I have a 2008 Fit Sport AT that had a little over 51,000 miles on it when I bought it last year. No engine or suspension modifications.

I've been tracking my mileage on Fuelly.com for just over 11 months (19,980 miles tracked), and my average MPG is 32.0 MPG.

My daily commute is about 38 miles each way, and I have to drive through downtown Atlanta, so I encounter a fair amount of traffic pretty regularly. When I am able to use cruise control, I keep it at 70 MPH. I rarely use the paddle shifters. I have taken maybe 3 road trips where I had nearly all highway miles, and the worst mileage I got on one of those was 34.7 MPG coming back from Nashville, TN to Atlanta with 2 passengers and the A/C running. My highest was 39.9 MPG going from Atlanta to Statesboro, GA in February.

Fitty Cent (Honda Fit) | Fuelly

 

2009 Sport Auto. Purchased a few months ago, driven x-country, 4,000 miles total, obeying speed limits. Avg 32MPG. Since getting home and now doing mixed city/hwy, we have had to really baby it to get over 30MPG. The biggest problem with hypermilling is getting the torque converter to lock up. Using the shift paddled to upshift, frequently you can go from 4 to 5, then the converter drops out of lock and the engine RPMs scream 1500 higher. Maybe it's winter gas? Our state uses alcohol in fuel in the winter.

I'm going to wait for summer before passing judgement, but so far, I am not impressed. My '98 Acura Integra does about as well, even if I hammer it and drive aggressively, and it's a significantly higher performance vehicle.

 

2012 21k runs ok i guess lol

 

Thanks for all the MPG info ! I am following all the research everyone has posted and I am for sure going to purchase the 5 SPD Auto.

I do have one question for the 2012 owners; at 65 mph what is the tach RPM reading ?

The salesman at Honda told me the Auto or Stick rev the same at 65 mph but I believe he is totally wrong ! ! !

Anyway, an answer to my question would be helpful . . . . . . . Thanks !

 

Oh, you don't own it yet? I would not buy the auto, unless you're really bad at a clutch. The 5 speed manual is a very smooth shifting manual. On another Honda Fit Forum, there's a Honda technician who reports many automatics need the trans fluid changed way more often than the book says to, because they burn the fluid. If a trans is burning fluid, then it's not going to be a very long-lasting trans. Might not get even 100k out of it. My Honda stick shifts have always lasted the life of the car (300k if I don't get in an accident first!) and my clutches typically 200k. Clutch replacement is about $500 to $800, and a new autmoatic trans is $4,000 to $8,000.

I think the manual does spin the engine faster than the auto, but the torque converter slippage counteracts that for all but high-speed highway driving. Most folks with the stick shifts are averaging higher MPG.

You also didn't say sport or base. The sport auto shifts very differently and it's difficult to get good MPG.

At this car's size, weight, and power, it should get 45-50mpg, but I haven't seen anybody posting numbers like that.

 

Are you sure it's a tech saying this?

Is his login "SevereService?" Because he's not a mechanic, but he did sleep at a holiday inn

 

My 2012 Sport Auto tach reads exactly 2500rpm at 70mph. At 65mph it's just a hair over 2300rpm.

From everything I've read the manuals in 5th gear would be right at 3,500rpm at 70mph and should be around 3,250rpm at 65mph.

So, yes there is a large difference in rpm between the two in top gear. I'm sure Honda did lots of engineering work to figure out the gearing in both, but I almost wonder if they had split the difference and set up both to run about 3,000 rpm at 70mph that it would result in a little better acceleration and mpg in the auto and a quieter engine in the manual on the highway.

-Dustin

 

Thanks for the feedback with the rpm info.

I can see the 5 Spd Auto getting + 35 mpg on the highway at 2300 rpms, but I can't see the stick getting good mpg results at 65 mph if the motor is running at 3250 rpms at 65 mph.

Thats higher rpms than my 4 x 4 truck ................... what was Honda thinking with such gearing ? ? ?

 

I think they were thinking pretty well. RPM is only a small part of the equation. My '97 Civic spun much faster. 3800-4000 RPM at 65 miles per hour and routinely got 45-48MPG while doing so.

Engines can be designed for low-RPM grunt (typical for a truck, because you need that for hauling) or they can be design for high-RPM freedom (typical for small high performance cars). We can only guess what Honda had planned.

If HonDATA made a module for this car, then we could extract the engine map, do a bunch of track runs at part to open throttle, and create a specific fuel consumption map of the engine and then know, as a scientific certainty, what the optimum RPM was for MPG. But to date, that info is unavailable.

 

Except that is unnecessary lol

If you are going for good fuel economy, you are at cruise with very low TPS values.. so unless there is an issue that would prevent it, the ECU will be in closed loop, targeting lambda 1.0.

Then RPM control is dictated by your left foot.

A scan gauge can give you your duty cycle and fuel trims, we know the injector size and fuel pressure.. so we know how much fuel mass is being used.

The lowest maintainable engine speed to match the road speed appropriate to your route that allows for the smallest duty cycle is all you need to look for.

There is not one fixed rpm that will net you best results across the board. Different conditions will require a different approach.

 

My 2012 Fit 5AT gets 38-40mpg in 30% city 70% highway I dont use the MPG avg, i hand calculate it by gallons filled divided by total milage.

 

try driving in the right lane at 60 MPH it takes longer but I bet you will get around 36 on the highway. oh and roll down the windows and turn the ac off..

 

This made me think about looking up info on installing an external trans cooler.

Do it for any Jeep that doesn't have one. Also, I change my AT fluid once a year, once every other year at worst. And new trans filter. $70 to $100 in what I consider regular maintenance to save thousands.

 

I have a 2011 AT with 33k. Yes... I drive a lot! LOL! Over the last two years I have experienced a large decrease in MPG. Although I cannot pinpoint exactly, I can speculate a few things.

1) my driving habits have changed. I push the gas a little harder to get to the speed limit and I definitely do not drive 65mph consistently on the freeway. I usually cruise around 70.

2) I have added a roof rack which dramatically dropped my mpg.

Since the installation of my roof rack, I have noticed my MPG decreasingly drop every month. U started out averaging 29 in the city and closer to 35 on the highway without it. As the vehicle gets older and my driving habits changed, I am now lucky to get 28mpg on a long highway drive and currently about 26.8mpg in the city.

really, unless u're going to drive this car like a granny, and there's nothing wrong with that, this car isn't really going to get any better MPG than a regular civic. My fa5 Si was averaging about 23-24mpg in the city and that car had tons more power.

If I would've known before, I would've just picked up the 2012 Si. During the time I picked up my Fit, there was one but the dealer of course was ridiculously marking up the price.

so to report: 26.8 city and 28mpg freeway

 

I tried driving 65mph on the right lane and it got me 42.5mpg, but it's just unbearably slow to drive that peed. 70-75 gets me avg on 38-40mpg avg combine with usual LA traffic.
Rolling down the window creates wind drag that is actually greater fuel consumption then just using the ac, especially on the highway.

 

First real tank of gas 87 octane with shell gas. 28.8 mpg(12Gal) all city driving with 37 to 40 lights between my two stops. Lots of coasting in "N", slow on take offs low RPMs and shutting off Engine between long lights.
2007 Fit Sport with Auto Trans.
93,000 miles

I was honestly hoping for better mileage but considering I went from 10-14 mpg in my Jeep to this I can't complain.

Today I just changed oil to full mobile 1 syn along with new spark plugs.

Ordered an Ultra Gauge should be here next week. This should really help me figure out where im standing

Will be doing trans fluid drain and refill this month along with brake fluid. I had a big B&M trans cooler installed on my 91 Jeep Cherokee, not sure if this car will need one.

 

Has anyone seen anything about reprograming shift points on the AT (2011 Sport) for the D-mode, as well as, S-mode?

I appear to be getting 2-3 mpg (gauge) more in S-mode than my typical 32 MPG (hand calculated with each tank - 24K+ miles to date) while exclusively in D-mode. When in S-mode, the transmission sometimes automatically runs up thru 3rd gear and holds there until I upshift and other times it'll hold 1st gear until I upshift. Also while in S-mode, it downshifts under any sort of load but the gear position indicator still says that I'm in the higher gear.

I would like the AT to be more MT while in S-mode. BTW, wife's physical conditions required purchase of AT, my mental conditions required purchase of the Sport.

 

It doesn't downshift in S until you come to a near a stop then it goes to 1. What your experiencing is the torque converter unlocking to accelerate. It's not a actually changing gears, it's just allowing the engine to spin up a little by unlocking the converter.

 

So the Sport AT operates like a 10-speed transmission or maybe 8 or 6 when considering the torque converter unlock occurring. We have a Regular / Lo for every gear.

That unlocking is what kind of drives me nuts when in S-mode. That's why I'd rather have the engine bog down like a MT and force me to downshift vs all of this whirling and whizzing that uselessly burns up carbon.

Has anyone seen reprogrammed modules to change shifting characteristics. Would be interesting to have a selectable unit? Cars and motorcycle seem to be coming through with selectable transmissions and suspension now a days. Sure it costs $$$

 

I put on approx. 350 highway miles today and almost all in S-mode. There was a fill-up in there and the gauge MPG was overly optimistic by 4.7 MPG from the calculated MPG (miles / gals).

So, is it worth the bother to go into the S-mode and use the paddle shifts? Sort of fun as long as your arms aren't twisted around the steering wheel in a turn.

On the subject of torque converter unlocking, it does allow the rpm to increase and that does get you up the hill better / accelerate faster. I assume that engine hp / torque improves with rpm but an unlocked torque converter would seem to introduce an inefficiency by only transferring 50%, 60%,... of that hp / torque. Just confused on how that combination of things appears to work so well.