The only thing CR got right was that on the highway, my old 2k1 Civic easily outstripped its EPA highway rating of 38 MPG and achieved a cool 41 MPG. And that is at a constant 72 mph!

I recently borrowed a large 4wd vehicle from some friends because I had to go up to the mountains in the snow with a lot of baggage. I loaned them my 2005 HCH to drive while I had their car.

I gave them no special instructions, just let them drive the car for a few hundred miles while I was gone. They don't race around much (heck, they are almost 50, like me), just travel here and there in the suburbs.

Their MPG was 37, much like Consumer Reports.

Here's the point: It doesn't bother me at all. All the tests that I've seen show that the HCH gets about 20 to 25% better mileage than a normal Civic, driven the same way. They would have gotten 28 or 29 MPG with a similarly equipped normal Civic.

So it's all good. I think we need to stop looking at the raw numbers from CR and other automotive rags, and just point to the relative numbers compared to their non-hybrid siblings.