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Are you saying that Honda is already producing a diesel, or were you referring to VW production.
If you are talking Honda, what do you know about it?
Thanks,
Kip
Best Regards,
Shipo
Hopefully it will do at least the 40. Some of the folks have reporting even higher, 42-44 mpg.
Some of the folks over on the "Accord" forums are reporting highway mileage in the high 30s with the 2.4L. So the Civic certainly should do a bit better.
Hondas just seem to respond well to a light steady foot, reasonable speed (60-65), and with the ATs just letting them do their seek/search thing.
Thanks,
Kip
What is "urea" and how does it function? Is this something transparent to the driver. Or would it be necessary to "add" something by the driver. Layman terms please!
Kip
In the Mercedes-Benz way of doing things, there is a urea canister that needs to be filled at every (scheduled) oil change. Assuming the Honda system works out, the need to fill the urea canister will be eliminated because the car will be manufacturing its own urea.
Best Regards,
Shipo
My goal for the Civic are 4 timing belt/water pump changes @ 105,000 miles for a min of 420,000 miles.
Outside of the obvious, (timing belt and water pump weak link) my take is another weak point in this equation is the automatic transmission. Currently their is no statistical data verifying changing of auto transmission oil prematurely aids in statistically correlated longevity over oem recommended changes.
The engine is fairly robust, but wants needs to be driven within the bounds of its specific parameters, and preferrably in its so called "sweet spot". For me this translates to, driving the engine slightly aggressively (after full warm up) vs trying for so called "BEST" fuel mileage. The engine likes to rev or wind up (to release or utilize the meager torque (curve). To me this means "occasional" trips to the redline, but for the majority of cases, for longevity's sake trips to 3/4's (.75)of the redline. Also the more trips one does of app 45 mins to an hour (or more) the better. Highway miles are of course the easiest on wear.
I did the break in per Honda Civic oem owners/shop manual. This meant running 10,000 mile OCI's on the factory fill (conventional oil and supposed break in oil) and changing out the oil FILTER at 20,000 miles. I do run synthetic oil (Mobil One 0w20-5w20) @ 20,000 mile OCI's with 20k FILTER change. I have reported the fuel mileage in past posts for a purposeful 54 r/t mile daily commute.
So this commute while a major PITA does tend to be less consumptive of fuel and eventual wear than say stop and go, with many engine start ups and turn offs. It also meets the parameter of 45 min to 1.5 hours for less wear and tear.
Is there any statistical data concerning simply draining the transmission of the few quarts that will drain, vs. a full flush where most all the fluids are removed and replaced ?
Kip
The data suggests that slushbox tranny life appears to be very negatively affected when a "flush" is performed. Why? Well, the nature of the process means that unless the flushing machine was completely cleaned and primed with all new ATF of the proper kind each time a flush was performed (I'm thinking cost prohibitive here as many of the new synthetic ATFs required by manufacturers can run as high as $10.00 per quart), you'll be introducing ATF (and possibly contaminates) from previously flushed transmissions. It's kind of like an STD for automatic transmissions. No thanks.
Best Regards,
Shipo
The 2003 VW Jetta comes with all synthetic engine/drive line fluids. Since it came specified that way, I have NO compare/contrast situation with conventional fluids, nor would I want to take on that experiment.
I also converted the auto transmission fluid in a 6 speed manual Corvette Z06 (yes Corvette uses automatic transmission fluid in their 6 speed manual) to make it an all synthetic driveline. Just the switch to synthetic gave app .5 to 1 mpg better.
It just "seems" than getting ALL the old fluids out and replacing with new fluids at the recommended 30K miles would be better for the tranny. Similar to draining all the oil and replacing it with new in the engine. :confuse:
Are there not filters and such in place to deal with contaminates?
Thanks,
Kip
Best Regards,
Shipo
Worst tank was about 30mpg on the road trip, was about half highway, and about half suburban roads and traffic.
Around town, I normally get 26mpg or so with short trips and very hard acceleration (I can't go a day without revving it up a couple times).
while the 2008 model is listed as 25/36. Does
anyone know an explanation to this?
New proceedures more reflect todays drivers, speeds, use of AC and so forth. Most new cars are showing a lower EPA number.
If you are getting 30/40 on the 07 model, you should get the same on an 08.
This webb site will explain.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/calculatorSelectYear.jsp
Kip
1. Purchased new filter.
2. Removed filter from vehicle (2 minutes).
3. Held each filter up to a clear daylight sky.
4. Noted bright daylight through new filter, noted no daylight through dark, dirty filter.
5. Installed new filter(2 minutes).
Reviewed Honda Civic owners manual for info on filter change and found nothing, only cabin filter info.
Will be searching for inexpensive replacement filters sources and changing early and often.
1. Purchased new filter.
2. Removed filter from vehicle (2 minutes).
3. Held each filter up to a clear daylight sky.
4. Noted bright daylight through new filter, noted no daylight through dark, dirty filter.
5. Installed new filter(2 minutes). "...
I would probably follow the same procedure/s (shop manual guidance, 6 edge bolts with one center bolt), only for way different reasonings. (msg#1257)
..."Reviewed Honda Civic owners manual for info on filter change and found nothing, only cabin filter info."...
You may not be looking in all the right places!? While I have never looked at your particular Civic owners manual, it is in your shop manual! Here is one other source you might want to check out.
Honda.com
There is an (sub tree) owners web site.
The site might present more questions than definitive answers, but keep in mind everything is geared to having you do (unecessary) maintenance and/or repair early, often, and at higher cost; rather than on-time, necessary and under budget. Easy for example/s: the 30,000 mile maintenance, has 3 separate maintenance schedules. The 60,000 mile maintenance has 4 separate maintenance schedules.
The trick here seems to be able to benefit from the "economy" portion of these econo compacts and not give it back in terms of (artificially) higher maintenance costs. Since you mentioned the subject of air filters, the wholesale cost of a Honda brand air filter is 13.84.. @ 3 per gal, that is 4.61 gals@ 38-42 mpg: that can be 175-193 of commute miles.
In any case, all the best!
This is NOT the flush procedure, on page 14-167- ATF Cooler Flushing. This is typically done BEFORE RE INSTALLING the transmission. (much deeper REPAIR, not maintenance) The additional concern is a specific P/N flushing fluid is specified to presumably chemically scrub out all the "nooks and crannies" in a modern day automatic transmission. Unless a dilution analysis is done, rest assured a % of this fluid will still be present.
The "flushing" recommended by the dealer is a $120 procedure, over and above the recommended 30K service.
Don't mind spending the money if it will extend the life of the tranny, but it does seems "Stupid" to spend the money when it may/could actually shorten the tranny life.
I often wonder if a lot of the stuff that is supposed to be done on these "Recommended" service programs is actually done at all. We pay our money for something that was supposed to be done "Back There" !
Example: Pay $120 for a "Flush", and the tranny is simply drained and topped off, hopefully with at least a new filter and Honda fluids. :confuse:
Thanks,
Kip
Don't mind spending the money if it will extend the life of the tranny, but it does seems "Stupid" to spend the money when it may/could actually shorten the tranny life."
..."If you have your transmission fluid just "Changed" every 30k, you should never have too much of a problem from old fluid because that will keep enough fresh fluid in at all times, right? "...
If I can take the liberty of intergrating or probably more likely "butcher" these two posting, this might illustrate my previous post.
As previously stated, a change is oem specified at 120,000 miles, i.e. @ $60.?? DIYers can pay the price of (2.9)3 qts of ATF and new crush washer for the bolt combo.
If a change is done at 30k, over 120k miles that is 4 changes at 60 (240 dollars) or an extra 180, @3 per gal= 60 gals of fuel @ 38-42 mpg, a range of 2280-2520 miles !!!??
Of course it would be easy to do the math for a 120. flush x 4, or an extra 420 dollars which would give 140 gals for between 5320-5880 miles!!!
Best Regards,
Shipo
41.571428 mpg is pretty do able. Longer term average/s is/are what I think most folks are really interested, or should I say, I am.
Here are some pretty generic things which can apply to Honda Civics. (as how this is a Cvici mpg thread, I do #'s 1,2,3.)
1. Fill in the mornings/nights which tends to be the coldest. Colder means denser gas. Fuel is metered/delivered to the station by a temperature adjusted mechanism. The station does not sell to consumers that way.
2. Fill on the SLOW flow setting rather than fast. Fast tends to introduce more AIR. The goal is to add fuel, not air. I interject repeatability by stopping at (slow flow) first click off. I also play the game of trying to keep gas drippings off the paint.
3. Do not fuel when the truck is topping off the stations tanks as this tends to disturb the scum in the tanks, which would tend to be off loaded to you!
4. Fuel tends to evaporate in the presence of air, so fuel when half full, for the least amount of closed fuel recirculating action. However, I personally have not studied whether or not fueling when half full results in better mpg than fueling when the low fuel lamp comes on. To me, the longer I can stay away from the fuel station and the less fueling frequency: the better.
Therefore, wait (if practical) until you are down to 1 quarter tank and then refill.
OTOH, some extreme tightwads prefer to drive around with only half a tankful of gas, due to the idea that not having to carry 30 or 40 more pounds of weight around will save you some gas.
The only other thing I would mention is that routinely running the tank right down (ie. warning light on or after the fact) before refilling, can have consequences for the life of your fuel pump. The submerged electric fuel pump is cooled by the bath of gasoline it sits in, so keeping it covered with fuel is preferable.
Generally, I tend to fill up when the guage is between 1/2 and 1/4 full, and then fill until the pump auto-shuts off (no top off, in other words).
I'm seeing an average of about 27-30 mpg for my weekly commutor driving, and my long hghway trips have been between 36 and 40 mpg (usually on cruise control, and rarely over 70mph).
The Cost of Gridlock
4.2 billion lost hours
2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel
78.2 billion drained from the US economy
Source: US Dept of Transportation, Texas Transportation Institute
As an aside, the passenger vehicle fleet is 235.4 M vehicles. So we do not end up sounding like a Carl Sagan (rip) astronomy discussion, that math averages out to 12.32 gals. (per vehicle, per year).
As it applies to our Civics, I have looked high and low and have never seen/found the per hour consumption rate on an idling Civic with/without A/C, with/without automatic transmission. Given the range of mpg reported on this thread I am swagging it is higher than most of our collective (sotp)seat of the pants feelings.
The many anecdotal reports to the contrary, there is no scientific evidence that suggests that synthetic oil of any given weight will improve fuel economy compared with conventional oil of the same weight.
Best Regards,
Shipo
Since a lot can be happening during this 10,000 miles or during the oem fill, one would be hard pressed at times to find a real consistent mpg, tank to tank. So over the first 10,000 miles AVERAGE and second 10,000 miles AVERAGE, I noticed better mpg (avg) switching from 5w20 conventional aka "break in oil" to 0w20 Mobil One (synthetic) (posted much earlier on this thread). Further I changed the oil filter per oem recommendation @ every other oil change or @ 20,000 miles which is a 20,000 miles interval also. I have been using 0w20 Mobil One since app 10,000 miles and the odometer is pushing 52,000 miles.
Oil consumption over a 20,000 miles OCI is at MOST, slightly above mid point of the dipstick. Since the min and max is NOT a full quart (as most other cars are), I am swagging 8-12 oz of consumption per 20,000 miles. What this means on a practical basis is one does not NEED to add. I do, but indeed under those conditions, not necessary.
Fuel mileage is between 38-42 mpg for a daily plain jane commute, under (acknowledged by the transportation experts) some of the most congested conditions in the nation.
Best Regards,
Shipo
General statement: As cars break-in (and loosen up), their fuel economy improves. Depending upon the vehicle, getting peak mileage won't happen until the 20,000 mile mark or better in some cars, other cars start hitting their best mileage after only a couple of thousand miles. Which will yours be? Don't know.
Keep your foot out of it and stay on the interstate, and you can get over 40. Lean on it in the city and there are reports of these cars getting in the low twenties, high teens in extreme cases. It's all up to you. ;-)
Best Regards,
Shipo
Is that Synthetic or petroleum?
Kip
Best Regards,
Shipo
Kip
Best Regards,
Shipo
The car is EPA rated at 29mpg combined city/highway, so you are beating the official figures right there. Average user mileage reported at www.fueleconomy.gov for the 2007 civic auto is 31.1 mpg (no actual driver records yet for the 2008 civic).
I'd say your car is doing very well straight off (and you appear also to have good driving habits, in terms of getting good mileage), but I would not expect much better for pure city driving.
My 2007 EX Sedan auto seems to get about 26-27 mpg for my weekly pure-city driving (short commutes/trips, usually less then 10 miles, and lots of long lights), and my best highway mileage thus far was 41mpg. I have about 4400 miles on the odometer (no 1st oil change yet either).
The Sandman
As a comparison on an H rated tire, I run 38F/36R on a 44 psi max sidewall tire. It is going on 100,000 miles on a oem tire, again tread wear is dead even across.
The Sandman