You kept saying city driving for Spec Boy, he stated his highway is about 5% and I guess you just assumed the remaining 95% was city driving. Though geography should let you know that with him being in Vermont, the roads are most likely country roads, which in turn SB has said it as being just that.

 

I don't have NYC style city driving if that's what is being assumed here. Twice a week (and 6x a week for the last two weeks) I end up driving down to the south end of the "city" of rutland and back which is a total of 32 stoplights down & back (usually I'll hit 75% of them when they are Red). That's over a 10 mile stretch (again down & back) for an average of about 50 stoplights/week. Fortunately, I'm not at a crawl between lights so except for the lights, it's not stop/go traffic for the most part. The majority of my commute is at an average of about 40-45mph, although it's been a little lower currently as I'm going through some construction in two different spots (about 5 miles worth total). Most all of that is country roads 25-50mph speed limits with some stop signs (or a few stoplights - depending on which way I go).

Maybe that gives a better picture.

Either way, I'm still ecstatic with the economy and even with my regular trips to the south end of rutland over the last few weeks my overall economy is continuing to increase. The last 4 tanks have been 38.1, 38.6, 41.7, & 41.0 for a current lifetime avg of 38.1.

~SB

 

I'm more than pleased with my 29mpg average which the majority is sitting in traffic combined with many stop lights that here in Japan seem that the engineering behind it doesn't exist whatsoever with an average speed of probably 25~30km/h. My actual highway percentage is probably around 5~10% max. My fill up this morning resulted in just 25.6mpg and this was for this week commuting from home to work only (133km and used 3.225 gallons).

 

Cool... that makes more sense now... pardon me for my city mentality, it just didn't jive with me when you said you drive mostly city driving, and in my mind, city driving is what it is here in Seattle, grid lock traffic most of the time. 38 mpg in non-congested "town" driving makes sense... like one of the posters in this thread said, that is what the Fit is great at.

As traffic here in Seattle gets more grid lock in the fall and winter season, drivers here get paranoid when there is a little rain or light snow, I think the fuel economy will drop again. In the summer, I saw as high as 35 mpg driving in the city when the grid lock was less.

 

In my mind I have always had a problem with how cars are rated for 'city' and 'highway' driving. Sort of like the one size fits all concept - I have a hard time buying hats!

Certainly there's a better way, but the numbers are relative - not definitive. I describe my driving world as suburban/rural. I'm sure the majority of drivers actually meet the same criteria.

To quote the EPA, The numbers are a guide to comparisons.

For those really interested in understanding the trends here's the executive summary of a recent EPA report: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s09001.pdf

This is how they 'run the numbers': http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fet...014-appx-a.pdf

Note - it's typically governmental - magic in the numbers, but the end of appendix A shows Honda at the top.

 

im only at 1300mi, so the engine may have not fully "broken in", but ive been getting a flat 30 miles per US-gallon , doing mostly highway driving

what is interesting is how much the AC just kills the mileage; i suppose it just saps too much power out of a 1.5L

for all previous tanks i run AC 95% of the time. this month its gotten a little more tolerable and i run with windows partially down. at the moment i am at 33mpg.... and ive never even maintained 30+ previously

the difference is so drastic that even driving in the CITY, my indicated tank MPG starts to rise....

 

It really depends on where you are in the US. If you are talking NY city or LA, then the majority is not "suburban or rural" which i believe you mean that cars travel at 30-40 mph and not too much heavy traffic. In LA, NY city or Seattle, most cars are in grid lock traffic, unless you live in "suburbia" where you are so far away from the main action, cars do drive at 30-40 mph most of the time.

In any case, I think if a car can get > 30 mpg in heavy grid lock traffic mixed in with some hwy driving, it is pretty good...

 

Belfast! You are driving a JAZZ right... I am envious of car owners in Europe and Asia, where they always get the more fancy looking cars. Like the civic hatchback in Europe is so cool looking.

 

I've been keeping track of my MPG for years now, even before I had my first personal computer in the 80's.

I just write the odometer reading on the gas station receipt and plug it in to the SCalc spreadsheet I have, plus the other variables like number of gallons and cost, and the AVG MPG from the dash computer.

Not a big deal once you get into the habit....

 

2 years & 50.7 MPG

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Wow... that is incredible... were you on a 3 hour freeway drive, non-stop at 55mph? And did you reset your trip computer prior to running the freeway drive? I hope you won't say it has any city driving miles associated with that mileage 50mpg.

 

i drive 177 miles from PA to NY 60 mph !

 

I'm guessing that you haven't had the update for the economy meter for the 2009 FIT's?

What speed did you maintain and did you use Cruise Control or feather the pedal?

Also, what's your lifetime economy on the fit?

~SB

 

Okay... phew... thought you were going to say, 50 mpg fuel economy included some "city" driving.

True "city" stop and go, high density traffic light system, will not and never get you > 35 mpg. It is nice to "dream" that our Fit will be as efficient as the Hybrid Prius in the city. Actually, if you do 50/50 city/hwy driving, city = stop and go heavy traffic, you should be smiling if you even get 32 mpg.

I am pretty happy that I am getting ~ 32 mpg for the heavy seattle congested traffic. And all Fits are build "identcally", at least I hope the Honda QC control is good enough to ensure pretty uniform production units. So it just does not register when the mpg differ by 10 mpg, given the claimed driving conditions.