The goal was to get a good deal on a car with good MPG. I was not planning to spend this much money.

The 2006 Civic Hybrid has 77,000 miles on it priced "as is" for $9200

According to NADA that's a pretty good price so we jumped on it.

I drove it home, runs great, quick enough, everything works.

Question; what does one have to do to get a full charge on the battery?

It was showing two lines when i left the lot and climbed to about 3/4 after a few miles and stayed there for the rest of a 55 mile drive.

Is the real time fuel consumption accurate?

I played around with resetting the trip odometer at different speeds and got different MPGs that seemed about right- 49mpg @55, 46mpg@65, 41MPG @ 80

Like any used hybrid owner, i am most concerned about battery life and I'm looking for ways to assess whether or not i got a good one.

Thanks

 

By "climbed to 3/4", I assume you meant 75% or 6 bars (out of the maximum possible 8) -- in which I'd not worry about it especially given you mentioned it stayed there for the rest of the trip.

Read this forum and cleanmpg -- there are tons of useful articles/posts that give you tips about dealing with your HCH, what to expect, etc. Let me get you started with this post [Obvious disclaimer: Your mileage will vary, and do not do anything unsafe!]

For the most part, the real time and the average trip gauges are pretty accurate -- I'd say within 5% or so. Of course the best way to measure would be to calculate MPG between full tank fill-ups.

Sounds about right - the car is designed for speeds between 35 and 55 mpg, give or take.

Good start. Read this forum for what you need to watch out for, etc. Most owners have a pretty good experience but some have terrible issues that Honda will not fix that easily, and you should be aware of the signs to look for.

Good luck!

Cheers,
-ag

 

The realtime fuel consumption on the HCHII is pretty accurate, actually slightly pessismistic, ie: if you calculate you'll find you got slightly better. From your description the state of your IMA battery sounds pretty good: it's normal for state of charge to be floating anywhere between 40 and 80 percent. Full charge will happen occasionally, typically after or during a long downhill run.