DX/LX/EX: Your Gas Mileage

[Clinton70]

I got as high as 46.9 on Flying J/Conoco gas, mostly two lane highway when I was west this summer.
Highways on this side of the country, about 41.
City/highway mix, low 30s.
All city is what kills me, upper 20s. I (for now) am living in an area with lots of stoppages and 25 mph roads and a short 2 mile drive to work.
Moving to a house next month. One mile further but 45 MPH roads and 2 less lights. Mileage shall improve.
Also, I am up to 25500 miles on the 14 months I owned it.

[FG*SQUAD Nick]

yeah I must say after my first oil change I have been getting more and more miles to each tank before oil change around 300 miles im up to 375 miles to a tank now.

[truflip]

46.9, thats ridiculous.. ....

[Janizary]

Any mod: Can you merge this with: http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784

before it spawns yet another random list of MPG readings?

[Gonzo]

Done. Cybergypsy's thread was actually made before this one but I went ahead and merged it for simplicity.

[qz103]

I average about 30-33mpg with half city/ half hwy.

On a recent roadtrip, I got 37mpg when averaging at 75-80mph and 44mpg when I bumped that down to 60-65mph, so cruising speed mattered a lot for me. It was all 87 octane. The 37mpg was in Cali and the 44mpg was in Oregon/Washington, where the roads were much rougher / hillier. Both were with cruise control and I have a 06 EX sedan.

[Andrei'sCivic]

2007 Civic LX, manual tranny around 2000 miles on car. I have 18" Volks with 225/40/18 tires. OEM Si axle-back. Car was stock up till the first 1000 miles. Getting worse with every fill up. Recently cruising around the city (I mean driving slow, conservatively) I was running low on fuel with 250 miles on my tank so I took it on a high speed run. When I filled up I got 21.9 mpg. 252 miles on 11.5 gallons. Every time I fill up I get lower numbers. I keep going back to the dealer. The first time I filled up I got almost 27 mpg now its under 22mpg. Any input?

[jaker]

For the life of the car, i am sitting at 30.7mpg. By far the best of any car Iève ever had.

[flsedan07]

regular unleaded? What brand shall we not use? 29mpg first tank.

[flsedan07]

Originally Posted by Andrei'sCivic

2007 Civic LX, manual tranny around 2000 miles on car. I have 18" Volks with 225/40/18 tires. OEM Si axle-back. Car was stock up till the first 1000 miles. Getting worse with every fill up. Recently cruising around the city (I mean driving slow, conservatively) I was running low on fuel with 250 miles on my tank so I took it on a high speed run. When I filled up I got 21.9 mpg. 252 miles on 11.5 gallons. Every time I fill up I get lower numbers. I keep going back to the dealer. The first time I filled up I got almost 27 mpg now its under 22mpg. Any input?

That sucks, suppose to get better as we put miles on it......

[jasongg06]

Originally Posted by Andrei'sCivic

2007 Civic LX, manual tranny around 2000 miles on car. I have 18" Volks with 225/40/18 tires. OEM Si axle-back. Car was stock up till the first 1000 miles. Getting worse with every fill up. Recently cruising around the city (I mean driving slow, conservatively) I was running low on fuel with 250 miles on my tank so I took it on a high speed run. When I filled up I got 21.9 mpg. 252 miles on 11.5 gallons. Every time I fill up I get lower numbers. I keep going back to the dealer. The first time I filled up I got almost 27 mpg now its under 22mpg. Any input?

I'm getting #'s similar to yours. When i started, it was an easy 26-27mpg (which sucks already) now i struggle to get above 25mpg.

[Clinton70]

Originally Posted by truflip

46.9, thats ridiculous.. ....

Well, most of the tank was on US 191 in Wyoming going 60-65 (stuck behind slow cars/camper. More US 191 in Montana. Beautiful drives, btw.

Also, no city driving and no high-speed interstate travel. Just two lane highways with minimal stoppage.

What's amazing too is, during the tank, I climbed a 8000 foot mountain pass just west of Jackson, Wyo.

The thin air and type of gas might have something to do with it too. It was 87 octane Flying J/Conoco in Rock Springs, Wyo. Tank lasted until Bozeman, MT, save for a smaller trip in between.

[Intrepid175]

Originally Posted by Clinton70

Well, most of the tank was on US 191 in Wyoming going 60-65 (stuck behind slow cars/camper. More US 191 in Montana. Beautiful drives, btw.

Also, no city driving and no high-speed interstate travel. Just two lane highways with minimal stoppage.

What's amazing too is, during the tank, I climbed a 8000 foot mountain pass just west of Jackson, Wyo.

The thin air and type of gas might have something to do with it too. It was 87 octane Flying J/Conoco in Rock Springs, Wyo. Tank lasted until Bozeman, MT, save for a smaller trip in between.

I promise you, the thin air had a LOT to do with it! I seriously doubt that the brand of fuel you happened to have in the tank at the time made much difference. Some will claim otherwise, it's just my opinion.

As we gain altitude, the air does get thinner. I think most, if not all, of us know and acknowledge that. What some may not understand, but I think most do, it that a gasoline burning engine, any of them, require a precise mixture ratio between air and fuel. I think the optimum number is 14:1, or 14 parts air to 1 part fuel. As the car gains altitude, and the air gets thinner, the fuel injection system compensates by providing less and less fuel flow to maintain that proper 14:1 ratio. That's one of the reasons that engine power also goes way down up at altitude compared to what it is closer to sea level. There's simply less air, and thus the fuel injections uses less fuel, and you get less hp but a LOT better fuel economy.

I hadn't caught the fact that you were up in the mountains when you got that 46+ mpg. Now that I know that, it doesn't surprise me in the least. I used to own an '04 Honda S2000. It's EPA'd at 20 city and 25 highway. The highest mpg I ever got out of that car was 36.6 mpg on two seperate tanks fo fuel. One tank was up in Colorado between Durango and Montrose. The other was up in the Siearra Nevada range going through Yosemite Nat'l Park in California. Both tanks spent most of their time between 8000 and 10,000 ft altitude. I was also driving easy, enjoying the scenery so it's not just the altitude, but the altitude does play a significant part in getting that kind of hyper fuel mileage.

Drive Safe,
Steve R.

[yeppi]

omg ... my 07 LX has about 1200km now .. and i just calculated it, it's 19.67mpg.. i can't believe this. Although i do majority city driving, this is rediculous. Also, i don't drive hard. Lots of the time, i let it accelerate without giong over 2k rpm and sometimes 2-3k rpm. i live in canada, sure it's cold right now, i rarely turn on ac unless my windows aer all fogged up.. and when it's all cleared, i turn it off.

[truflip]

yeppi give it time
i was very confused when i calculated my first 3 tanks to be 22mpg.. i couldnt get more than 500km on a tank!
i got 540 on my 4th..
jsut be patient, the more u drive your car, the better your mileage should get.
(did a lotta searching on this forum on this case)
also dont idle your car too long.
on a cold winter, no more than 1 minute is enough.
i did my own test and i let my car idle jsut enough for my to put my lunchbox on my passenger seat, put seatbelt on, check lights, turn signals and play the CD.. drive off and less than 2km of soft driving gets me 5 bars on temp gauge..

idling for long enuf to get that affects your gas mileage. n dont jackrabbit.. not like u want to when theres ice and snow anyway but just be patient

PS: check your tire pressure and make sure ur no lower than 32psi.. some have reported better mileage with a bit higher psi (34-36)

[Scott07LX]

Brand new 07 LX auto sedan, first fillup today. 315 miles, 11.6 gal, 27 MPG. Not bad for hilly rural driving with some city thrown in. Especially with winter gas and a still tight engine!

[Avenger]

Just took a trip to Detroit (300km highway each way). Averaged 40MPG for the trip, very impressive.

[IMTHEPUNISHER]

Getting less than 300mi. per tank, in my 1st 2k miles. Complete garbage.

[Yodums]

Some of you guys are getting impressive MPGs i.e. 46.9! I'm averaging between 30-32mpg with mostly highway driving and I'm by no means an agressive driver. The car maybe sees redline two or three times in one tank.

Sucks.

[qz103]

Originally Posted by Yodums

Some of you guys are getting impressive MPGs i.e. 46.9! I'm averaging between 30-32mpg with mostly highway driving and I'm by no means an agressive driver. The car maybe sees redline two or three times in one tank.

Sucks.

Well, I was around that range too. To get higher mpg, I started using cruise control. Also, I always had my AC on 'cause I leave it on defrost and undoing that bumped my mpg up by around 2.

Air Conditioner operation issue