What RPMs you're chugging along at makes a big difference. You would think using cruise control would be good for MPG, but on the Fit the RPMs really jump when going up inclines. I prefer to drive with my right foot and even if you drop a few MPH, if you keep the RPMs around 2000-2500, it really helps with MPG. You can regain the MPH without increasing your RPM much.

 

Where cruise does help is in keeping your top speed down to what you decide- no getting carried away then.

Having an automatic hurts on the hills unless you have a sport mode that'll keep it from downshifting on you.

 

After filling my Fit with Dynamat, I found myself driving faster, since the car was so much quieter. I thought about buying a decibel meter, but figured it would be a waste of money for a single use.

I generally take it out of cruise control when going up a hill. I don't mind losing one or two mph, but the CC wants to keep it at the speed I set.

 

Heh. Things have been hectic lately, and I'm wiped out. With the cooler weather, new tires and me too tired to do much more than hit cruise, my mileage has been sucking lately.

 

Dynamat? Local brand fuel?

I have a substitute "cruise control" for hilly travel. I have an artificial right foot and I can control that right pedal without the Honda installed item. Long and relatively flat trips, Honda does the job. Oh, and I've been using the right foot method since 1954. Yes, the Fit is a 6 speed.

 

Dynamat is soundproofing material. I posted a thread about how I did it.

EDIT: I thought I posted the Dynamat article, but I couldn't find it on here.

 

I added an HKS exhaust about a month ago and now it's easier to maintain the 2000-2500 RPMs because I can hear when it's trying to "downshift" - LOL

Filled up last night and managed 42.824 MPG in regular drive, Non ECON.

 

If you pull back on the right paddle, you can shift up one or two gears. I think D7 is as high as it goes.

 

To me D7 is a lower ratio and the RPMs are higher than when just driving in regular drive mode. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

Maybe "sucking" by your standards, but not by everyone else's.

 

The only time I've hit the right paddle is when it downshifts when going down a hill. The it would indicate D5 or D7, for example, and it would shift up. I don't do that on a regular basis - just curious about what would happen. I generally let the CVT shift for itself, and it seems to know what it's doing.

 

I also just let the CVT do its thing. I'll use the paddles to "downshift" when approaching a stop just to keep the fuel from flowing.

 

My dad owns a suburban and o men that is a kick in the wallet overtime he fills it(4 dollars a gallon or more because they never put you complete liters). Me in the other part am more than happy. In the interstate It is downhill and I put it in 6 gear and it give me around 86mpg.

The only down size it is that is really noisy and un confortable in long rides compared to the suburban.

 

Agree with "drive like you don't have any brakes" I let my car in gear instead of neutral when I see a stop. I do not trust the RPM sometimes I go low RPM but the indicator light goes light blue. Im always looking the indicator light to be green al the times and it gives me 45 mpg city. It feels so good compared to my old ram 2500 that was like 10 mpg and being 4 dollars a gallon it hurts so much.

 

Dynamat!

dynamat xtreme | eBay

 

Got my first Fuelly 40mpg tank last fill up! I have been doing a lot of coasting and driving slower and this tank might be even better!

I have a couple of acceleration questions. I have several back to back 4 way stops i have to go through and was wondering what would be the best way to accelerate in those situations? Should I give it a little gas and inch my way to the next stop sign or should I give it a quick burst and use that coast to the next stop sign? How should I accelerate to get up to highway speed from an entrance ramp? What about highway speed from a stop sign?

So did you guys install the dynamat yourselves or have it installed somwehere?

 

Congrats on breaking 40!

The best technique is called "pulse and glide." Hard (but not WOT) acceleration to speed and then popping into neutral so engine braking doesn't drag you back down. Pick a target speed, either near the speed limit or close enough to the flow of traffic that you're not obstructing things.

Pulse to a bit above the target speed and glide until you're about the same distance below it. You're close enough to an average speed that only a complete asshat is going to be tailgating badly enough to get upset about your speed changes.

Get a ScanGauge or UltraGauge- you'll see what you're really getting for mileage, and the instant feedback will teach you a lot more than the internet ever will.

You don't have any info about your car in your sig, but if you have a manual transmission accelerate hard- but try to upshift instead of winding it up. At least sometimes. If you have a CVT then you're kind of fucked. You want to be able to apply power without letting the transmission "downshift." Can you hold it in a higher ratio with sport mode or something? It defeats the purpose of a CVT, but you can at least see if it's a way to get better mileage than just letting it think for itself.

Once you get settled in, get a feel for the car and get some instrumentation to let yourself see what's actually happening, your numbers should get a lot better.

 

Congratulations on your first 40 mpg tank. I've been hypermiling in my 2015 Fit for over a year so I hope I can give you some good advice on your questions to help you get the best mileage. My best tank ever was 45 but it's usually 37 to 40 because I can't avoid traffic living near Washington, D.C.

Avoid bursts, it wastes way more fuel compared to gently accelerating. I've noticed that after I've been driving for about 5 minutes and I have an average mpg of 35, then flooring the pedal for just a few seconds will drop the average mpg to 30. That's a huge mpg hit for such a short maneuver. Just keep the eco assist meter colored green while accelerating, not unusually slow though as the mpg gauge will be too low, more towards the threshold of turning turquoise. Note how steep the road is as you approach the stop sign, then let off the gas at just the right time to coast to a stop with little braking if at all.

Most of the time I try to accelerate as fast as possible while keeping the eco assist meter green. If it is uphill then I'll settle for turquoise. If it is a steep hill and I have to accelerate from a complete stop onto a highway, I'll sometimes let the eco assist turn dark blue, which I normally try to avoid at all costs, but otherwise it takes to long to accelerate uphill and I feel like I am spending too much time below optimum cruising speed (25 - 45 mph) while chugging up hill at a low mpg. Once I reach the slowest safe speed I can travel with other traffic, I'll back off the throttle to get the eco assist back to green, or at least turquoise.

I'm not so worried about stop signs and on ramps, I'm mostly worried about being forced to accelerate uphill. If faced with hills try to approach them with as much momentum as possible, then accept some loss of speed in order to keep the eco assist meter green while cresting the hill.

 

I just do a 2200-3500RPM 85% engine load acceleration when I need it. 85% because I want to avoid accidentally going into a richer WOT 100%. I'd do 99% if I could reliably manage it. 2200-3500 since that's the plateau in the torque curve for the engine.

I don't think it makes a difference if you do it that way or slowly at like 40% load from 2200-2600 RPM. You still need to create enough energy to accelerate the car from X speed to Y. Either way you're in the best gas/acceleration slice of the torque curve. The 40% load vs 85% shouldn't matter. With 40% you're just spreading out that fuel use over more time.

Yeah, doing a short burst drops your MPG a bit, but you're still going to lose that MPG with the long acceleration, just it'll be spread out and not as instantly noticeable.

I'll put it this way: if I do a really hard acceleration (2.2K-5.2K RPM 90% load) up to 40MPH and then stick it in 6th gear and let my momentum wind the car back down to a stop (I do this a few times each commute due to reliable light timing), my MPG figure is practically unchanged by the final stop, even though it takes a 0.5-1.0 MPG loss at first. You're using fuel to gain momentum, which you can then use to equally save fuel.

 

Also, when looking at how to get good MPG, there's a few really really important factors, in order:

1) conserving kinetic energy and using it to brake: basically use the actual brakes as little as possible - this requires looking ahead 50-150+ yards and anticipating and paying attention to traffic light patterns during a regular commute so you can plan when to start the engine brake even before a light turns yellow (which annoys people who don't pay attention and think you're driving like a snail for no reason, but you're also doing them a favor technically even if they don't appreciate it).

2) conserving potential (gravity) energy: basically avoid stopping on downward slopes, or use the upward slope to brake. Just think of all the gas you spend going up a hill... you need to recoup it going back down otherwise it's just wasted effort, unless you didn't use the gas and just bled off speed for altitude. Conserve energy either by converting kinetic to potential or maintaining kinetic while increasing potential for a later conversion back to kinetic.

3) gearing: [lowest gear reasonable] for cruising, highest gear possible (over 1100RPM) for engine braking. Highest gears will create the least braking force on the car for a "dead" engine. The 2200-2500 is the lowest RPM point where you hit peak torque, so you use the least amount of gas for accelerating force. I would start any speed up from 2200 up to 4500, where the torque curve dies off.

4) avoiding both very low and very high speed driving. Anything over 45-50MPH and MPG starts to suffer, with 65+ being bad and 75+ being miserable. I stick to stated speed limits on city highways and 5 under outside of them. The car has a large cross section for its size/weight, so it suffers disproportionately from fast driving.

Doing that I manage around 45MPG for rush hour commutes (highway/gridlock mostly). 46-52MPG one way (downhill) and 41-44 the other (uphill). The only thing that really kills my MPG is dense city driving (Chicago), since it's all stop-wait-get to 30MPH-stop-repeat with short light timings and thick traffic. Lucky to break 40MPG there, usually mid-high 30s.

EDIT: I changed the cruise RPM. It's better in the mid-teens it seems.