We bought a 06 civic hybrid blue 10 days ago, we are getting 32-34 mpg,We live 3 miles north west of the loop here in Chicago, The trips are in normal traffic, 1 trip on the highway with no stops.I see fellow Civic 06 Hybrid drivers getting 45 51 55 mpg. wow, help please.I love this car, I traded an Audi S6 4.2 which was a great car but this car by Honda is number 1 in my book.

There are a million gas-saving tips on this website.
Snoop around.

Many many people came here with terrible MPG and today get MPG in the 50s.

Don't worry.
Your car is fine.
Keep reading.

Hi Andrew,

Do you watch the instantaneous MPG meter (to the left of the speedometer) when you drive? I have found this gauge to be the single best teacher of good MPG driving habits. If you watch it during all of your phases of driving (acceleration, deceleration, low-speed cruising, high-speed cruising, etc.) you should get a better idea of where you are taking the biggest MPG hit.

The main thing I have learned is that a soft touch on the accelerator is the key. Of course, to do this you have to preserve your momentum as much as possible. That means avoiding changes in speed whenever possible, which means leaving more space between you and the car in front of you so that you don't have to brake every time he does. It also means coasting to a stop at a red light, stop sign, or traffic instead of waiting until you get closer and braking harder; you might find that the traffic speeds up or the light turns green so you don't have to slow down at all!

You'll see that often when you take your foot off the gas the instant MPG meter will peg at 100MPG. This indicates that the engine is not using any gas, so finding your way into this mode as often as possible is a key to higher MPG (I'm always looking for coasting opportunities!). Planning ahead helps here; things like picking up speed on a downhill, etc.

I iwll try that, its abit hard in Chicago when you leave an inch the drivers here push in, so i iwll drive with the long slow down and see what happens, Thanks for the great feedback.

I'm in Los Angeses, they do that here do.
Not much you can do about it.
People are in a hurry.

Hi Andrew, I am getting very similar results but it's very likely just due to the fact that the car hasn't broken in yet. Specifically, I have 341 miles and 4 bars left on the fuel gauge, so I expect the alarm to go off around 360 or thereabouts. I haven't been driving slowly (70-80 miles per hour on highway, traffic flow on other roads) but I have tried to accelerate at 4000 rpm or less since it needs to break in and I do accelerate fairly quickly until I get the exact speed I want, and then I release the gas pedal completely and then immediately press very gently on it and this on level roads will maintain speed, whatever that speed is, while getting decent mileage. Even so, I was initially getting 27 mpg, then 32, then 34, and now it seems to be averaging 36-38. I expect (and really hope) it will be firmly in the 40s by the time I finish my second tank, and I'm not even done with the first yet.

You're not alone though, and especially not in your sentiment that the car is great. Even with bad mileage I'm still enjoying the car immensely.

What fuel economy did you get in your last vehicle? For example, if you got 65% of EPA city in your last vehicle, it's likely you'll get 65% of EPA in your new vehicle. You never said what your old fuel economy was, only what kind of car it was.

Hey everyone keep a stiff upper lip on this FE thing while you are getting use to your new HCH's. I am of the opinion that if you drive the HCH ll just like any other car/vehicle it will not give really high MPG and that is not to slam or down play the MPG that it does get even when that FE is not what we would hope for it to be. Just remember what would any other vehicle be getting for FE if this is what the HCH ll is delivering. I think as all of us on these threads know that the only way to get high FE is to adjust our Driving Habits and Speeds to what ever degree in our daily drives to achieve the FE we want from the HCH ll or other Hybrid vehicles. It still sounds like that everyone is still really impressed with the HCH ll as a whole considering everything.

Enjoy your new rides people:

Terry

This is a bad time of year for them to introduce the HCH II, if the weather was still warmer it'd be great but I have a feeling there will be quite a few complaints until people understand just how much winter causes a big hit to mileage.

I hope some of the brand new hybrid owners take that into account if they are in a cold climate area.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."

One answer to why your FE was so low. 20ish degree temperatures. I live on the nortside. I was hiting upwards of 60mpg in the summer. Know what I hit last week? Around 35mpg. The best thing you can do in the winter is find routes that have the fewest stop lights.

I was playing this week to try to get better than 35. It turns out that the route I took in the summer is shorter but has a lot of stop lights. The lights didn't matter much because the car would auto stop. However, now that winter is here my car doesn't autostop when the temp is below 40 so I found that by taking a route that is a mile or so longer but with fewer stop lights my MPG increased enough where it was more efficient to go the longer distance than to go the shorter distance and sit idleing at stop lights.

Basicly what I did was did was calculate mpg/distance of the old route and mulitplied that number by the distnace of the new route to find out what MPG I had to attain to make it worth taking the new route. The new route gets me 45 or so mpg @ 17.5 miles and the old one gave me 35mpg @ 16.2 miles. My math may be all messed up but I think thats how I did it.

Wait until spring when your car is worn in and the temps hit around 65 or so. You are probably going to freak. Also, read these forums A LOT. People find out new techniques occasionaly and some times you can apply them to your own drive.

I first logged into this site about a year ago and posted my first tank. You can look at my car to get an idea what to expect.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"