I woke up this morning tired of the tyranny of the MPG display. The dang thing has been displaying numbers around 42MPG since I picked up the car last Friday. That 42 is an awful responsibility.

I got in and passed the first vehicle I got behind. Then I filled the tank for my first time and went off to pick up some freight.

The dang thing shows 44.6 for the rest of the day and calculations from my first fillup show 45.272. (I stopped when the pump released the first time while the dealership may have put in more gas.)

There is no level terrain around the coast; it's either up or down or briefly in transition. But then there's not much traffic either so I can usually choose my pace.

And it looks like that pace will be dictated by the dang gauge.

 

Told you so

That backdrop looks beautiful and I think i'm ready to move somewhere like that permanently and work from home.

 

Bring your own bandwidth. Places like this can lack the amenities of cities.

Went to the hardware store yesterday and the meter showed 44.9 MPG as I parked. Then I discovered that I didn't have my wallet with me so I rushed home -- about 20 miles -- rather quicker. It was rush minutes* here and the traffic was all locals and moving smartly. (These are all 45 mph 2-lane roads.) The meter switched from 45.7 to 45.6 as I turned off the ignition. Even rushing it was too late to get back to the hardware store before closing.

I really don't believe that I'm hypermiling or anything. I just try not to waste momentum. It's all up and down here and most drivers know how to drive rolling hills. (Although there are plenty who have no clue.)

* We don't have an entire rush hour.

 

The Fit loves rolling around 2 lane roads at 50ish mph. I'll gladly trade you 20mbps for 28K with a view.

 

Do you use satellite internet or something like Clear? I've been looking at houses on land (10+ acres) and I assume there will be no land lines so I've been curious about this and how well it works.

Sorry to take thread OT.

 

I don't mind your OT question; it allows me to insert that I seem to have stalled at 45mpg. I had to drive down a long rocky road to an orchard and I haven't seen 45.5 since then.

My internet is through an antenna pointed at a small tower in someone's yard on an island. That tower relays signals to a hilltop then to another antenna near a city.

It works sometimes. I hate it sometimes. The same company installs satellite systems and they recommended this one for my location.

I have had no cell service here. One company says this area is now covered by 4G. I plan to go borrow a test modem since it wouldn't be hard to surpass the speed or reliability of my connection. I borrowed a modem from another cellular provider and it had trouble connecting.

When riding my motorcycle from here to Alaska and back I saw lots of land-based antenna systems in rural areas in the U.S. and Canada. Many have small rectangular antennas instead of the long yagi antenna that I have.

Man I hate those plastic wheel covers.

 

Do you reset your meter every time you fill up? The more miles it has recorded per trip the least susceptible is it to changes.

 

Alot of downhill driving = ridiculous MPG's

How many miles are you getting per tank so far? we could just do the math ourselves to confirm

 

get rid of them!!

 

The meter continues to tyrannize. I had to go down that long rocky road again (i.e. first gear down and first gear back up). So the meter shows 44.9 which simply highlights my failure to maintain the 45mpg which is not that hard. I just now inflated the tires to 36psi (1/3 of the way from the sticker recommendation to the sidewall maximum). It won't help on that rocky road though.

I reset the meter at fillups and only at fillups.

The meter has been pessimistic so far -- i.e. I got better mileage at the pump than my display shows. I forget what the meter showed, but it was just under 45 when I filled and calculated 45.27.

13Fit: Did you paint your wheels? My steel wheels are painted black. Silver-painted steel would be OK for winter wheels. What I really want are full moon covers. Or pizza pans. Not sure they'd be worth the hassle though since so much of my driving is on these slower roads.

SOME downhills may make great MPG, but every downhill has its uphill and not all downhills are good for coasting. The rolling hills around here seem to be good for mileage, but slow rocky hills? Not so much.

 

Here you go for your Moon discs.

Mooneyes Online Store - Specialty Equipment Manufacturer, Speed and Custom Parts for Motorcycles and Automobiles

They even use the Fit as the model car

 

Fillup today. The displayed MPG has been going down as I continued a project at the bottom of that rocky road. It was 44.4mpg when I stopped for gas with a half-tank indicated. It took 4.958 gallons for 251.9 miles, or 50.8mpg.

I know better than to trust any one fillup, but this is the second time that the dashboard display has been significantly pessimistic. (I didn't write down the display from the previous fillup because I could do the math so didn't need the display.)

I have been filling to the first automatic release and not topping off. I use the same station every time so far, but not the same pump.

I am generally amazed that the display can work at all. Two thousand rpm is 4000 injections per minute and 252 miles at 50mph is 5 hours or 1.2 million measurements of disappearingly small amounts of gas. I'm not surprised that it could be 10% off.

But the dang meter has me working pretty hard to stay above 44mpg and it looks like it's fooling me.

I'll need to drive more and fill more to see.

 

awesome snapshots, they are really an impressive one for us