I just had my car serviced around 33K and since then I have not had as good as mileage as I did prior. I am unsure if this is the new tires or just me falling into some bad habits.

What are the stock tires on the insight? How can you tell if the tires that Honda put on are low-resistant? The new tires that were put on are Bridgestone P165/65 R14 78S, there is nothing on them that says "low resistance" or anything like that, so that got me thinking. Just maybe its the tires!

I now have approx. 37K on the car and for the last 4K miles my mileage has dropped from 65-ish to 60-ish. Yes the weather in the North East has been cold on and off, but for the most part its been a very mild winter, and compared to last year I am still down.

A lot of babble to ask a simple question, sorry...

Thanks for any feedback.

 

Hi Tony: the term is "low rolling resistance" (LRR). Yes, it appears you DO have the correct tires, thank goodness. They don't say LRR, but they are. LRR is a rating based on a harder than average rubber compound, and a specific tread design.

The likely reason for your recent MPG drog is tire PRESSURE. They are set way too low. Put them back up to at least 44 lbs each, and you will see an mpg increase.

Take the car out on the highway, accelerate slowly to 58 mph, then very gently reduce pressure on the gas pedal. Watch you instant mpg graph shoot up to 125 or more. You are then in "lean burn". Now, practice keeping that graph above 100. That is the key, keep in lean burn. Your mpg average can rise into the 70's if you get good at this!

 

Billy-

Thanks for the response. I will go check that out tomorrow before I head into work.

I will also try to do the lean-burn to get my mpg up as well. Thanks for the tip. I do plan on updating my mph graph on the website when I have the time, so hopefully we will see that rise is the future.

Again thanks for the advice.
Have a Happy Holiday.
Tony

 

Just a note - since this summer I've put more air pressure in the tires of my 2000 5-speed Insight and it does help!

 

It takes a while to train the mechanics at the dealership to put in the correct psi for the Insight tires. They seem to think that all tires are the same. Even when I've made a specific request for the tires they sometimes are incorrect. New or different mechanic = new training. I just make sure I request correct psi for the Insight every time I take it in.

 

It may be due to lower resistance factory tires.Even i had a bad experience with lower resistance tires. Vehicle traction on wet conditions was bit awful when compared with my previous vehicle.