Hello all,
I've been reading the forums since I purchased my '07 Fit Sport 3 months ago and finally decided to join and post. There's a few 'fitisms' that I'm not sure are special to my car so I figured this is the best place to ask.

1. Last 1/4 of fuel tank goes much faster than first 3/4. I go from 1/4 tank remaining to the empty side of E within 100kms (about 60 miles) and was wondering if that was normal. I can't seem to trust the fuel light as having 1.7 gallons remaining since it just buries itself past E shortly after the light comes on.

2. On start up the engine always 'races'. No matter if the engine is hot or cold RPMs pop up to about 1500 or so. I find this slightly annoying since it seems to be a waste of fuel.

Thanks for your help with this!

 

#1 is due to tank design and is normal as far as I know.

#2 i'm not sure. Probably just high idle programming until op temp. If it goes to normal idle shortly after it's probably normal.

 

Thank you for your response Wanderer, just to clear number 2 up, the engine surges/races to about 1500 rpm at engine start and then immediately returns to normal rpm, like the Ecu is delivering too much fuel during the start sequence.

 

Normal operation.

 

The gas tank float is a swing arm type unit and the swing naturally makes the level seem to drop quicker when gas tank is less than 1/2 full. BTW virtually all cars have the same type float arm.
On tanks i've measured there is about 20% of fuel, about 15% to fill time while 2/3rds of the gas is used between full and half full indicated. You can calibrate it yourself if yoyu want to take the time. That seeming error is due to the gas tank not being a nice cubic shape; it has bumps..
When you start an engine its always cold so it sets to the 'choke' gas and triottle settings, which for a Fit the idle ropm is 1500. The Fit doesn't think its warm til it gets coolant above 100 F. it prefers about 140F to 180F.

 

Thanks for responses! Glad to hear everything is functioning normally. I'm looking forward to years or worry free and reliable operation from this car, its quite the blast to drive!

 

There haven't been "chokes" on cars since the advent of the Throttle body and computer controlled engine settings.

 

As far as figuring out how much gas you have left, if you track your mileage, you'll soon figure out what your average mileage is. Since we have a tick over 10 gallons, it's easy to watch your "trip mileage" and divide by 10. For instance, my mileage varies from about 26 - 29 mpg "average cycle (between 60 and 80% city driving). When I get to 260 miles, I know that I HAVE to gas up if I haven't already. I usually just gas up around 230 or so. That leaves me about 2 gallons in the tank. The longest I went (other than one time where I actually put 10.1 gallons in, but I rolled that fillup with 3 other fillups during a road trip and can't now be bothered to look at the actual receipt) were 299 (which was 8.89 which was 90% road trip) and 271 (which was 9.15 gal. which was 80% city).

So, start thinking more about trip mileage. It will make it easier.

 

My 2008 idles up to 1500 as well on start up. This is most likely normal operation because it drops down quickly and remains smooth afterwards. If it stayed high I would worry, but if it goes back down somewhat quickly I believe that to be normal operation. The "choke" that another poster referred to, is actually an IAC, or idle air control valve (at least on my 97 hatch that is what they were referred to).

I am somewhat surprised by the fuel mileage that teleburst reported. I have never had fuel mileage that low on my 08. Since I have purchased it in Feb 2013 (7k miles), the lowest I have seen is 31 mpg. My best mileage is 40 on a highway trip to Ohio, which I did in one fill up and achieved slightly under 400 miles on the tank. Normally, my light comes on at 300 miles, and I fill around 320. By doing this it almost religiously takes 9.5 gallons at fill up. I use the same pump at the same gas station almost every week. I actually have pics of the gas gauge at 100,200, and 300 miles and fill if I can post them up from the Ohio trip.

 

I have tracked every single gallon since I bought the car and you can follow along on my thread here: https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/1st-...ng-thread.html. My best mileage was 44 mpg on a 100 mile interstate run. My mileage is impacted by two main factors- first, Nashville is very hilly and I actually live at the bottom of a hill. Second, most of my driving is short hops (three days a week I do a three mile run to my work four times a day). I usually have around 20 - 30% highway mileage each fillup. Still, over the past 6 months, I have still averaged a tick over 29 mpg (those two road trips helped to up my city/highway ratio to close to 50%). That's about what Honda claims, so it's not as surprising as other random claims without documentation.

That's why I said that tracking ones own mileage can give you an idea of how much mileage a tank of gas gives you. Of course, you always have to fill up few times and track it to get to that point because partial fillups don't tell you much. Also, you should do what I do and ALWAYS fill up until the nozzle clicks off the first time. That way, you get some consistency. The fact that it holds 10 gallons just makes it easy to know where you are in the tank if you fill up everytime and track each "trip" (i.e. since the last fillup). You just move the decimal place over one place <g>.

 

Thanks for the responses. Teleburst, I have been following your fuel mileage thread with interest, thank you for your regular updates. While I agree that tracking mileage allows you to have a pretty good idea of when you will need to fill up, regardless of fuel quantity indication, since I top off every time I'm unsure of how much extra fuel the neck holds. I consistently put in around 11.8 USG (45L), and the tank is said to hold 10.83 USG (41L). Using my running average of 38 MPG/6.2L/100km I should be able to achieve 410 miles or 661 kms on a 'normal fill' tank if I ran it completely dry. I think the neck holds about 2.6 USG / 10L so with that I should be able to achieve 511 miles or 822 kms when topped off. My concern is I'm not confident in the fact that the neck holds an extra 2.6 gallons and I'm not willing to get stranded to find out. I do know that on those occasions when I ran the car right up to 480 miles the fuel needle was buried past E, but on those occasions I averaged 40 MPG and so should have been able to go to 535 miles or 860 kms to completely empty. This does not jive with when the fuel light came on, so either the neck doesn't hold as much as I think it does or my fuel sensing unit needs calibration.

Sorry for the long winded post but this is what I have been trying to figure out over the past few months. I do like to push my cars when it comes to mileage and DTE, but I will only do it to the point that I know I can make the next station and I have never run out of gas.

 

Thanks for the positive comments.

See, for me, it's more important for me to be able to make the conversion in my head on the fly and know when to fill up at a glance and know that I've got plenty of fuel to spare and, even if I pass that point (which I do sometimes, because 260 miles is my "baseline" for filling up but I'm occasionally going 270 - 280), I've always got at least 20 - 60 miles left in reserve. I completely disregard how much is in the neck or whether I can squeeze the last drop of gasoline into the tank. Since I only fill it to the first "click-off", I have a pretty constant top-off level, even if I'm giving up a gallon of capacity. I know that I've got at least 10.1 gallons because I got that reading once (it's rolled into my one big combined entry when I was out of town and isn't listed separately). So, not ever having run it dry, I could have 10.5 or more since I don't know where the cutoff lands in the neck. But, by rounding down to 10 gallons, I'll always be confident of being able to stretch to 270 or a little more, even if it's in the middle of summer with 100% a/c running and a lot of waiting in fast food lines, traffic jams, higher than normal short hops, etc. And by doing the first click every time, I don't have to worry about too much variation.

I just like using 10 gallons even as the "constant". It's so easy to look down and see 250 on the trip computer and say, I should probably fill up in a couple of days. I usually end up in the 8 -9 gal. range which means that I give up some ultimate "range" but have the flexibility to tank up where it's convenient and also to fill up when I see prices just starting to rise or fall.

Here's the graph for the entire life of my ownership:

Honda Fit (Honda Fit) All Fuel-ups | Fuelly

It's interesting to see the evolution. The first third of the graph is me doing different fillups under different conditions to try to establish the low and high ranges (and me just getting throttle, clutch, and driving down - coming from a SAAB 93 and a Miata took some getting used to) . The second third of the graph is summer driving with lots of A/C. And the last third shows improvement with a drastic reduction of A/C with the weather cooling down. I expect it to track down a little once the winter gas starts getting used though.

I can get wordy myself. My point is, if one is willing to give up a few miles in range, all it takes is stopping the nozzle at the first click, taking a glance at the trip mileage, move the decimal place one place, and know pretty much how much range you have left without putting any real thought into it. People can look at my numbers and be confident that they are on the conservative side of what is possible, so if they use 260 on a full tank of gas as a baseline, it doesn't matter whether it's summer and a/c full blast, or getting stuck in a traffic jam for two hours, or whatever, they'll know that if they fill up, they're still going to have 1 - 2 gallons left. Safety is built into the "system".

 

Oh yeah, if I convert to imperial gallons, which is what you use in Canada, my average goes up to about 34.9, which is closer to yours than my average indicates. I think that you probably do more highway miles than I do overall, which would account for some of the difference. And maybe your A/C usage is lower as well.

 

Thanks Teleburst for the reply, Fuelly (and my calculations above) are showing US MPG, Canada uses liters per 100km as a measurement of fuel economy. I think only the UK uses imperial MPG these days but not sure? I can almost guarantee that you use the A/C far more than I do living in Nashville, (I don't think I've turned it on in the past month) and I only use this car to commute so it sees about a 50/50 mix of freeway and side roads.

I can completely understand the safety of your system, but for me range is how I get my enjoyment out of driving these days and I find it a fun challenge to see if I can continually beat my previous mileage numbers. It's also a time efficiency thing, if I'm fuelling up every 500 miles as opposed to 250 miles, I've just cut my trips to the gas station in half. While not a big deal during the summer, in the winter when it's freezing outside, it makes a big difference!

But I digress, as there is no 'right' method and everyone will follow whatever procedure they feel works best for them. For me, if you look at my fuel mileage history on Fuelly, it is very consistent (the car does essentially the same round trip every day, 5 days a week), so I feel safe running the car to 750 kms/460 miles without fear of running out of gas, but I would like to know how much further I can go if needed.

 

Don't you use imperial gallons at the pump?

 

Teleburst, please do not think I was poking fun or singling you out for anything. That isn't the case. I am obsessed with fuel mileage as well, and that is the reason that I traded in my 2013 Mustang GT for a 2013 Nissan Altima and my Explorer for the Fit. I am very happy with both of my trades, although sometimes I miss the 420hp of the Mustang!

Your methods and mine are not much different actually, only I do not have an app that tracks it. With every fill up I stop at the first click as well and note the gallons it stopped at, and then I proceed to fill to the next even dollar amount. The gallons at the first click is what I use to calculate my mileage. Almost every fill up is 32-34 mpg. I do a good bit of city driving in my weekly travels as well. The previous owner got the same range as well (I bought the car from my best friend). Which is why when I seen 29 mpg avg. I thought it was slightly low. Also, I am always hot, so the AC runs a lot. The trip to Ohio I used it the entire trip and at 70mph I achieved 39 mpg and 40 mpg. Maybe I am just lucky. I dunno.

 

Oh, I didn't think you were poking fun or anything.

 

Nope, everything is in litres.

 

Thanks.

That's a lot of conversion you have to do. Aren't you in kms as well? I can see how it would be hard to do "on-the-fly" conversions.

 

It is a bit messy, especially compared to the MPG calculation which is dead easy. I usually don't bother with on the fly calcs and just let Fuelly crunch the numbers when I get home.

My next fuel up is going to be off, my wife locked the keys in the car with the engine running for over an hour, I'm curious to see how much a hit that will cause. Should have updated numbers by Friday based on current mileage.