Is my poor gas mileage normal?

[Stormee]

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Its normal, I had the same experience. I was averaging 18-20 mpg
mostly city, lots of lights. That was my first month, then did some
on the freeway runs trying to keep her in the "green halo" for mileage.
Starting seeing 38-42 avg. so 2 months in now and seeing 27-30. With
same driving. It would be better if i add in more highway cruising. Like
many have said on the forum its also your driving habits. Keep it under
2000 rpm and it pays you back. Cant help wanting to push that turbo
though!

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[tsupersonic]

New EX-L hatch here, and still on the first tank after almost three weeks. I'm averaging 26 mpg in basically all city driving. I was expecting a bit higher mpg, but since it's winter, it's probably normal. I'm curious to see what kind of mpg I get in the summer time or even a long trip.

 

[somarilnos]

Short trips in city-ish driving, I normally get about that. Depending on traffic, I can get 40+ MPG on the half hour drive to work without any highway driving though. Stop and go *kills* the fuel economy. "Perfect" fuel economy is when you don't have to downshift or touch the brake pedal at any point in time, because both of those turn the gas that you had already used for acceleration into something else. Any time you're driving at, say, less than 15 MPH? You're using most of the car's energy just to overcome the rolling resistance of the tires. So yeah, in short drives in the city, you're just getting screwed every time a traffic light isn't green, or every time you have to wait for someone to make a turn, et cetera, et cetera.

 

[American Patriot]

You'll need to run a few tanks til the computer gets on the right page.

I sure as hell hope this is the case. Got my car on 28 Dec, just filled up the first time on 7 Jan, and that was a crappy mpg tank... and I even started out in econ mode! Didn't seem to be making any difference, so I switched to regular mode. Not driving like a nut, by the way.

 

[dthatcher7]

Try to drive like a hybrid. A hybrid takes braking energy and reuses it. An ICE car can't do that, so you have to avoid braking in the first place. How do you do that? Look ahead and drive slow enough that coasting will provide for most of your stopping needs. Which means not going over the speed limit at all. Basically use the brake as little as possible.
Pump your tires to 36 psi, and check on a regular basis. This is probably the best MPG increase I've been able to get with my 16 Civic.
I have complained about poor gas mileage on my 16 Civic 2.0L CVT in this forum before. I'm still working through a lot of variables and will post when I am done. So far, ECON mode doesn't seem to help so much, 36 psi has been a big help, and different brands of gas haven't made a huge difference. But I've still got a few tanks to go before I can be sure of these things. And I don't drive in a gas guzzling fashion.

 

[Texancivic]

I have a 2016 EX-T and with pure city driving I usually get around 21 mpg. If I take it on the back roads without many stops or turns, I can easily get well over 40. My highest for interstate driving was 71.8 MPG.

What?! How fast are you driving? 15mph?! How did you pull that off??

 

[slowride]

What?! How fast are you driving? 15mph?! How did you pull that off??

The 71.8 on that meter means nothing unfortunately.

 

[Texancivic]

The 71.8 on that meter means nothing unfortunately.

True, but it is reading from something....

 

[slowride]

True, but it is reading from something....

Yes, a highly optimistic snapshot in time that doesn't mirror reality due to how it calculates. The simplest test would be to drive the car to empty, put 1 gallon of gas in the car and see if you can drive 72 miles on the interstate with that 1 gallon of gas.

Any bets on if you'll make it?

 

[bFarish87]

I'd recommend turning off the eco mode. I found I had less mpg's while it was on. I am a pizza driver in a moderately busy city and I can still pull around 27 on the low end without the AC running with a max of like 32 on a weekend with way less traffic.

 

[American Patriot]

Try to drive like a hybrid. A hybrid takes braking energy and reuses it. An ICE car can't do that, so you have to avoid braking in the first place. How do you do that? Look ahead and drive slow enough that coasting will provide for most of your stopping needs. Which means not going over the speed limit at all. Basically use the brake as little as possible.
Pump your tires to 36 psi, and check on a regular basis. This is probably the best MPG increase I've been able to get with my 16 Civic.
I have complained about poor gas mileage on my 16 Civic 2.0L CVT in this forum before. I'm still working through a lot of variables and will post when I am done. So far, ECON mode doesn't seem to help so much, 36 psi has been a big help, and different brands of gas haven't made a huge difference. But I've still got a few tanks to go before I can be sure of these things. And I don't drive in a gas guzzling fashion.

Very helpful advice, thank you. I was trying to look ahead more today as I was driving to take my foot off the gas sooner so as to not brake as much. Also kept a better eye on keeping the RPMs close to/under 2000. I'll check the tire psi as well...

 

[brienp]

I do a lot of in town driving, work for me is less than 1 mile from home, main grocery store is maybe 1.5 miles from home. I too was getting around 18-20 mpg when I first bought my touring coupe. Im nearing my second oil change now and am now getting around 25 mpg. With that stated, I took a weekend trip up to Seattle (from portland) so all highway miles the entire way and got very near 50mpg. Apparently there is a drastic difference between stop/go and all highway. Also, a few people have mentioned turning OFF the eco mode...Id have to agree with them. In-town driving I keep it off and my gas milage seems to be better by 2-3 mpg. I only turn it on when on the highway. Id suggest doing the same.

 

[ulieq]

Around 19-20mpg. 100% city driving, short trips, lots of stop and go. I usually drive pretty normally but being a new car I've been pretty playful with it and let the turbo boost me.

100% normal for California city driving.

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