Originally Posted by GreenAndBlue

Laurie - my best wishes for your continued speedy recovery.

I noted your date of surgery - keep in mind that Honda recommends that IMA-equipped cars be driven for about 30min once every 30 days, minimum, in order to keep the battery in peak condition. In my Accord and Civic, it was on an underhood label. If yours has that same label, you may want to have someone consider driving the car for a few minutes for you in the next week or so.

In an extreme pinch, and I'm not advising that you *should* do this, but merely that you *could* - you can shift the transmission without the clutch, being that it's fully synchronized. However, you need to know the RPM ranges for each of the gears, else it will grind (if it does, back off a bit and lower / raise your speed so that it pops into the next gear). I used to do this for fun in my '88 CRX, 'just because I could' - not that I ever had problems with my clutch. It can be useful if you ever lose your clutch, in an emergency. 1st (from a stop) and Reverse especially are pretty much impossible to do this with.

Obviously, the best thing to do is have someone else drive the car for you - in this case, I'd say 'don't worry' about the tank average - we'll grant you 'special dispensation' this time