My first tank came out to 40.1 mpg. Not too bad. The car had 56 miles on it when I took delivery, but only had about 3/4 of a tank of gas. I guess around here they don't give you a full tank anymore. I filled it up last night, with 351 miles on it, and it took a shade under 9 gallons to fill it. Still, for a first tank, not too bad. Having put 30 miles on it today driving it to work for the first time (I carpool), I'm at 51mpg. Not bad at all.

Well it looks like I finally got everything working nice as I had a 4 MPG jump from 38 to 42 on the second tank:

I've done a simple test - with a section of relative flat maybe with slight up and downhills, drove 38 mph on cruise control - that section averages 70mpg quite easily... On the other hand, 30 mph going a relative steep incline gets about 12 mpg.

Sounds like some people either test drove your car, or the dealer got the car from another dealer. The car comes with a full tank from the port of entry and usually has between a few miles and 20 miles on it.

Are you sure? I thought it comes to the dealer with about a quart of gas, more or less, and the dealer is responsible for filling it up. Consider the fact that a car may be shipped all over the country from the same port and different states have different gasoline formulations by law. Also, it's not ideal safety-wise for a car to be shipped with a full tank.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX

I could be wrong but the sticker lists the Full Tank of Gas as part of the car's inventory, so to speak. I assumed it was full then-but then again-travelling across country with 12 extra gallons or more of gas in multiple cars coming on a car carrier is not the most efficient way to travel!