Help, my Accord Hybrid is only getting between 16-19mpg. What is going wrong? THis does not feel like a Hybrid...it feels like the regular honda accord that is sitting in my driveway waiting to be sold. How can I get better gas mileage???

 

I posted the same question, with about the same type mileage you are getting, about a few weeks ago. Check out the thread for some useful info.

The short answer (and good news) is that your mileage will improve as the engine breaks in. There are also small adjustments you can make in your driving style and to the way you maintain the vehicle to further help. My last tank (my fourth, so far) was more than 3 mpg better than my prior best, and so far I notice continued improvement as I start my fifth tank.

Don't give up on this technology or the HAH. It is fun to drive and with time will improve its FE.

 

Here's that thread address:
https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...brid.2112.html

 

Mark,
Try describing your driving that yields 16-19 mpg.
I got 21 mpg for 40 miles in 25 degrees, short trips of 15 minutes or less in town. In the same 25 degrees, I got 32 mpg at interstate speeds.
In 80 degrees, 50-60 mph, very little stop and go, I got 43 mpg today with a bit of a head wind. And, for the most part, I resist the 255 hp urge to floor it. Soft foot, try to keep the ECO on as much as possible, drive with load.
If you specify your routes, drive conditions, temps, and drive practices, there are some pretty experienced hybrid drivers around here who will generously give specific recommendations for better mpg.
Lewis

 

Hi Mangel:

___Where do you reside if you wouldn’t mind me asking? Not a specific address but a general location would be fine? I know of AH pilots from both coasts as well as the Midwest and I am sure some AH owning individual is close enough to your locale for you to take a drive for a little comparison side-by-side driving. It could be tens of easy to fix items causing such low FE but the sky is not falling until proven otherwise with what we have to go on so far?

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

HybridAl, I was just looking at your tanks. Wow! You must really be doing a lot of city driving!!

 

OLD THREAD ALERT!

 

Hi Guys:

___Ancient thread or not, poor guy (HybridAl) appears to be driving ~ 5 minutes per drive? I am surprised he is receiving even 17 mpg with no VCM and no AS. Full V6 in a stop and go around town? Ouch At least he is only driving ~ 8,000 miles/year. I could see low 30’s in an HCH and maybe mid 30’s in a Prius II w/ 5 minute drives if he was really lucky …

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

I just drove home a new 05HAH yesterday and whoever was test driving the car really must have flogged it pretty hard because the MPG was listed as 18.3. I zeroed that out after the dealer filled the tank and was pushing 30 with it by the time I got home (but I "cheat" - I already own an 03 HCH so I know how to drive for better MPG anyway.)


The big thing I noticed offhand about the Accord is that it's VERY quick off the the starting block, so the "secret" is to get it up to your "cruising altitude" as quickly as you can without punching it, like you would a regular car (this is very easy to learn to do with highway on-ramps.) That, and keeping it in Eco as much as possible (very easy to do when driving on flat-ish terrain.)

I notice that the auto-stop on the Accord is MUCH more active than it is on the Civic so that will help too (though I found the constant on-and-off while doing "stoplight creep" in heavy traffic to be a little annoying.)

The "light show" (the charge/assist lights) aren't as big and bright as they are in the Civic, but that's a good way to regulate your driving too. You can't ALWAYS avoid the blue side of the dial, but see what you can do to keep the thing on the green side, or neutral, as much as possible. The more Eco you see, the better your mileage.

Short trips in cold weather will KILL your MPGs because the tranny is designed to cycle through the first 3 gears (when the car's moving forward) at first, to get the engine warmed up, and then slips into using all five. So if you do VERY short hops that don't give the engine a chance to warm up, you're basically in an old skool 3-speed transmission, in stead of 5 speed.

The BIG diff with the Accord that I've found is that the engine has enough oomph to pull the car along (in city driving) on a flat street, without a lot of additional acceleration. You just need to re-learn that the hybrid's accelerator is a lot like the clutch in a manual tranny: don't let your foot rest there when it doesn't need to.

Definitely use the cruise control as much as you possibly can, unless you have extremely hilly highways around where you live (but I found that the cc on the Accord is verrrrrry smooth, and I didn't get a lot of neck snapping behavior from going up a steep hill on a highway, with the cc activated.)


A colleague picked up a new HCH a couple of weeks ago and was immediately dispondent with his MPG as he was barely seeing 35, but sounds like that's improving with his second tank, AND learning the little "secret hanshakes" of driving the car for better mileage.

 

Doesn't the HAH have a sort of clinometer that senses the levelness of the car? Which helps to tell the car if it's going up or down a hill and can compensate and smooth out the engine and tranny speeds? I can't recall if that's a feature of the HAH, or Acura TL, or both...