Just bought a '05 HCH to replace our '01 Insight (we loved it, but wanted something with side airbags and more room). The Insight had a readout on the dash that would show your lifetime mpg. As far as I can tell, the Civic doesn't have this, even though there is room for it. Any idea why they decided not to include this feature (or how I could activate it)?

Thanks.

 

Don't know why they didn't include it. I have not heard anyway to activate it. I thought some people using one of the trip meters as lifetime. (But I could be wrong.)

 

yep, I just use my trip A as lifetime, just be sure that everyone who drives your car knows not to hit THAT BUTTON!. then I use trip B for a Tank Total. I really use them just as a judgement though because the meter is always off in one direction or the other.

It would be really nice to have a seperate lifetime meter so that you could use trip A for tank totals and trip B for trip totals.

 

Just found this thread over on another forum discussing the Prius' lack of a lifetime mpg that touches on some interesting issues.

 

I agree a lifetime MPG display would be cool. In its absence, I created a spreadsheet file in which I enter miles and gallons per tank. The file also keeps running totals of miles & gallons, so calculating lifetime MPG is easy. I even set aside a cell for MPG standard deviation!

 

I think honda is storing the lifetime miles in the computer somewhere. I swear sometimes when I go from trip b to odometer I see a number displayed for a fraction of a second to the left of the odometer reading. And its not residual from trip b.

Before I was seeing like 40.4. But today I saw 40.8. Its enough to make me go hummm.

Over the years I plan on keeping an eye on it. Seeing as my car has 35000 miles on it and most of them were before I knew how to get 40+ mpg from it 40.4 or 40.8 would seem appropriate. I'd like to see someone elses hch sometime and see if it displays the same numbers or something different.

I wish there were techs that could look into the computer and see whats stored there as far as data.

 

It's funny, I've noticed the exact same thing happening and also thought that the lmpg might actually be stored but not displayed. It just seems strange that Honda would include this in the Insight but not the HCH. Especially when the layout of the odometer is exactly the same.

 

What does yours display? mine is 40.8 right now I think. I think it used to be 40.4 or something wierd.

 

Here's what's interesting. I just checked and the "phantom" digits are now the same as my Trip B, which I've been using as a lifetime gauge. We purchased the HCH with about 200 miles on it, and the phantom display had been steadily going up. It would make sense that they would eventually equal each other. Hmmm....

 

I use the trip B as a lifetime display - I have not reset it since I purchased the car. Funny, the trip B shows a few tenths of a mile more than the regular odometer!