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I have tried to stick with Chevron gas, Regular. Curious if another brand will make a difference.
I have to admit, I take it pretty easy driving these days, now the first year or two with my new 97 Prelude was a different thing, wasn't too concerned with mileage back then...
hey thats cool, those wheels look great, and the bigger rim/wider tire combo certainly helps you handle much better than the touring all season 205's on the stock wheels!
A car that handles good and gets good mileage is a great combo imo.
Realize that gasoline stored in underground tanks is probably at about 65 degrees anywhere in the world. In your tank, surrounded by 95 degree air, it expands. 15 gallons at 65 degrees expands by about a quart at 95 degrees. That's enough to ruin a charcoal canister. Yeah, the 1st click is probably set conservatively (I can put almost 3 gallons in my wife's Highlander after the click), but don't push it to the infinite degree. It isn't worth the risk and it does no good.
After all, tracking mileage is really only good for bragging rights and to spot trends. And to spot trends, you need long term data. Comparing a single tank to another is pointless unless there are specific items you are looking for (recent repair, 2 very different trips/driving styles, etc).
My method is to simply fill until it shuts off the first time, then go until I reach the next even $$ amount. I like nice round numbers! Does the amount of the fill vary? Sure, but over time, it is immaterial. At $3/g, rounding up to the next whole $ at most adds 0.3 gallons, well within any long term statistical variance.
And yes, I too keep a spreadsheet. It's my inner geek...
If it clicks at $10.01, and since I like to round the $ to the nearest whole dollar, I pump until it reaches $11.00.
At $3/g, that adds $0.99 or 1/3 gallon. WIth this method, $0.99 is the most you will ever add beyond the 1st click. At higher $/g, the amount added will be even less (at $4/g, it would be .25g, $5/g would be .20g, etc...)
On my last fillup, had I stopped at 1/3 gallon less, my 1-tank MPG would have been .6 better.
In the longterm, .6 MPG is statistically insignificant. And 1/3g extra will not hurt anything.
You reset the trip computer, then drive around. When you re-fill, you divide the number of miles by the number of gallons _you just put in_ and you get the MPG for the _last_ fill-up.
please re-read the post a bit more carefully. Stopping sooner at the 1stclick uses less gas.
perhaps I was not clear:
stopping at the first click gives x gallons used.
adding ~1/3 g after that 1st click gives x + 1/3 gallons used.
both are divided into the same number of miles.
another way:
300 miles / 10 gallons= 30 mpg
300 miles / 10.3 gallons = 29.12 mpg
see?
simply put, +/-.5mpg is of no concern when looking for trends, issues and other reasons for tracking mileage in teh real world.
If you study the entire system, you will see that there are other variables that contribute larger variances, like "click" consistency between pumps, rate of flow (affects click timing), etc.
Yes, accuracy is of concern, but you have to know when accuracy is useful.
A plus or minus non consistent fill IS!! Which is my point and which you are trying to ignore.
You'll have a larger error on your odometer reading mileage than .3%, if you've ever checked it with a GPS.
stopping at the first click gives x gallons used.
adding ~1/3 g after that 1st click gives x + 1/3 gallons used.
both are divided into the same number of miles."
Yes, you were clear, but not correct. Why do you divide into the same number of miles? If you put more gas, your car will go farther.
"another way:
300 miles / 10 gallons= 30 mpg
300 miles / 10.3 gallons = 29.12 mpg "
So if I fill only half the tank I get
300 miles / 5 gallons= 60 mpg ???
If you measure both miles and gas refilled between similar events (click-to-click or click plus 1-to-click plus 1) you should get comparable mileage.
????are you serious????
because you check mileage by how far YOU'VE ALREADY GONE, not for how far you "will" go.
And evidently someone else who does not understand what consistency entails.
If you want to argue credentials, I am an Industrial Engineer with 30+ years experience in Costing Analysis and such.
"All things being equal, 12 gals will go further than 10 gals."
And someone who doesn't read for comprehension/understanding.
I agreed with your first click procedure, and I fully understand that you round UP higher for accounting purposes, i.e., you like round $ numbers. I don't round up. Either is no big deal.
"But actually the click is a pretty reliable indicator. Use it. "
some messages back, but more importantly, explained why. I also have IE in my background.
poor poor honda civic! :sick:
I just got 29.6 MPG at my latest fill-up. I've been averaging right about 28. The latest included one ~50 mile highway trip... otherwise it was just my average weekday driving. Uninterrupted highway driving -- even on such a short trip -- seems to make a more noticable difference in this car than anything I've owned before.
I just got 35.6 MPG, which is pretty much what I usually get - I drive pretty smoothly. I calculate my MPG by tracking my mileage and always pumping at the same (local, no-name) gas station and always the same pump, set on slow, until the frist click.
My highest MPG ever was 39.0, with about 60% highway 40% suburbs.
I've read about a guy who got 59MPG in his new Accord (non hybrid)- crazy. :surprise:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html
Just to let you know, such high mpg is not attainable in normal driving - you'll know what I mean once you read the article.
Driving is definately the key.
A SINGLE tank on a weekend trip, mostly highway, cruise control (at 72-75 depending on traffic) as much as possible and AC: 33mpg. I would consider this about the best driving conditions I will ever see for "highway" mileage, so we filled it shortly after arriving to get the purest highway results without much "city" driving in the mix.
includes extra wide tires (215/40/18) which don't help mileage.
just fwiw.
Your mileage may vary.
Also your tires will run a bit hotter making the air expand a bit more; more tire pressure can improve mileage.
You may be warming up the car less than you did in colder weather, idling eats mileage.
The colder/higher density air of the winter months will allow you to get more power from your engine, however, since fuel doesn't atomize as well with a cold intake charge, your mileage will suffer.
The warmer/lower density air of the summer months will reduce max power (sometimes dramatically so if high humidity is involved as well), however, because fuel so readily atomizes with a hot intake charge, there will be far fewer "rich zones" in the combustion chamber, allowing for more power to be derived from what air and fuel does make it to the combustion chamber.
So, if a hot intake charge yields more power from any given unit of gasoline, why don't you get more power from your engine in the summer time? Simple, your engine measures the weight of the air entering the engine, and then provides a given amount of fuel for every pound of air (typically something a bit over stoichiometric which is roughly 14.9 weight units of air to 1 weight unit of fuel). Since lighter air is entering the engine in hot weather, less fuel is pumped in via the fuel injectors, and so even though you're getting more power per unit of fuel, the max power of the engine is reduced.
Make sense?
Best Regards,
Shipo
Ethanol is never good for mileage OR power.
But since your intake has a heater (many if not most cars have a tube from the cooling system going into the intake to heat the air for emissions purposes, addressing the atomization issue you mentioned), the cold air isn't cold enough once it gets to the cylinder to have that kind of negative effect.
However, the oxygen content is a bit higher in colder months (depends on location and other things, but usually is so), and even if warmed/expanded a bit in the intake, the o2% tends to stay higher, and that makes the difference.
Altho as you said, it should be minimal, especially when compared to larger factors such as driving habits and ethanol.
Uhhh, I've been elbow deep into LOTS of engines over the decades, and I don't think I've ever seen a single engine that used coolant to warm the intake charge. As such, I'm going to have to call you on that one, please provide references to support your clam.
In the meantime I stand by my statement; the single most significant reason why fuel economy suffers in cold weather is because the fuel cannot atomize as well as it can in the summer.
FWIW, there was a time before fuel injection became the norm when many carbureted engines used a vacuum controlled diverter in the air-cleaner horn to route intake air from around the exhaust manifold, however, IIRC, such systems deactivated once the engine was warmed up.
FWIW #2: To this day, carbureted IC aircraft engines allow the pilot to select "Carb Heat" by pulling a knob out of the panel that gradually switches the intake path from cold air to exhaust manifold heated air. That system is in place so that the pilot can melt any accumulated "Carb Ice" down stream of the venturi(s). More recently it has been widely published that some pilots are also using partial carb heat to aid in mixture distribution when flying in an area with an OAT below roughly forty degrees.
Best Regards,
Shipo
It is often disconnected by street racers to keep the intake air that much cooler.
and fwiw, most of my info came from a former head of the automotive testing group at Southwest Research Institute.
Regarding your Camry, I'd warrant that the intake charge gets no intentional or meaningful heat exchanged from the way the coolant is routed.
Regarding SwRI, I've combed their online articles and have been unable to come up with even a single one that supports your arguments.
I suggest that if you want to continue this exchange, you provide some concrete references to support your assertions. In the meantime I will just assume that you've been misinformed about how engines operate.
Best Regards,
Shipo
Best Regards,
Shipo
Those in the market be careful. For those who get what Honda claims consider yourself lucky. Looks like mine runs on "Lemon" juice.
looks like you run on hot gas. (couldn't help it.
Could be your driving conditions, your driving style or something actually wrong with your car.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList2&make=Honda&model=Civic
Thank you.
Who are you kidding? No dealer with even half a brain is going to tell customers the car won't do what the sticker says. AMOF, I asked the salesman what others were getting in their Civics. He told me that some have gotten better than the EPA estimates, although "some" could be as few as two.
So far my 07 Civic EX with AT is getting around 30 mpg in local driving. But my car still has less than 1500 miles on it, so it's hard to know for sure how it will do. Give me to 5000 miles and I think I'll have a pretty good idea.
I talked to a guy a few days ago who commutes from a neighboring town every day. It's about a 60 mile round trip. He said he's been getting 34-36 mpg depending on how much running around he does in addition to commuting to work.
I will also go on the record with this: If I bought any car and it was averaging 5 mpg less than the estimated city mileage, the service manager and I would be having a meeting of the minds. I know those numbers are estimates, but I've also had cars that did better than the estimates, and I've never had a vehicle that consistently got worse than the city mileage.