My mom purchased a 2011 Honda Fit last fall, on my behest. She was looking for a nice, compact 4 door hatchback for getting around town that had decent driving characteristics and good cargo space, but the most important thing to her was fuel economy. I had owned a couple of Accords before and had been very happy with them, plus I read several owner reviews (including several on this board) about how they were constantly getting better fuel mileage than the EPA estimates, so I pushed her in the direction of the Fit.
Well it has been about 8 months since she bought it, and we have NEVER, not ONCE, hit 35 mpg even in constant interstate driving, but worse, we cannot even top 30 mpg anymore. I have been driving this thing to work the last couple of weeks to try to figure it out using different driving styles and trying to work the pedal a bit but to no avail. My driving during this time has consisted of about 80% highway (interstate) and 20% city. Yet I am averaging 30 mpg dead on. I could get that in my old Accords! What gives??? The one thing I will comment on is that this is the 5 speed automatic and it shifts ALL OVER THE PLACE. It shifts if you breathe, then it shifts again. It shifts if you look at it wrong. If I am pulling a hill to get on the insterstate for example, and it has shifted down into 4th and I am accelerating up the hill just fine, it STILL shifts again down into 3rd even though it was having zero problems pulling the hill in 4th, and without my pressing the gas pedal down any more. Is there something wrong with the tranny, that would explain the poor fuel mileage? Someone please help! I feel like I did my mom a disservice! Thanks

 

I believe everything has to do with the pedal. This is my first car with "drive by wire" and not a cable. My mileage wasn't the greatest at first but once I became smooth with the sensitive pedal, I now average 34/39.

But on the other hand (foot), my wife occasionally takes my Fit and being that she is a semi aggressive driver, she gets around 29.

And hello from Massachusetts! But I'm originally from Malvern, AR...

 

Actually, I bet you need to reset the tripometer. My wife was saying the same thing after she did all in town driving we took a trip to the coast, I didn't reset. We got there and it said we go 35mpg. For me that is way low, I consistently pull 40-45 mpg that same route. Checked my trip, sure enough it had said we drove like 1000 miles on one tank of gas, no way. Reset, all is well

 

One other thing you can do is fill up and then check mileage between tanks like the old days and then go fill up again and subtract what was left in the tank from what you put in. Then divide that into the actual driving distance you got out of that tank of gas and that should bd on par with the mpg readout. If not, go to dealer

 

How fast are you driving on the interstate? Does the car have the original tires? What is the pressure?

30mpg combined city/highway is on spec. Not great for a Fit but within EPA estimates. Depends on driving patterns.

I'd take it on the highway, reset the trip odometer so you reset the avg MPG display, and drive for 15 minutes with the cruise on (if possible) at 55MPH. If you don't reset it it's showing the lifetime MPG. You should see high 30s low 40s.

If you think it's downshifting excessively, you probably are accelerating frequently. It shifts appropriate to an engine its size.

 

One other thing, and I don't mean to be a dick, but what is the weight of the passengers? If they are on the heavy side that will affect mpg big time. Just my wife and I are about 300lbs combined. Fit gets great mpg this way. When my hog-in-laws get in mpg drops and the fit takes nearly full throttle to accelerate

 

One of the things that could be adding to the fuel mileage problem is the sensitivity of the throttle pedal... A lot of us that felt like we were having to lift the ball of the right foot to not be putting too much pressure on the pedal have installed a spring.. It allows you to relax your foot and maintain steady pressure on the pedal... Here is a link to how it is done... https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...gas-pedal.html A lot of people that have done this will tell you that it is the best thing they have done to their Fit...

 

Wrt gears on hills, it probably isn't shifting into 3rd. The first downshift you see is the torque converter unlocking.

 

Thanks all-
I calculate my own fuel mileage, the old fashioned way. I don't ever go by what the car's computer tells me. Actually the car's computer keeps saying I am getting 32-33mpg, but when I do my own math, no way. I would still be a little disappointed with 32-33, but 30mpg just won't cut it.
I have tried every single method I know of to drive this car and feather the pedal-- the first week I had it driving to work I tried my best to keep it in one gear or only shift once while accelerating to enter the interstate, or pull a hill. It simply will not only shift once even though I am not pressing the pedal down any more. It's like there is a sensor in the car that says "Hey he needs to go faster although we are already accelerating" and it shifts. On more than one occcasion I have been trailing a car in front of me getting on the interstate, and it decides to downshift again to where I am catching up too close to the car in front of me and I have to back off the pedal. So it upshifts again, THEN it slows down!!! So I have to floor it from that point to get up to highway speed. VERY annoying, and I can't help but be pretty sure that this is the cause of my poor fuel mileage.
I appreciate all the advice about going light on the pedal, but I have tried that, and either it slows down and I have to hit the gas anyway to keep up, or it just randomly shifts down anyway because the car's computer tells it to.
I am serious when I say I BARELY tap the gas to try to accelerate in the gear it is in, it just won't do it without shifting again. It is annoying as h***, and it is ruining my fuel mileage. Sorry, but I rented a Kia Soul a few days ago and it's shifting and acceleration performance beats my Fit hands down, even though it is a larger car, and I still got 33mpg out of it before I had to give it back. OK now I am rambling, but still...

 

Dude this might be the answer I am looking for, I will read up on this and give it a shot. Thx

 

Greetings, I plan a trip out there sometime, I am an east coast person myself even though born and raised in LR!
Yeah this pedal is deathly sensitive, I just don't know what else I can do to keep it from shifting all the time. If I even hiccup this thing shifts. As another poster mentioned above, that first "shift" is probably the torque converter unlocking, but still, there is no need half the time for it to ever go down into 3rd yet it does it anyway. ANd letting off the gas only kills my throttle.

 

The shifting is not the cause of your poor gas mileage.

Sounds like you just really need to get used to driving the car. Why are you fighting the car? Apply throttle lightly, don't worry about what the trans is doing, it's an auto. It's programmed to do what it does to get the best out of the car. All you need to worry about is throttle input.

I will admit that I had to get used to the throttle a bit. There's throttle controllers available that make it less sensitive, although I don't have one.

How's your air filter?

 

So as yet (first tank) I'm only at 30mpg and this is disappointing. My 04 CRV could get 27 regularly with 600 more lbs and a 50% larger engine.

Now this is only tank #1 so I'm not complaining .. yet

I find the downshifting (and torque converter) annoying. I know from driving a manual previously that in certain scenarios the appropriate thing to do is just open the throttle a bit more, and that more leverage and higher revs aren't needed. But the car, of course, can't know that I'm on a relatively flat road that is just going uphill for 50 feet - it thinks, ah ha, slowing speed and increasing gas pedal application, better downshift. And of course you'd be annoyed in other scenarios if it DIDN"T shift.

I find that sport mode allows me to avoid most downshifts, as the computer lets me keep a gear. Torque converter still unlocks though.

The OP sounds like he drives real slowly, very similar to myself, so I don't think in this case the whole "you have to get used to the car" or "you are driving too aggressively) reasons hold. Just my sense from his posts. 30mpg does sound low. Check tires, air filter, AC use; check plugs and wires and even compression if you have to. If that's all good it'll be tough to track down a reason.

There is certainly a variety between different cars of the same model - some have 117hp, some have 123, some have 108, etc and the same is true of internal friction and balance and correspondingly fuel economy. I personally will be upset if I can't hit 40mpg but it's possible that those people reporting 45mpg are both good drivers AND they got a good example of the breed. This sort of thinking is not popular - many people feel that two cars ought to be the same - but I have experienced otherwise in the past. This issue has become better over the years but I still think it holds to a certain extent.

 

That just doesn't sound normal. On level ground, my '09 AT will hold speed and stay in a single gear without trouble. Since your Fit is under warranty, I would ask a dealer to look at it, and also let you test drive another Fit to see if you feel a difference. Just mention "uncontrolled acceleration", and that should get you some pretty close attention. Note though that I wouldn't mention poor MPG at all. I think most dealers will try to give you a runaround over that complaint.

 

I still think that the drive by wire throttles lack of tension and slow response is the likely cause.. You can't really tell if it is moving down and when you want to slightly increase speed you expect to feel some acceleration but don't until you've pushed a little too far and the toque converter unlocks and (or) the transmission downshifts....

 

I suppose this could be true--and both of the other Hondas I have had (Accords) were manual trannies, but I have driven automatics before and never experienced any doing what this Fit does. Imagine trying to trail someone going up a very slight hill at steady speed, only to have your car suddenly downshift on you because for whatever reason it thinks it needs more power than what the current gear can provide. So what ends up happening is you are forced to back off the throttle because you are closing in fast on the car in front of you. Bottom line is that I just can't seem to hold a steady acceleration in this car especially going up a hill because of its constant shifting. On flat surfaces it isn't quite as bad, but still one slight movement of my foot on the pedal and downshifting it is!
I am not "fighting" the car as much as I am trying to keep this from happening. Shifting 5 times up a hill is not my idea of a well-programmed tranny.
I will take it to the dealer as soon as I get a chance, but I am afraid they are going to say exactly what a poster above said, and claim there is nothing wrong and that is how the car is supposed to drive. And pretty much everything i have ever read says that extra shifting does indeed lead to poorer fuel economy. But point taken-it is just simply more annoying than anything else. It is tough right now for me to not tell my mom to go sell it and recoup nearly all she paid for it and go get a Kia Soul.

 

Check the air pressure, air filter, and reset the computer to relearn shift patterns.

 

Will do-- is this simply turning the engine off and back on?

 

Disconnect battery, wait for a minute, reconnect.

Make sure you have your radio code handy.


IMO small torqueless motors are not at all suited to auto trans, and when you add hills that's a recipe for disaster. Luckilly all of the auto trans i've had with small motors had a D3 for hills to avoid the gear hunting, but i've had that happen on every small motor car i've had. Accord and Kia Soul have more torque than the Fit, more torque than the Fit has HP hahaha

Maybe there is something wrong with the trans ECU, maybe find a nearby Fitfreak that has an automatic take it for a spin with you and tell you if it feels any different than his/hers.

You are right in thinking the dealership with probably just say "feels normal to me".

 

When you see a hill set the cruise control.