A Year with Civic Type R - Automobile Magazine NOV 2019

[GeezR]

I thought Automobile’s article totally missed the boat. Is the point of the Type R really mpg, and/ or gas tank size? Isn’t that the criterion for judging a soulless econobox, like the Prius? I’m not a Prius hater, I owned one for 14 years. Just saying if people bought the Type R to compete with the Prius on mpg, naturally they are disappointed.

What bugged me about the Automobile article is they never mentioned that the Type R’s awesomeness as a performance vehicle is sabotaged by hot weather and by ordinary summer track conditions. Did they never do a single track day? I have done 3 and yes, it’s awesome: til heat soak, limp mode etc., kick in. Look at all the threads and posts on this glaring problem on this forum (including my own).

And speaking of mpg, at the track I can go maybe 35-40 miles before low fuel and limp mode. That’s because fuel starvation occurs at anything much under 1/2 a tank and that triggers limp mode.

It seems the Automobile just puttered around in the car and never stressed it. So they never discovered it’s sizable limits. Limits it’s readers should know about before buying one.

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[TypeSiR]

I like the auto-reset trip A after fuel up feature on the 10th-gen Civics. Just gas up and go.

https://www.civicx.com/threads/trip-automatic-reset-question.17005/

 

[Andruboine]

Besides the extra additives that gas stations add, the actual gasoline for a certain area is normally sourced from the same supplier for gas stations.

All gas is from the same source refinery. The only difference IS the additives.

 

[Jpierro79]

If your going to complain about mpg try owning my last car. 2013 camaro zl1 580hp
Factory mpg 13 city 19 highway. More like 17 highway truthfully. The gas tank holds 6.6 gallons more but less than half the average mpg. That’s if you baby the hell out of it. If you even drive slightly hard I mean slightly average mpg is 13 to 12. You want to talk about too small a gas tank. Now imagine after I modded it to 700hp. Same basic mpg but don’t get in it or it’s 2mp. That’s right all out you can barely go 30 miles before running out of fuel. Think about Nurburgring I don’t think the zl1 could complete more than 3 maybe 4 laps all out. I’ll gladly say the type r can go further. Oh and for those who don’t know the stock 580hp zl1 was only 2 seconds faster around Nurburgring and they came with crazy grippy Goodyear eagle f1 race tires. The type r was driven on the regular continentals. I’ll bet if they had triple 8s or a tire that was equal it would have outran the zl1 time. I truly believe this cause I’ve taken both cars around the same corner and my zl1 capped at 61-62 mph with 1.05 g not the accelerometer and at the edge of sliding. Michelin pilot s4 on my zl1 My type r same exact corner and when I switched rims I bought another set of pilot s4 cause they were so good and I went 67 mph same corner and I probably could have gone 69mph. The type r corners and brakes way better than my zl1 did. I had suspension mods on my zl1 cause stock that corner was scary at 60 even. Enough off topic.
Thr civic type r I can drive more aggressively and with less of a percentage decrease in mpg. Rember percentage of mpg. Yes I am modded and maxed on 93 pump full bolt on in my type r also. If I stay out of boost and aft by 3k I can easily hit rates mpg. On my zl1 I had to literally shift at 2200 rpm to hit rates mpg.

 

[CivilciviC]

I actually filled up today and was able to compute the MPG from the odometer readings and the gallons of gas I put in my tank. I'm getting 28 mpg, which... is only .8 off from the built in fuel economy gauge. Interesting.

It ultimately comes down to how consistently you drive the car. If you’ve been pretty easy on the tank and then start mashing the go pedal near the end, it will throw off the numbers way more then if you did similar driving the entire time.

 

[pnewton1958]

I am averaging over 29 mpg on my 2018 CTR albeit with little city driving.

 

[tinyman392]

I am averaging over 29 mpg on my 2018 CTR albeit with little city driving.

Is this according to the infotainment or did you measure it externally?

 

[willskiGT]

Upper 20s is definitely possible if you have a mostly highway commute. I'm usually around 23-24mpg and my commute is all stop and go. Highway trips I can get 29-31mpg depending on speed (keeping it below 80mph results in >30mpg).

 

[tinyman392]

Upper 20s is definitely possible if you have a mostly highway commute. I'm usually around 23-24mpg and my commute is all stop and go. Highway trips I can get 29-31mpg depending on speed (keeping it below 80mph results in >30mpg).

Is this mileage according to the infotainment or are you measuring it manually?

 

[willskiGT]

Is this mileage according to the infotainment or are you measuring it manually?

Miles driven / gallons pumped.

Infotainment is usually pretty close though, in my experience (within 1mpg).

 

[Zeffy94]

Based on tracking my fillups on fuelly for the past few months, I’m averaging 25.9 MPG combined. Not bad. Still, this is only equating to sub 300 miles of range on a tank unless I want to go near empty.

 

[GeezR]

Jpierro79: Very interesting comparison numbers. It's always nice to have actual facts when discussing car performance. I was very surprised at the increased grip you discovered the Type R has over the ZL1! Are your lap times comparable? I'd be very surprised if the Type R keeps up with your Camaro. I know they leave me in their dust at the track.

As to mpg: I got a measured level of over 31 mpg, on slightly smaller circumference race tires at 65-70- mph on the interstate. Pretty close to what my Volt gets, when off the battery. MPG shouldn't matter to track car assessment-but it does. My '09 BMW M3 V8 averaged 14-15 mpg around town, 23 mpg on the highway and it drove me crazy. It shouldn't have, but it did.

The Type R is a perfect balance of track and every day mpg. Tho, it's much more of a wonderfully rewarding street car than a serious track car (on a warm-hot day). Yes, the Nurburgring time is awesome, but it had to be a very cool day and not multiple laps.

 

[djhartm]

Funny to hear people griping about the seats.

Put down the McDonald's, and get your asses to a gym. God forbid you'd ever have to squeeze in a real racing seat... For people that aren't overweight, these are incredible seats. Comfortable enough for long-haul, yet supportive enough for serious track work. I paid $2k for competition seats in my Z06, and these seats are just about as good. I do wish they had heating/cooling though and weren't manual.

I agree with the smallish tank and the tire/road noise though. Neither of which significantly detract from how awesome this car is.

Since Automobile apparently didn't track the car, they also missed the fuel-starvation issues when going out with <1/2 tank.

A big no-no that infuriatingly bit me several times.

 

[GeezR]

Got to second the vote for the seats. Best car seats I have ever had. Like putting on my favorite jeans. OTOH, I am 5'9", 160 lbs., so that probably helps.

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