, so it is a lot less congestion I have to deal with. That raised my mileage about 20% I'm guessing.

These cars are capable of much better than epa rating when driven optimally.

 

I did the power reset procedure on the 2006 HCH that behaved poorly - the reset did seem to improve the response reported by the IFCD. MPG indication now makes much more sense. So far the actual avg. has not increased dramatically, but most driving has been stop & go city driving with lots of AC. Avg. is about 40 right now ... is that a reasonable number for in town with heavy AC ? My hwy numbers are still likely to be too low based on very short tests I have done watching IFCD, but I will do tests soon to verify where I am. I also want to do several more informative tests to compare to the other 2006 HCH that always is higher in MPG. -- One note - after power reset I had to re-load radio code!

 

Yes, that is one of the side effects.

The stop-and-go mileage with "heavy" AC ON you are getting seems pretty close to normal. Depending on the speed you drive at on the highway, you can get low 40's or into the mid 50's.
What tire pressure do you have on the car? If you start by pressing them to 40 then you could see improve mileage all around.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

Tires are about 41 psig already - I also plan to go to 0-20W Mobil 1 to see if that makes an improvement.. it seemed to help on my Ford FEH quite a bit. I am not sure what the Honda oil at the dealer actually is.
Anyone finding improvement with synthetic oil ?

 

If the dealer is using the genuine 0W20 Honda oil then there should be no discernible improvement in going to a full synthetic like Mobil 1 0W20.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

I found a useful item concerning hypermiling ( drives the Prius ) but should apply to most all hybrids -- at the end he summarizes advantages of several items in terms of increased MPG and I notice tire press. and synthetic oil are significant variables. http://home.earthlink.net/~poliakonia/id12.html

 

I have a 2003 HCH stick with about 83,000 miles which I bought last December.

I have never gotten below about 42 MPG on a tankful and that was in New Hampshire in January. The best was registered as 66.9 MPG between Lawrenceville, NJ and Tysons Corner, VA, exactly 200 miles when driving I-95 to US 13 in Delaware to Del. Route 299 thorugh Midlletown and then US 301 to US 50 to the DC Beltway.

One thing about having a hybrid is that you really have to learn how to "shunpike", because the higher economy allows you to take a slightly longer route and avoid toll roads.

I keep the Michelin Harmony tires pumped to 40 psi although they are rated at up to 44 psi. I use 0-20w Mobil One oil and keep the cruise at 54 mph. I always drive with the headlights on.

I recheck my miles travelled against my Tom Tom One GPS and Google Maps. I find that the miles travelled seems to read about 1 % too high.

The MPG indicator seems to read about 5% too high. So the I think the aforementioned 66.9 is probably about 61-62 mpg.

One more thing, since much of my drving is through NJ I always try to buy gas in NJ to take advantage of its low prices. But NJ doesn't allow self-service so it is hard to totally control how much goes in the tank.

All in all, I am extremely happy with my purchase.