I have a new (to me) '05 HCH manual transmission with 17k, and am a bit puzzled by the dashboard shift indicator lights. The upshift light seems to work ok, though it calls for what seems to be rather early upshifts. It's the downshift indicator that seems awry. I have lugged to ridiculously low RPMs, but the light refuses to come on. I know the bulb is OK since it lights fine when the dashboard first fires up.

Just how low are the RPMs supposed to be when the downshift light comes on?

I don’t want to abuse the engine any further looking for a light that may not be working properly. Does your downshift indicator light come on easily, or only just before the poor little engine is about to gasp it’s last?

I had mine for 2 years and completely ignored the lights. I found them to be incorrect most all the time. In 2 years and 40k miles I got 48.8 mpg and no troubles.

Good luck,
Jessica

Learn to drive by the feel of the engine's purr. You can predict what the lights would be doing if you were paying attention to them by the subtle vibrations in the car, getting just as good FE. If this were some other car, I'd say to learn based on the noise of the engine too, but the Civic's is too stinking quiet.

And slightly more on-topic... both indicators show fine on mine, lower at about 800-1000 rpm for relatively flat ground. I can get it even lower if I try, but that's only when the engine is nowhere being under load.

...because you'll see me passing everybody at 90 miles per hour going up mountains.

I find that in my '04 HCH MT, if you wait for the light, you're too late.

The up shift is the most important. I get about 54 lpmg.

Unless there is a hill, I am in fifth gear by 40 miles per hour.

-Charlie...

I, too, disagree with the lights, but my '04 HCH seems to call for shifts too late, both on upshifts and downshifts. I had the added "bonus" of this being my very first stick-shift car, so I was still learning how to drive a stick when I first got it and trusted the lights a bit too much. Now I listen to the engine and ignore the lights for the most part.

But hey, I barely get 42 mpg on a good day and have yet to make a 600 mile tank, so my style of driving probably isn't the most efficient.

Hmm...'slight' revision to my previous statement.

I've been watching for the shift-down light the last few drives, and have never seen it. Some of the time was in very slow traffic so I was at 800 rpm or less at times and the light never showed.

...because you'll see me passing everybody at 90 miles per hour going up mountains.

I just recently got a 2004 honda civic hybrid manual transmission and I just recently took it in to the dealer to get a few things fixed and I asked them to look at the downshift indicator and I told them I had not once seen the light come on other than when I turned the engine on. They told me that it was hard, but they were able to get the light to come on. I sort of don't really believe them because I've tried all sorts of crazy things to get the ****ed light to come on. I've even tried putting it in fifth gear going up a slight incline and flooring it at 10 miles per hour. The engine made a scary noise (as expected), but the downshift light never came on. I know some of you think that you should only shift on feel, and this is the first car I've had that has shift indicators, so I've driven many years in my old pickup without shift indicators. I'd really like to know when the computer thinks I should downshift. It may even help my fuel economy if it did it properly. Personally, I consider it broken since it's not once come on (other than turning the engine on).

For those of you who have working downshift indicators, when can I reasonably expect the light to come on? Do I have to be going up hill? Do I need to floor it? Do I need to enable cruise control?

Yes I know... little things like this drive my crazy, but I just got the car 2 weeks ago, so I want everything to be working perfectly.

Sounds like your automatic transmission is broken. :-)

I finally got the light to come on. The trick is, the pedal has to be floored (ie. actually touching the floor) and I'm not used to that because I always downshift long before that. I was thinking that it would be quite useless like that since pretty much anyone would shift long before that light came on, but then on the drive home, I randomly decided to put on my cruise control as I was going up a hill at 40 miles an hour in fourth gear. There's this one part of the hill where the incline isn't as steep and my upshift light came on and I thought it was pretty funny because I knew there was no way I'd be able to get up the hill in fifth gear. then a split second later, the light went off, and then soon after that came the steep part and the downshift indicator light actually came on! I think the only useful function of that light must be when cruise control is on and it's going up a steep hill, because then the cruise control floors the accelerator, and maxes out the ACCEL from the electric motor. I wish the light was designed to help out gas miledge instead but oh well, at least it does something useful

PS: I know some people think you should be able to "feel" the engine, but with these cars, the engine might tell your feelings you need to shift, and then the accel/charge kicks in and you reallize you didn't really need to shift at that point and should instead wait a couple extra seconds.

I just bought my o4 HCH-I, 5 speed, and been getting terrible mpg driving by the up/down lights

I'm going to start using your guys tricks, see what works for me.

Thanks!