Right now were enjoying peace and quite where we live. When we get old we may change out minds.

 

Filled up yesterday. 98672. 276.0 9.289 gal. $3.339. 60% city. 5% A/C. One traffic jam.

30.0
28.7 cumulative. Up 1.3 from last time.

 

$3.339 a Gallon! I wish! Chicago is at $4.489, we will break $5 this year.

 

Ouch!

Having said that, normal price was something like $3.45, but I got cents off for buying coffee at MAPCO. Normally, you get .03 a gal off just for having a frequent buyer card, and a penny off for each coffee (which resets every week, but my last two fillups somehow messed up and didn't give me the discount, so they accumulated.

But a whole dollar more just highlights how screwed up the distribution system is. Supply and demand be damned, that is gouging and it should be illegal.

 

Not to get off topic, but that is not gouging. Looks at just about everything else in the major metropolitan areas--housing costs, food, parking, etc. They all cost much more than more less populated areas.

Companies set prices where they want. Prices will then self-adjust according to demand. Free market. Wonderful thing*.

 

You and I will just have to disagree. Just so you know, Nashville is also a major metropolitan area. Obviously not nearly as large as Chicago, but almost 2 mil. nonetheless.

The gas market isn't a "free market". It is a manipulated market from the time it leaves the ground until it hits your gas tank.

 

Chicago area has some of the highest taxes on gasoline of anywhere in the country. They also mandate the use of somewhat specialized blends, which are not used in most other parts of the country and thus are not produced by many refineries. Here's an article that describes the situation pretty well, though it's a couple of years old.

Why Chicago gasoline prices are so high - Chicago Tribune

 

Nashville is 1/5 of the size. Definitely not the same market category. Every good is "manipulated" in some way. But regardless, consumers draw the line of where the prices will be.

Anyway, I'm just glad I'm not paying $4.49/gal!!!

 

Well, the term "major metropolitan area" was used by you. Heck, right now, the average in NYC is only 3.70 according to the first web site that I checked out. The same site says 4.361 for Chicago. I think the ghost of Capone is hanging around the pumps.

This just points out the fallacy of the term "free market" though. Usually, the larger the market, the more competition and volume you have, which is "supposed" to drive down prices. However, there really isn't much competition between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers (I'll stop short of calling it collusion). I'd also point out that the higher taxes only accounts for .50 of that extra dollar. Chicago overall isn't really a high rent district like NYC or the West Coast, so it's hard to justify the other .50 on real estate and rental prices. Sure, there's a cost of shipment that's higher than it is in the South, but that doesn't even come close to accounting for the difference. It's just rank profiteering, pure and simple.

I think the thing that bothers me is the crass manipulation of prices all the way up the chain, and it might not be so egregious if oil company profits weren't so huge. To me, this is just a mild version of people jacking up the prices of plywood, compressors, and bottled water around hurricane time.

 

i get approx 28mpg highway

 

98829 156.7 6.037 gal $3.359/gal 25.95 MPG. (Fuelly rounds off because I enter by odometer, which doesn't have tenths of a mile).

70% city driving. 5% A/C. Lots of very short hops and 10% more city driving cost me 4 mpg over the last fillup, although it's still 2 mpg more than my first fill-up/calculation, which had the same percentage of city driving. I attribute this to incorrect tire pressures which I have since corrected (and maybe the new air filter might have had a little impact).

 

98935 105.7 3.476 gal $3.349/gal 30.4 MPG

50% city driving. 10% A/C

Next Thursday, I might fill up and take a long highway drive just to see what I get exclusively on the highway. I'm getting a good mix of city/highway percentages under my belt.

 

although we don't drive the Fit very far, I have averaged 29 and 30 mpg in all suburban driving (no highway) with the A/C running half of the time. I have all new fluids in the car, have the original plugs and coils, and also have recently adjusted the valves. I'm not thrilled with this mileage given I get the same with my 1.8 liter Corolla engine. In general, as long as I can ditch the 29 and stay in the 30's, I'll be satisfied. I have Kumho Ecsta Platinum tires which don't seem to have the same smooth rolling resistance as my Michelin MXV4s so I could be losing out on some mpgs there as well. I still marvel on how this Fit accelerates off of the line though. It is like stepping on a roller skate in the dark while sleepwalking. He, he....visualize that one for a minute.

 

So, today I was able to outline the extremes of Fit mileage. I deliberately drove a week's worth of city driving exclusively. A/C usage was about 70%. I wasn't light on the pedal either. Lots of quick trips around town. Here's the data from the first fill-up of the day:

99043 108.3 4.591 gal. $3.389/gal 100% city driving. 70% A/C 23.589 MPG

So then, this morning, I went on a little trip. With the exception of 3 miles, I drove on the interstate. Some was cruise controlled at 60 mph (speed zones), the rest was cruise controlled at 70 mph. I rarely had to pass or change lanes, but occasionally I was forced to. No A/C as I got an early start to my trip to Burgess Falls in middle Tennessee. I filled back up upon exiting the interstate to head to the falls. Here are the results:

99147 104.0 2.330 gal. $3.289/gal 100% interstate (except for 3 miles to and from the interstate). 0% A/C 44.635 MPG

So, this looks like the edges of the envelope on both sides of the equation.

BTW, this was from Nashville to the Eastern Highland Rim of the Cumberland Plateau. It's pretty flat until you hit the plateau and then you gain about 500 feet over the last 20 miles or so. So it was decidedly uphill.

 

So, I filled up again yesterday morning.

99293 146.0 5.035 gal. $3.399/gal. 35% city 80% A/C 29.0 MPG

Just goes to show how A/C and city driving can take 44.653 MPG and turn it quickly into 29.0 MPG. Funny thing, the percentage drop is almost to the decimal point of the percentage of city driving. Don't know how much difference it made, but coming back from Burgess Falls was as downhill as it had been uphill going during the previous fill-up.

PS, so far, all driving has been done with a single passenger, the driver.

 

Today.

99570 277.0 9.02 gal 3.299/gal 65% city 50% A/C 30.7 MPG

30% less A/C from last fillup roughly translated to 1 - 2 MPG. Obviously not an exact science, but I had close to double the city miles and a third less A/C use. My driving habits and "routes" in the city are fairly consistent from fillup to fillup. Short hops still dominate. I was surprised that, considering how much city driving I did, I was able to crack 30 mpg.

Here are some previous fillups for quick comparison:

3.476 gal 50% city 10% A/C 30.4 MPG
9.289 gal 60% city. 5% A/C. 30.0 One traffic jam.
4.591 gal 100% city 70% A/C 23.589 MPG
6.037 gal 70% city 5% A/C 25.95 MPG.
3.562 gal 65% city 0% A/C MPG 33.1.

Looking at this, A/C does have a 1-2% effect. 50% more A/C with the same ratio of city driving cost 2.4 MPG. I was wondering if waiting to fill up until almost empty would have an effect due to weight, considering the size and power of this car. It doesn't seem to matter. If anything, the mileage probably suffers a little because it's averaged over more miles and so, unusual city usage where you might have less stop and go driving over a shorter period might have less of a positive effect on overall mileage per tankful.

One other thing is that I think my mileage is growing a little the more efficient my shifting becomes.

 

Today.

99793 222.5 8.716 gal $3.109/gal 65% city A/C 80% 25.52 MPG

Before you guys freak (pun intended) out about the price of gas, I cashed in over 5000 MAPCO points, which dropped my price by .40 cents.

Heavy on the stop and go and AC, this was my second worst average. I'm still averaging 28.6 overall. I've got one more mostly city driving tank before I drive from Nashville to Mobile down I65 the first weekend of August for a big party with some old friends. I suspect that this will drive the overall MPG up, probably a bit over 30mpg.

Just a reminder of the parameters - I only fill up until the pump handle clicks off the first time. I'm not a hypermiler. The terrain in Nashville is pretty hilly (in fact, I live at the bottom of a medium sized hill). My city/highway estimate is just that, a rough estimate. I don't note exact miles of city and highway miles. However, I keep track mentally of roughly how many highway miles I do and it's pretty close to accurate since I don't do many short interstate or highway hops. They are mostly once or twice a fillup.

 

Today.

100034 240.4 9.352 gal $3.489/gal 80% city A/C 80% 25.6 MPG

While almost identical to my last fillup, that was with 15% less city driving.

I drive to Mobile on Thursday. I'm going to do another quick fillup Thursday morning to top it off. It's about 450 miles straight down I65 into Mobile, so it will be interesting to see how high of a mileage I get.

I hope that this real world tracking helps some people who are on the fence about getting a Fit. Of course, it could make you decide for *or* against, depending on what your expectations are. This is about as "real world" as it gets. No "I get 40mpg" unsubstantiated statements. Once again, keep in mind that Nashville is a pretty hilly city. You might get better on flat terrain. You might also get worse if you're always redlining it. I don't drive like an 80 year old person with bad eyesight, but I don't drive like a drifter either. I would call it "spirited". My drives are usually short hops of 5 miles or less, except for my highway mileage, of course.

 

Well, it's been a little while since I was here. I took a trip to Mobile, so I had a good 950 highway miles. I combined all of my fillups since my last one because it was just easier that way. Odometer 101181.0 for a combined 1147 miles at an average of $3.349/gal., 35.676 gal. total. 70% A/C. 23% city driving. 38.9 combined MPG. I was a little disappointed that the best mileage on a tank that I was able to get was 40 MPG. I attribute a couple of MPG to the A/C and I might have had a slow leak in my rear driver's tire (a week after I got back, I found that I had run over a drill bit and the PSI was down to 19). But, other than that, not bad. My cumulative average jumped from 28.something to 32.3. Also not bad, although I expect that it will fall as I put more city miles back on. I did do my last fillup yesterday separately, and here are the stats:

207.0 miles, 7.80 gal., $3.339/gal., 75% city driving, 70% A/C. 26.5 MPG (sucky, I know - it took .2 off of my cumulative! You can see the new cumulative in the Fuelly box). During this period, I got the tire fixed. And I changed the oil, so I'll be good for another 10,000 miles on that one.

 

Here are my last three fillups:

8.22.13 207.0 miles, 7.80 gal., $3.339/gal., 26.5 mpg, 75% City 70% A/C. Added bottle of Gumout. Found 1 low tire and brought it back up to 36psi.

9.2.13 236.0 miles, 8.72 gal., $3.349/gal ., 27.1 mpg, 65% City 99% A/C

9.13.13 258.0 miles, 9.91 gal., $3.349/gal., 26.0 mpg, 65% City 85% A/C

Seem to be stuck around 26-27 mpg combined.