Honda Car Forum

When I picked up my Honda Civic LX that I just bought on 9/7/2005, it
had a full tank of gas. I drove it over 400 miles, did a fill up,
divided the gallons into the miles and it came out to 39 mpg. I thought
this was great, since I had the AC on at various times, did more city
driving than I normally do, etc. But, with my next fill up, less AC and
less city driving it came out to only 37 mpg. Then 36 mpg with the next
fill up. It keeps going down. The last fill up it was 32 mpg. I don't
do fast start ups or slowing down and I drive the car at 60-65 mph on
the highway with no AC. I now have 3,200 miles on it. I called the
Honda dealer and asked them if they could check it out to see what the
problem is. To my surprise, they said that the better gas mileage I was
getting before was a fluke! What I am getting now is normal. They said
there was nothing for them to check unless I start getting around 19
MPG or the service engine light comes on. They said the engine is run
by computers so there is nothing for them to do. Is this right?

Thanks,

Roland

cinerama wrote:
>
> When I picked up my Honda Civic LX that I just bought on 9/7/2005, it
> had a full tank of gas. I drove it over 400 miles, did a fill up,
> divided the gallons into the miles and it came out to 39 mpg. I thought
> this was great, since I had the AC on at various times, did more city
> driving than I normally do, etc. But, with my next fill up, less AC and
> less city driving it came out to only 37 mpg. Then 36 mpg with the next
> fill up. It keeps going down. The last fill up it was 32 mpg. I don't
> do fast start ups or slowing down and I drive the car at 60-65 mph on
> the highway with no AC. I now have 3,200 miles on it. I called the
> Honda dealer and asked them if they could check it out to see what the
> problem is. To my surprise, they said that the better gas mileage I was
> getting before was a fluke! What I am getting now is normal. They said
> there was nothing for them to check unless I start getting around 19
> MPG or the service engine light comes on. They said the engine is run
> by computers so there is nothing for them to do. Is this right?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Roland

------------------

Keep on dividing the distance traveled by the volume of fuel you put in
.. . That's your mileage. Don't overfill the tank past shut-off. That's
covered in the Owner's Manual.

'Curly'

I never overfill. I take the pump out on the first click.

cinerama <roland.lataille@po.state.ct.us> wrote:
> I never overfill. I take the pump out on the first click.

I always give it a one more chance. Sometimes they click off by mistake.
But if that was the problem, you would get one high reading, follwed by a
low reading. Over the course of many fillups, a gallon difference wouldn't
be noticed.

I suspect you were driving the car very gently at first, and you're just
driving it harder now.


--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

No, I actually have slowed down on the highway. Recently I have been
driving 55-60 mph on the highway. I guess the bottom line question I
have is - is there any way to hook up the engine to the diagnostic or
whatever it's called machine and have it tell you if the engine is
tuned properly? To be specifc, what can cause the engine to not work
efficiently? Clogged fuel injector, dirty fuel filter, air filter, etc?
I know the car is brand new so, none of the engine parts should be
dirty but, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. I had a 2002 Dodge
Caravan with a 4-cylinder engine and I averaged 24 mpg. Now I have this
little compact car with an even smaller 4-cylinder engine and I only
get 8 mpg more?

Your mileage should decline as the weather cools. In a nutshell, the engine
requires more fuel to achieve the same speeds etc. at lower temperatures.

There is a fair amount of variation in these calculations, so it's important
to watch the averages over several fillups for similar driving conditions
and ambient temperatures. I have had seemingly freakish 46 to 47 mpg
calculations yielded for my 91 Civic LX (manual transmission, no air
conditioning) from the data twice in the past 1.5 years, once in each of the
past two summers, whereas the average mpg is closer to 40 mpg.

In July and August, for seven fillups, the mpg varied from 40 mpg to 45 mpg
(45, 44, 41, 40, 45, 40, 41). I almost always put in over 8 gallons but
rarely lately over 10 gallons. It does seem that I get better mileage if I
don't drive as near to an empty tank as possible. (The fuel pump doesn't
have to work as hard, reducing energy consumed to run it? That may be out in
left field.) Also, I have read that driving until the tank is near empty
permits the pump to pick up sediment at the bottom of the tank, which is
generally not good for the engine etc.

My mileage recently slipped a tad below 40, whence I remembered the weather
had cooled and I hadn't checked my tire inflation pressure. Sure enough, all
four were down 4 psi. This won't affect mpg a lot, from my experience, but
my impression is it will be noticeable.

So I'd say with your new car, keep collecting data; be aware that cold
weather will affect mileage; and check your tire pressure at least once a
month, particularly when seasons change.

"cinerama" <roland.lataille@po.state.ct.us> wrote
> No, I actually have slowed down on the highway. Recently I have been
> driving 55-60 mph on the highway. I guess the bottom line question I
> have is - is there any way to hook up the engine to the diagnostic or
> whatever it's called machine and have it tell you if the engine is
> tuned properly? To be specifc, what can cause the engine to not work
> efficiently? Clogged fuel injector, dirty fuel filter, air filter, etc?
> I know the car is brand new so, none of the engine parts should be
> dirty but, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. I had a 2002 Dodge
> Caravan with a 4-cylinder engine and I averaged 24 mpg. Now I have this
> little compact car with an even smaller 4-cylinder engine and I only
> get 8 mpg more?
>

cinerama wrote:
> dirty but, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. I had a 2002 Dodge
> Caravan with a 4-cylinder engine and I averaged 24 mpg. Now I have this
> little compact car with an even smaller 4-cylinder engine and I only
> get 8 mpg more?
>
yup. my 98 CX hatch averages around 30. if youre getting 32, thats
pretty good for a brand new car. might get better... who knows?

Elle wrote:
> So I'd say with your new car, keep collecting data; be aware that cold
> weather will affect mileage; and check your tire pressure at least once a
> month, particularly when seasons change.

id say with the new car... drive it. enjoy it. be glad you werent
retarded enough to buy a hummer H2.

I don't think waiting for the pump to click off on it's own is an accurate
fill-up method, unless you're using the exact same pump and your able to
keep the flow constant. My method is to fill-up until the gas is about to
overflow from the nozzle, which makes for easy spillage if you're not paying
attention.

Also, the filling stations will be switching to winterized gas, which will
reduce the fuel economy by about 5%.

Are you filling up with premium or regular gas? and which filling station
are you using? Personally, I favor Esso for Regular gas and Shell for
Premium gas.

Pars


"cinerama" <roland.lataille@po.state.ct.us> wrote in message
news:1131134219.455123.190680@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...
> No, I actually have slowed down on the highway. Recently I have been
> driving 55-60 mph on the highway. I guess the bottom line question I
> have is - is there any way to hook up the engine to the diagnostic or
> whatever it's called machine and have it tell you if the engine is
> tuned properly? To be specifc, what can cause the engine to not work
> efficiently? Clogged fuel injector, dirty fuel filter, air filter, etc?
> I know the car is brand new so, none of the engine parts should be
> dirty but, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. I had a 2002 Dodge
> Caravan with a 4-cylinder engine and I averaged 24 mpg. Now I have this
> little compact car with an even smaller 4-cylinder engine and I only
> get 8 mpg more?
>

"SoCalMike" <Mikein562athotmail@hotmail.com> wrote
> Elle wrote:
> > So I'd say with your new car, keep collecting data; be aware that cold
> > weather will affect mileage; and check your tire pressure at least
once a
> > month, particularly when seasons change.
>
> id say with the new car... drive it. enjoy it. be glad you werent
> retarded enough to buy a hummer H2.

I only "get" this because recently one of my offline buddies was telling me
how his boss had just bought a hummer. The boss paid over $40k for it. He
says it gets 10 miles per gallon of gas. fueleconomy.gov says the 2006's get
16 mpg around town.

Owning "things." Dear lord.