It's not really magic or anything, but it is a good mark to aim for, IMHO. Just think where we'd be if it was a mark made by the government requirements? It would have been a mark easily made by today's technical achievements. A small electric power system* to get the car started from 0-10 mph, then gas takes over at 10 mph and faster. If the vehicle that can not make this 40 mpg mark, then it gets taxed accordingly. Would have kept oil resources in the ground for future generations and used as needed and if needed.

* and yes, there can be cars made that would not need an electrical power system and could achieve 40 mpg.

 

To each his/her own.
But I don't sweat the MPG too much. I bought The Fit in part because it is a sub-compact and I felt I could expect very good gas mileage, compared to most other vehicles on the road.

I do a lot of city, stop and go driving and short drives. So in "my" mixed driving I'm averaging anywhere from lows of 31 mpg to highs around 35.
If I go on a long freeway drive? The MPG will go up from there.

And that's fine with me.
I don't drive crazy, but neither am I going to pump the tires up, or employ IMO sometimes dangerous driving techniques just to eek out a few more MPG.

As a small engined, 4 cylinder, sub-compact the baseline MPG with just driving the Fit is good enough for me.

* Those MPG numbers are actually from the Fit computer. Which I think is generously optimistic. But I'm still OK with it.

I think the "combined" MPG rating for my Honda Fit is 35 mpg, I'm generally getting less than that, but since I am doing a lot of short, city drives, I think I'm about where I should be.

 

How are you all managing that high of MPG?! I average 24mpg. I coast to stops, easy on the pedal to accelerate, tires are at 35 and are low rolling, I keep 60-65mph on the highway and always have my windows closed. What am I doing wrong?

 

Rinastus have you had any check engine lights / codes? Bad O2 sensor or catalytic converter will cause excessive fuel consumption, but usually throws a code.

 

just curious.... do you by any chance own a 2nd vehicle?

reason why I ask .... I wanted to see... how many mpg you get on the other car. IE .... is your 24 mpg coming from DRIVER habits? or is that 24 mpg coming from the car/the car's inability to produce efficient mpg's

 

That definitely doesn't sound right.
* is there another family member / friend that also drives your car? Maybe they drive it like they stole it - hence the poor mileage.
* do you drive the car for short trips a lot (anything under 10 miles is a very short trip w/ poor mileage)
* alternatively you may have some sort of mechanical problems (ie. engine, fuel injectors, spark plugs, transmission issues, brakes dragging creating friction, poor alignment creating friction via tires, etc).

I'm not a true hypermiler, but I do have a ScanGaugeII hooked up and try to get the best mileage possible, except for when I'm in a hurry. My driving style is about 50% hwy 50% city and I live in a climate with very cold long snowy winters that need snow tires + hot & humid summers that need AC.

I've noticed that pretty much EVERYTHING has a significant impact on mileage:
* driving style can make up to 30% difference (ie. I burn 30% more on a trip when I'm rushing, redlining btw shifts, passing others, etc)
* speed is another huge one (I've measured about 10-15% for every 10 MPH over 60 MPH). The sweet spot for the Fit seems to be around 50-55 MPH
* tire pressures
* cargo / passenger weight
* outside temperatures (freezing creating more friction in mechanical parts vs. AC burning more gas)
* winter vs. summer tires + gas
* flat vs. hills
* rain/snow vs. dry pavement
* traffic conditions
* etc

In about 3 years (40,000 miles) I've only had 7 tanks @ 29-30 MPG.
I've also managed to have 7 tanks that hit 40-41 MPG in this time.
My all time average is right in the middle of these at about 35-36 MPG.

And lastly, the car's computer is almost always optimistic (anywhere between 5-10% better than calculated with volume & distance). In 142 fuel-ups, I've only had the car's computer be correct maybe 4-5 times.

One more thing I've noticed - it MATTERS how you re-fuel your car:
Any slope at the pump will influence how much gas fits inside before the auto-shut-off.
If the front of the car is sloped downhill then more gas will fit inside (worse apparent mileage) vs. when the front is pointing uphill when less gas will fit in (better apparent mileage).
If you fuel-up when the gas tank is half-empty, it will make more mileage "errors" than if you only fuel-up when the tank is completely empty. This one is related to the point above on the slope of your car during re-fueling, but there's less distance traveled for half tank, thus more "errors" in mileage.

 

Hey Rinastus,

Any time you got more than 2 users ~recommending a site, it's gotta be good, right? I just joined and thanks I was browsing around and there's good page I'd like to share with you guys;

Fuel Saving Tips | Fuelly

 

I agree with the stupid post is stupid guy, go urbie4. Fits get great mileage, not the greatest but just enjoy your car, turn up tunes, life is too short to be constantly worrying about a few cents. What are you going to save over a year? If you drive 10,000 miles and pay $3 a gallon for some round number you would save $100. Is a $100 worth 10,000 miles of feeling guilty every time you put your foot on the gas? Not to me brother.

 

those who care about mpg .... do it for reasons of saving money.

its the very reason a person like myself will DD a Honda Fit and no longer DD a WRX. there's a time and a place for fun/enjoying my car.... personally, when its M-F (esp in rush hour traf), I'd rather be efficient and save at the pump. different strokes for different folks, what constitutes as "fun". for me, honestly, the Fit is hard to take serious when coming from an sc300, ct200h, sti, and wrx.

 

I agree with everything listed above. I usually get 40 + or- 3 here on the Fit. Hop on an Interstate at faster speeds and the mileage goes down.

The one thing to add to the above list is stay away from 10% Crapanol laced (TOP TIER) fuels. In some areas like most or all of California and large cities elsewhere that is an impossibility due to the EPA dictate. I happen to be lucky in that I am in a 10% Ethanol (Top Tier) dictated area, but it is only 6 miles to the county line where good pure gas is available at retail. So we fill up whenever we go that direction or need to fill up gas cans for our tractors and mowers and small gas powered devices including motorcycles. Probably about 1/2 of my neighbors have a 500 gallon or so tank and order non-ethanol fuel delivered a couple of times per year. We do not have one so we are stuck buying pure gas in the next county and hauling it back. In on road use pure gas consistently gets about an 11% increase in mileage. Three of us travel large territories and have lots of comparison data for fuel bought here and from other locations across several states. We have been under an EPA mandate here for 22 years so we have lots of comparison data for many hundreds of thousands miles.

 

It's very nice that you live in one of the countries with the cheapest gas & highest wages in the world. No doubt that $100 isn't worth your trouble, especially if your household income is $100,000, then these savings are only 0.1% => absolutely meaningless.

Here in Canada we are currently paying about $4.69 / gallon ($1.30/liter where I live), but our wages are likely less and we pay more in overall taxes. People from Europe are paying even more on gas & taxes.

I drive on average 15,000 miles a year at a higher gas price, so my savings are definitely much higher than $100 / year.

Slow grandma-style acceleration has been proven to actually burn more gas than a quicker paced acceleration rate. Obviously you don't want to have the pedal to the metal on full WOT (wide-open-throttle) and you don't want to rev to redline either.
Hypermilers have found that 75-80% throttle is the best way to accelerate because you reduce the amount of time needed for reaching your cruising speed vs. the grandma that will take twice as long to reach that same speed. Also it's better to upshift around 3,000 rpm, rather than 4-6 K if you want best mileage.
If you want to go as fast as possible, you need to floor the pedal & hit the redline on each gear, but this will pour gas down the drain....literally!


The only 2 things I wish that everyone on the road understood are:

1) avoid driving below the speed limit; keeping the limit is fine.
2) avoid accelerating like a grandma - you are just being plain old stupid

 

i find that i get the best mpg during highway driving near 70-75 mph. 75 down hill, ease into the flats, dont drop below 65 on the steep (i95 steep anyway) uphills.
I find that if i'm only doing 50-55 i get excellent mpg going on flat ground, but as soon as i hit a hill, the engine has to lug to keep the momentum. When this occurs the only solution is to downshift or slowdown at a considerably annoying rate.

at around 3k -3.6k i find the engine is happiest and the mpg reflects that.

 

#1 Fuelly saids
#2 - Fuelly saids

 

"plan ahead"

that is def a damn good tip. alot of people overlook that one

 

The Fit would be such a better mpg car if it had a 2.0 liter engine hauling its light weight chassis.

 

The sad part is I follow a lot of that. But I did find out how I'm getting this mileage: HILLS! There are barely any flat roads where I live. I should've thought about that.
I guess I'll never hit the 40+MPG club.

 

That's interesting. I'm thinking Honda pretty much nailed everything on this car at the start. I basically got a '07 cause I wanted a car that was introduced to the US *before* it got adulterated. Also I look at the EcoModder site and I really don't see anything on modding a Fit. That leads me to believe it's already pretty much setup. Yes there's things you can do to improve the MPG, but not that much.

BTW the best post I've found on that site regarding Fits is this one.