your car will not be damaged by starting it cold. that may have been true many years ago, but is not anymore. i never warm mine up, though i do drive more slowly while it is.

a block heater is an aftermarket heater which is attached to the engine block. it keeps the system warm when not being driven, and therefore when you start driving you are a lot closer to warm and better fuel economy. i have one and my car is warm at 2 miles instead of 10 like it was last winter.

at 1000 miles, both you are your car are still in the break in and learning stage. if you watch your display, you will see what makes the mileage go up and what makes it go down, and you will learn to adjust your driving habits.

some of the things that will help are:
slowing down
coasting to stops, rather than running up to them and braking hard
practice gentle accelerations and watch to make sure you don't run down your IMA
overinflate your tires if you are comfortable with that. i am running my snow tires at about 55
if you commute, trying checking different routes which might have less stops or hills

you will get better, i promise. right now it's all new, but once you learn to adjust your driving, you will see results.

i am here in frozen minnesota and by taking backroads and driving slower, i am still hitting 60MPG on my morning commute.

good luck

Best fill 66.7 MPG, best tank 801.5 miles


laurie, central minnesota

Hello Everyone!

I literally purchased my 08 HCH II today!! A gorgeous silver/blue combo. I traded in a Toyota 4runner (V8) which, on bad days, would only get me 10-13 mpg so this car is a dream for me. I did notice the engine "breaking" itself or so it seems to me which was very strange and although I do wish there were an "auto stop off" button I could press when I know I'm going to be creeping up and may stop for only a second I think I'll get used to that as well. I must have a super-civic because on my test drives (car had only 7 miles on it) I averaged nearly 56.6 and that was around town (probably 12 miles total). On my way home from the dealership when the car was warm I zero'd out the MPG to get another reading and it was 82.2 (my home is probably 6/7 miles away from dealership! Unbelieable. I'm going to track my miles on this forum and let everyone know my experience with this vehicle and I will try to post pics if I can figure out how to do that as well. My 4runner had a MPG that updated itself as you drove but it was always off by 1 or 2 miles (it underrated the MPG pr. my calculations) so I'm curious to see if that's the case with this car as well as if the mileage improves the more miles that I put on it.

p.s.: i live in the suburbs of chicago where it's very cold right now so i'm hoping that everyone's posts about the mileage increasing in warm weather are true as well.

Thanx to the OP for raising those questions. I myself just bought the 07 HCH this week and after using Rejex and Scotchgard on it, was able to drive today on a long distance. 60 miles total.

Most of my questions were answered, however, some remained. Maybe someone can help.

1. I am getting 25mpg on the odometer reading???? How is that possible? On display above it I see the mpg typically staying just below 50mpg. So what gives?

2. The car does autostop, but sometimes it doesn't. All other conditions being similar.

3. Is the engine shutting down while cruising and going slightly downhill? I notice my mpg jumped close to 100mpg.

Thanx

Regarding #1: When I first got my car (used) I noticed the display numbers were disappointing. 23. 24. now it's 25. Once I saw the pattern, I realized I was watching miles accumulate on a trip meter. It wasn't the mpg reading, but the total miles for a trip going up slowly. Try resetting your trip meter.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

I believe there is a glitch in the logic where sometimes as you reach dead stop, the auto stop cancels itself for no apparent reason. You might think a little rollback was the cause of this, because you're on an incline, but on another day and at the same spot the auto stop remains on. It can also happen on a flat road.

I can't isolate the symptoms enough to do anything about it, so I stopped thinking about it. For example, there's no sense in stomping the brake at the very last moment before stopping.

All of the above assumes that cold weather driving isn't a factor, such as using the defogger or the system hasn't warmed up enough.

Under some conditions, all of the cams can run in idle mode where they are closed so that the engine can continue to turn over with no fuel input and very little resistance. Check our this video.

I agree! I've got about 25,000 mi on my '06 HCHII now... so I've had almost two years of experience with it. I also live at the top of a hill with five evil stop lights along the way! Unless you actively work the brake pedal at the right moment, the autostop will cancel and the ICE will restart. Very annoying.

I've gotten used to mashing the brake hard just as I come to a complete stop... but occasionally I goof and the ICE still restarts. At longer lights, I end up shifting to neutral and shutting the ignition off (forced autostop)

I REALLY wish there was a forced autostop button!

I never thought of that. That's a great idea. Then, when you take your foot off the pedal, it could restart automatically.

There's an FAS Key!

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/3686.html

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/4955.html

True, but it doesn't restart when you take your foot off the brake. You have to turn the key, then shift back to D.