[0ldernu]

I have an 07 SC with 5 speed AT. Installed a ScanGauge over the dashboard soon after purchase. I know what my speed and fuel usage is at all times. I continuously calibrate fuel usage and speed to be certain of accurate readings. I live in Florida, which means FLAT terrain. Here is what I have determined in 60,000 miles of driving.
1. The single most efficient way to improve mileage is to use CruiseControl whenever possible. No matter how well you think you can manually control the accelerator, Cruise does it better. And we're talkin big time better. Accelerate and decelerate using the Cruise buttons when it is safe to do so. You can expect at least a 15% increase and often as much as a 35% increase in mileage. I'm convinced that when you are in Cruise your timing and ignition advance are optimized for high mileage.
2. Speeds above 65MPH will significantly lower your mileage. The sweet spot on my car is 50 to 60MPH. In this range I consistently get 35 to 38MPG. At 65MPH I drop to 30 to 32MPG. At 70MPH I average 27MPG. At 75MPH I average 23MPG. Head on winds of 10MPH will add 2 to 3 MPG.
3. Air Conditioning lowers my mileage by 5 to 6 MPG.
4. A clean air cleaner increases my mileage by 3 to 4 MPG.
5. Lowering my tire pressure from the recommended 35PSI to 32PSI lowers my mileage about 2MPG. My SC is pretty much like driving a buckboard at the recommended tire pressure, so higher pressures are out of the question.

I have run both regular and synthetic oil in the car and have seen no difference in mileage. I drive about 75% in town and 25% on the highway and average 23 to 24MPG. A trip to South Carolina a few weeks ago at 70MPH gave me 27.8MPG from fill up to fill up.

 

[ziggie]

Wow, that's a special E !!

My 04 EX awd was at 21.6 mpg for the longest around Jax.

It wasn't untill I had a K&N installed that I started getting 22.7 mpg but glad your getting that kind of milage.

 

[MikeQBF]

... I'm convinced that when you are in Cruise your timing and ignition advance are optimized for high mileage.

Nope. Cruise has no connection to the engine timing functions of the ECU. It is a standalone unit that more-or-less emulates your right foot.

In fact, a well-regulated right foot will do a better job than cruise can because you will avoid mashing the pedal too hard, for instance, up a steeper hill. The cruise will see the difference in speed and mash harder and harder as it tries to reduce the difference ("delta", in engineering parlance) and the rate at which the speed is dropping ("delta delta"). The CC will get to the point where it will downshift while you will know that you're about to crest that hill and don't feel any pressing need to get exactly back to your level cruising speed.

The hypermilers know that CC will reduce mpg by about 5% versus what they know they can do with a feather touch on the pedal. But most hypermilers are nuts. Common folk will definitely benefit from using CC since it eliminates the unsteady foot that most people have, and the unconscious speed-up/slow-down effect in response to adjacent traffic.

Anyway, not to burst your bubble, but keeping it at 65 in Florida is pretty much going to yield 27-28 mpg with a 2WD like your SC for pretty much anybody. No magic or special techniques involved. It's Florida's water-level terrain, warm climate and low altitude that are important. The 6-speed M/T pioneer here on EOC lives in Florida, and routinely gets 30-31 mpg with his 2WD. Knowing all the tricks, I have only once topped 30 in my 6-speed AWD here in Illinois.

Also, if a new air filter improved your mileage by 15-20% as you stated, it was either 100,000 miles overdue, you habitually drive dirt roads - certainly a possibility in Florida - or there was another change coincident with the filter maintenance. The air filter would have to be visibly caked with dirt for a change to make this much difference.

 

[spdrcr5]

Are all of your mpg numbers ALL based on the ScanGauge? If yes, then your numbers are not accurate. Have you done any actual mpg calculations?

Please give some details as to how you are coming up with all of your numbers.

 

[desinia]

Also, if a new air filter improved your mileage by 15-20% as you stated, it was either 100,000 miles overdue, you habitually drive dirt roads - certainly a possibility in Florida - or there was another change coincident with the filter maintenance. The air filter would have to be visibly caked with dirt for a change to make this much difference.

Florida suffers from excesses of smoke and pollen that can really do a number on air filters ahead of the usual predictions. It's not -quite- like driving through volcanic ash but you get the idea. I agree that the numbers listed seem kinda wild unless he's using cast iron wheels on railroad tracks.

 

[0ldernu]

All the data is from the ScanGauge. The ScanGauge automatically calculates the the MPG instantaneously and AVG MPG since the last fillup. I've also programmed it to show "Miles left until empty" as Honda's gas gauge leaves a lot to be desired. Be assured that I enter the actual gallons of gas used at each fillup into the ScanGauge. This means that you are always checking the EXACT MPG from fillup to fillup. The biggest opportunity for error with ScanGauge is how level your vehicle is when you fill it up with gas. To minimize this, I fillup in the same position at the same pump for 9 out of 10 fillups. This isn't rocket science; I'm just giving you what the ScanGauge on MY car says. Before using the ScanGauge my mileage averaged 18-19MPG. Using the ScanGauge I have found that a combination of maximizing CruiseControl usage, traveling 5MPH slower, minimizing the A/C, changing my air filter every 5000 miles, and keeping my tires at 35PSI gives me 23 - 24MPG consistently. The $532 per year I save in gas nicely covers the 4 extra air filters I have to buy each year.

 

[sloweddie]

Are you planning to correlate the scan guage data with the old fashion gallons used by miles driven method?
se

 

[0ldernu]

The ScanGauge is doing it the old fashioned way!

 

[sloweddie]

Suit yourself but forgive me if I'm skeptical.
se

 

[0ldernu]

The ScanGauge does a lot of different things. The most popular use of the device is to actually read some of the information you have available to you from the many sensors and measuring devices built into your vehicle through the OBDII port on every vehicle. Including:
Fuel Economy
Fuel Rate
Battery Voltage
Coolant Temperature
Intake Air Temperature
Engine Speed (RPM)
Vehicle speed (MPH)
Manifold Pressure (not available on some vehicles)
Engine Load
Throttle Position
Ignition Timing
Open/Closed Loop

The device also gives you the option of inputting the actual amount fuel added to your gas tank at each fillup. You also can adjust the distance travelled - or speed as determined by other means (i.e. GPS or mile markers) This means that you actually get a more accurate determination of distance travelled from ScanGauge than you can get from your odometer. The data generated is actually MORE ACCURATE than the "Old fashioned method".

I appreciate your skepticism, but who would a thunk a while back that we be talking to each other with keyboards and LCD screens.

 

[xequar]

Using the ScanGauge I have found that a combination of maximizing CruiseControl usage, traveling 5MPH slower, minimizing the A/C, changing my air filter every 5000 miles, and keeping my tires at 35PSI gives me 23 - 24MPG consistently. The $532 per year I save in gas nicely covers the 4 extra air filters I have to buy each year.

Ding! There's the believable number! So your ScanGauge says that you're getting 35 mpg at certain instances. BFD. My Buick Riviera, which had a factory touchscreen with all sorts of readouts, including instantaneous mileage, could get 99 mpg if I let it coast down a long enough hill on the freeway. That doesn't mean what it was telling me was a useful piece of information. Coincidentally, it would also consistently tell me I was getting 20ish mpg on average, since the "average" number was a lifetime average that one could only reset by finding a small-font option buried under a couple layers of menus. Again, BFD. If I drove 300 miles and used 10 gallons of gas, I knew I got 30 miles per gallon, but the car sure as hell didn't.

 

[pxpaulx]

The hypermilers know that CC will reduce mpg by about 5% versus what they know they can do with a feather touch on the pedal. But most hypermilers are nuts. Common folk will definitely benefit from using CC since it eliminates the unsteady foot that most people have, and the unconscious speed-up/slow-down effect in response to adjacent traffic

I am not nuts! OK, I will leave hypermiling to my Yaris. It isn't terribly hard to get decent mileage - we have had our 2nd E for a couple of weeks now, and have the most recent tank upto 24mpg (calculated the old fashioned way, logged over on gassavers.org - same username). The block shape of the E will definitely kill mileage at higher speeds, I've been keeping it under 70 on the highway, slow starts under 2.5K rpm and NOT stopping whenever possible - getting this beast rolling is a killer. That said, I'll be happy with 23-24mpg. We traded in a hyundai accent, total dog in the MPG department - didn't track much on paper (mostly because the initial results were depressing and frustrating) but hardly ever broke 30, 26-27 in the winter and 28-29 summer. For reference I can pull down 38-39 without trying in the yaris 40-41 if I do (that is normal driving 50/50 city highway). Bottom line with the E, MPG is NOT the reason for purchase!

 

[slimerdogs]

The scanguage will help with your foot but Its not accurate on the milage. If there is a way to let it accumalate milage over a lot of tankfuls without resetting it you will get a better avarage milage. My friend does this with his Dodge truck with the installed unit it has and he avarages 22 MPG over 1000 miles.

 

[jsitar]

Gas Mileage

I just got back from a round trip to visit my son and his family in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. Round trip from San Diego to Rancho Cucamonga was 220.3 miles. I filled up at the same station and same pump at the beginning and end of the trip. I used 6.885 gal. of gas for a MPG of 31.997 MPG. I used the cruise control for the entire trip and kept the speed at the legal speed limit which varied between 65 and 70 MPH. I think the key to good gas mileage on a trip is to drive slower. Before, when I drove in the 70-75 MPH range my fuel burn was around 26-28 MPG.

 

[desinia]

I just got back from a round trip (blah blah blah) I used 6.885 gal. of gas for a MPG of 31.997 MPG.

I'm astounded at the amount of precision - down to an eighth of a fluid ounce of gasoline. Whoops! Rounding means the accuracy quoted is less than a sixteenth of an ounce - about 6-8 drops? When did we lose track of the fun to go chasing willy-nilly after vapors?

 

[nico1et]

Air Conditioning lowers my mileage by 5 to 6 MPG.

does using the A/C really make that much of a difference?

horrible if so.... - any increase in mpg by driving on the highway would be overridden by decrease in a/c use (which is needed around here in the hot/humid summer very often).

 

[MikeQBF]

does using the A/C really make that much of a difference?

No - more in the range of 2-3 mpg.

Many - most - of the points made by the original poster are wild impossibilities. 38 mpg at 50-60 mph? Maybe while going down a hill, ignoring that you have to go up eventually. The problem is that he didn't know enough about how the gauge works to judge when the gauge readings are trustworthy or garbage, nor did he understand the difference in quality between instantaneous and long-term readings.

 

[LeadFoot]

does using the A/C really make that much of a difference?

horrible if so.... - any increase in mpg by driving on the highway would be overridden by decrease in a/c use (which is needed around here in the hot/humid summer very often).

No, it doesn't make that much difference. Drive as smooth as you can, stick to the speed limit, use your AC and forget about it.:lol:

My best mileage was with a Yakima Rocket Box on top of the E, pushing 75-78 mph in the summer with the AC blasting, 4 people in the E on a drive from the Midwest to NYC and back. I averaged 24-26 mpg the entire trip.

My worst mileage is all winter long with the in town driving in bitter cold winter temperatures. I average 16-19 mpg and it sucks!!!

 

[nico1et]

haha..ok, i'll try not to think about it. for some reason i try not to use my a/c just cuz i think the mileage will suck. i never seem to be able to get the a/c light to go on unless i turn the fan on first - is that normal? (otherwise something's wrong w/my a/c button)

i never get good gas mileage around town, which unfortunately is my main driving.

 

[MikeQBF]

.. i never seem to be able to get the a/c light to go on unless i turn the fan on first - is that normal? ...

Yes. That's the way it works.