Thanks for all the tips folks !! I'm gonna have a long list of tips on a clipboard and study them and give a copy to her also. Good tip about checking the oil beforehand Wayne - maybe she is overfilled, which would kill her FE. We're gonna put her tires up at least to 44 PSI, providing she and her husband are OK with that. Gonna be fun !!

 

I checked today on the ride home. On a flat road with the cruise control set at 45 I was seeing close to 70 mpg. With the cruise set on 50 it was 60 mpg. That was in Florida. Oh, tire pressure at 40 psi. Regular gas. No A/C.Jeff

 

this is where my "sweetspot" is as well, i've noticed best mpg when setting cruise control in this range.

also, as it's been said in other threads, "drive like you don't have brakes." doing this alone can increase MPG significantly, as it maxes out the real time display while you are slowing down. at the same time, you should try to apply the brakes as slightly as possible to gain the most charge out of every stop.

one more tip has to do with coasting, 'neutral' coasts help to keep your speed going while boosting up your mpg, if there are any hills big enough that this would be efficient around there, it's worth doing. good luck~!

 

Larry- you already know how to drive a hybrid, teach them how to accelerate s l o w l e y from stops, as has been previously said, try for minimum assist and 20mpg. I usually hold that till 30 mph then back off to 60 mpg if I'm going for 40-45 mph. If I'm trying to get to highway speeds I'll back off to 36-40 mpg- just enough to hold assist until I get to the desired speed.
I bet they're killing their mileage at starts/ acceleration- that's where it all goes.
Kate

 

The one thing I have noticed is that once reaching cruising speed and getting settled down, you can let up slightly on the accelerator and still maintain speed -- this, of course, improves MPG. What I think is happening is that the engine in the HCH cannot increase the speed with just a little extra gas, due to the ratio changing in the CVT. That extra gas is what you are saving when letting up a little on the pedel after getting to cruise speed.

 

OK folks, here is my report.

At the outset, let me say I was surprised how "little control" a new driver of a CVT HCH has in regard to manipulating speeds and rpms to maximize MPG. Coming in as a manual tranny HCH owner, I was at a disadvantage, in that a lot of the tricks I use for hypermiling are not usable in the CVT. Evidence has shown that drivers of CVTs *DO* figure it out over time, but if you are a first time CVT driver after coming from a MT, you will have a LOT to learn, and FAST !!!

I met a woman named Jenny and her husband Rick to help them determine if I thought something was wrong with their car, because they had always experienced "low MPG" and they were concerned because the dealer tells them the car is fine. My job was to evaluate the car and see if I thought something was wrong or not.

My first thing was to check the oil in the car. It was just a smidge below the top level, the last dot, which means it was filled correctly. I forgot to ask them what kind of oil they use - I will ask her and report this here later.

Next was the tires. They had 205/something/17 17" low profile tires with five spoke chrome rims !! (oops !! ) I knew right away that would be a definite problem for them. Those tires and rims are no doubt heavier and are definitely NOT "low rolling resistance" tires. I checked the pressure, and the tires were between 25 and 28 PSI !! They are rated at 44 PSI on the tire.

Their FCD showed 35.2 and 280.1 miles for the Trip A meter. I cleared that, and we left the mall parking lot headed for an air hose.

Right away I could feel the rumble of the tires and I could feel the road being gripped a lot harder through the steering feel. After the first 1/2 mile or so in the Mall lot before we got to a city street, the FCD was about 36. I knew in my car that same route at that speed would have netted about 48. Tires definitely an issue.

We got the tires inflated up to 52 PSI all around and hit the street. It took "TWO" sessions on the air compressor, at 50 cents each, so they already spent a dollar !! We rolled down the windows, no A/C.

The first thing I wanted to do was to try the "pedal feathering" technique that the users here had told me about. I accellerated slowly up to speed (40 mph) or near it and then started feathering. Sure enough, the feather action showed the realtime meter jumping between the 60 and 80 MPG range - a good sign I thought. All the while, I was trying to explain tips to them and learn this trick simultaneously, so my concentration was not what it should/could have been.

They have had the latest ECU update also. Not sure how that affected anything, just wanted to add that info.

So we trudged along, hitting red lights and cruising with cruise control on for some of the time, to compare it to the feathering. On the back trip after the 5 mile turnaround, we closed the windows and used the A/C, and I still got pretty good results with the feathering.

We ended up at 44.6 MPG over 11.2 miles before turning back in to the Mall parking lot, then lost down to 43.9 at 11.8 by the time we got back to my car.

So my conclusion is that there is nothing wrong with the car. But the tires are hurting them, and they like to use the A/C all the time too, so that hurts them also. I gave them a huge printout of hypermiling techniques I had accumulated in a journal, and set them free. Hopefully they learned something, and maybe they can improve over the 34.0 lifetime MPG that car has on the Trip B meter.

With more time in a CVT, I think I could get a lot better. But I SURE DO LOVE my MT, and having the control over gears and speeds and RPMs is priceless, in my mind.

That the 2006 HCH does not have a manual tranny version is a crying, awful, terrible shame.

 

Ok... yeup, tires and rims are key to the HCH. Why you would change them on that car is beyond me, especially since the rims and tires where designed for that car.

 

Hi Lars-ss:

___I was waiting patiently to hear back from you about this.

___I am very thankful that you took the time out of your life to help Jenny (nick = Hybridhater) as I saw her over at Edmunds truly lost in a sea of frustration … I am also a bit miffed that her husband (if it was her husband?) would place those wheels and rims on an HCH and that she did not mention this during the groups back and forth discussions The fact that you received 44 mpg from the car in that condition proves without a doubt that there is nothing wrong with the car but there is certainly something wrong with the person that trashed its capabilities with those wheels and tires.

___I just looked into the Edmunds - “HCH Owners: MPG-Real World Numbers” forum and she has not yet posted the results or updated anyone watching her plight just yet. I hope she will tonight as there was a lot of heat generated over this and now that I know the inside story, it was definitely a waste of effort on all of our parts knowing now what we did not know just 2 or 3 weeks ago I can just imagine the look on your face when you arrived in the mall parking lot to see that poor HCH with wheels and tires made for a Ricer’s nightmare.

___In regards to the CVT vs. MT, I think Honda is simply moving away from the possibility of pack degradation up to and including replacement within a particular time frame. I have read it tens if not hundreds of times how MT owners are laying into that pack for acceleration no matter the gear whereas the CVT owners have a bit of protection between their wishes and that CVT holding that kind of use (abuse?) back. Not that a CVT’er cannot ride the pack because it is definitely possible but the MT guys can do quite a bit more damage without even knowing it!

___Good Luck and thank you for the update on “Hybridhater”.

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

Wayne,

Really good point on the CVT/MT pack degradation issue. I had not thought of that, but I can see how that might be an issue for Honda in the future.

I wish I could have had or taken more time to get them a really better number, but 44.6 with those tires seemed, like you concurred, to at least indicate that the car probably does not have any problems related to the Hybrid drivetrain system.

The 17" tires and rims did look very nice, but I do fail to see the point of using that sort of setup on a car intended to get higher MPG.

I know the tips I gave them will help to some degree, depending on how aggressively they try to adopt them.

Thanks again to all from myself and Jenny for the helpful tips and suggestions - you guys are indeed Awesome !!

 

Another note:

I learned from "test driving" the CVT that the "feathering" can be used (kind of) in the MT to achieve and hold lean burn. I had heard this tip before but had forgotten about it, or had tried it once and did not "get it" but:

In the manual tranny HCH, if you achieve desired speed but then just hold the accellerator BARELY enough to BARELY hold that speed, or even let it lose speed a very little bit, the real-time MPG display will go up very fast and stay at a higher level. I guess that is the best way to hit lean burn and stay there in the MT. Duh....

This is different (and better) than setting the cruise at a particular "speed sweet spot" and letting it sit there at that speed, which has been my preferred "high mpg" trick up to now.

Looking back, I think this must be the trick that the MT drivers who get really high MPG numbers have been using.

I'm shooting for a 52 MPG tank next time using this method at every opporunity.