Electric Vehicle Forums - 2009 HCH getting poor mileage

Quote:

Originally Posted by khaidottk (Post 245285)

Hi folks,

I purchased a 2009 used HCH on it with about 45k earlier this year.

Living in Los Angeles I've usually gotten combined mileage of 32 driving normally and 36 combined trying really hard to get it high.

I'm on the return leg of a road trip to Ohio and used this ad am opportunity to gauge how the cart performs in ideal conditions (flat long stretches of road). So far-

The highest I've been able to get is 43mpg that's keeping the speeds at 50-60mph.

Driving at 70 I'm getting maybe 33 and 75 looks like 31.

Right now this is what I was getting with my 2002 Civic EX and not anywhere close to what I've seen other owners have been getting from looking at past discussions on this forum.

It was a certified used car so I'll be using it in when I get back home, but is this what's to be expected with a post software update Civic? I don't have any IMA lights on too which makes me worried the dealer won't do much.

That's definitely much lower than what you should be getting [my 2008 is beginning to go down on its top MPG though ... ~5 years old soon but still does better than that.]. A few things come to mind:

1) What is the tire pressure on your car? 35 at least if not more. Some on this forum suggest the max tire pressure on the tire wall. I usually let it stay between 35-39.

2) How is your driving? i assume you don't accelerate/decelerate harshly? This car is very sensitive to driving style.

3) Check if they used heavier oil. The car needs 0W-20. I use Mobil1 0W-20. Also be sure it has only the required amount of oil

4) Cover the front grill in colder weather

5) A/C use? I usually have the A/C off most of the year.

There are many other tips on driving this car -- try googling for it. I think it's on cleanmpg.com. And I am not even talking about the hypermiling techniques, but rather nominally safe tips.

Of course, you could have a car with a bad IMA battery despite not getting the light on -- Honda put in a software update that allows the car to trudge along without the IMA light coming on unless the battery is actually dying... as opposed to the battery not being in a solid shape.