What sort of mileage are people experiencing in the San Francisco Bay Area while driving a HCH?

The hills and stop-and-go traffic should work against good mileage, but year around moderate temperatures should help.

Thanks for the feedback.

Our HCHII averages between 38 & 56 mpg here in San Jose. The biggest variable is who is driving the car. My wife tends to get the lower MPGs.

Around 52, mostly highway (driving between sonoma & mendocino counties)

I am getting 48.5 overall (the last two tanks have been 50+) driving from Marin to the East Bay (over the Richmond/San Rafael bridge) every day.

Anyone experiencing a lot of time in the hilly parts -- San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley?

Ongoing thanks...

We are averaging 44 at present (first 7000 miles since November), driving between Fremont and Menlo Park but mixed with lots of in-town (Fremont, Newark, Union City) short trips. Each tank usually includes one 30-60 mile trip that bumps up the mileage overall. (Fremont to Livermore or Fremont to San Jose and back.)

South bay -- I do 38-41 MPG (39.2 for the life of the car), mainly in rush hour commutes in stop-and-go freeway traffic and a relatively short commute (15-30 minutes). The cold mornings hurt the mileage, I get better mileage on the return trip, despite heavier traffic.

It is rare that I have a long drive at freeway speeds, but mileage is a whole lot better when I do that.

I live in the Oakland Hills and get 36-38 mpg on average, if I only drive locally; the hills are definitely a mpg killer (I think the Prius might have an advantage in this terrain.) If I go across any of the bridges and any distance doing mostly freeway driving, I get 40-46 mpg. Last September, I took a trip to Yosemite with one passenger and got 49 mpg for the entire trip. I have noticed that as the engine has worn in, the mpg has improved. I now have over 20,000 miles on my '06 HCH. My longterm average for more than 1000 miles has been 40mpg. I know I can't complain, but I am always disheartened when it is only 36 mpg, which for the rest of the world is terrific!

Thanks for all of these replies.

This recent Oakland Hills one is especially useful since that's where we live, too. As I suspected, the hills are killer on gas mileage and I was trying to get a feeling from the same environment.

Still, 36-38 would be more than double what we get from our minivan (which, of course, is way to heavy for this environment). We finally figured out that we can do most of our day-to-day driving with something else and only use the minivan on the weekends.

If we end up with the Civic Hybrid, it'll be a big improvement even if it's not 40+.

Thanks.