The person asked if radio volume affected gas milage so you cannot let those opportunities pass. Right?

 

I never realized that turning the radio volume down could save gas. I turned it down, then off and sure enough the MPG is up. I am going to have the dealer remove the radio now so that I am not tempted to use it.

 

Thanks SportMTNavi, and thanks dgs.

 

Hardly turn on my radio either and my gas mileage is no where near what some guys here are posting.
Am driving with a feather foot on the accelerator too.

 

The "Real" Trick to great gas mileage is burning about 1 tsp of fuel on the ground prior to any long trip and chanting "Exxon, Mobil, Chevron too - Great gas milage is coming true" 37 times. IT HAS TO BE 37, or it will not work.

I've done this prior to every trip over 5 miles and my MPG is well into the later 40's.

 

Keep 'em coming...might be willing to try anything.

 

Its that Canada air. Japanese motors hate it. Only an electric supercharger can fix this. Also adding some bleach to the oil should help dramatically incease mpgs. I recommend finally adding some sugar to the gas tank for higher octane rating.

 

Wow, so many new ideas on how to increase mpg from south of the border.
Whatever you guys are smoking, I want some too!
Thanks anyway for the tips.

 

Moth balls. No I am not kidding. Super gasoline, drop in about 2 per gallon - will dissolve in gasoline. You MUST get 100% or 99.9% naphthalene moth balls for this to work. Do not buy paradichlorobenzene moth balls. Again, I am not kidding. Do not use crystals, only balls.

I have not done this (yet) to my fit, but I have on all my other cars...2000 Mustang GT (8cyl), and an older mazda 323. There is a noticeable increase in power.

What I do is when I go to fill up, take a gas can and put about 1 gallon in it, then fill the car. Once I get home I put 2-3 moth balls per gallon that I will fill up the next time I fill...so if I fill on average 8 gallons each fill, then 20 - 24 moth balls. Next time I fill...I take the gas can and pour that into the tank first, then fill up the tank to mix the gas up. The moth balls have already dissolved into the gasoline in the gas can, so there should be none in the can.

Of course, use at your own risk, but I have never had any motor trouble using this. More is not better. If you put too many balls per gallon, fuel mileage will DECREASE. You will have to find the right amount per gallon for your car. I always wait until there is a sale, then buy a whole case.

Don't believe me? Look at one of the main ingredients in octane boosting products. Yep, you guessed it. Naphthalene.

 

you'd improve your mileage quite a bit by driving at the speed limit.

 

All higher octane gas does is increase resistance to detonation. It does not provide more power (in and of itself):

"The octane rating is a measure of the resistance of gasoline and other fuels to detonation (engine knocking) in spark-ignition internal combustion engines. High-performance engines typically have higher compression ratios and are therefore more prone to detonation, so they require higher octane fuel. A lower-performance engine will not generally perform better with high-octane fuel, since the compression ratio is fixed by the engine design."
Wikipedia

Be careful.

I'd stick with keeping the volume down on the radio.

I get noticeably poorer mileage when there is a high ethanol content in the gas. That's big here in ethanol country.

Cheers.

 

You remind me of the trick we use to play on our colleagues back in school. We were offering "touchless tune-ups" for $5.00 by secretly loading a handful of naphthalene balls. What I can say is that the engine idled a lot smoother and no "pinging".

 

how loud was your radio tho?

 

Good thing i know..
I've always had such bad mileage, but that's cause i jam out!

Picking up the fit tomorrow.
NOT putting the music on..
But it wil be hard to keep me from singing.

Perhaps i will keep duct tape in the glove compartment for my mouth.
Those vibrations get ya!

 

Depends on the music you listen to. More metal = More lead in the foot, less MPG. More classical = light foot, more MPG.

(Also Metal creates more vibrations than Classical.)

 

Just a follow-up here to provide more information to anyone who might be interested...

I checked the tire pressure and no problems there. I wasn't sure what else would be dropping my mpg down until this morning. It was cool enough that I had the A/C off. I filled up and then drove about an hour and a half on mostly rural highways that were fairly flat. At the end, the indicator read 46.0, which probably means a little over 40. So my guess is that it is my A/C use and the occasional hills that I regularly drive that are dropping my mileage below what SportMTNavi gets.

 

I have had a ScanGauge on my 1996 Acura Integra (Civic engine & MT) for several years, driving the same route to and from work. The ScanGauge has a digital readout in tenths for MPG and can be adjusted to read almost the exact corrected MPG, both for real time and for the amount used since it was reset.

The biggest effect I have noticed (beyond avoiding high speed or rapid acceleration) is the outside temperature and whether or not the car has fully warmed up. My MPG goes up consistently 8 to 10 MPG comparing the first 10 minutes of driving to after about 30 minutes of driving and is several MPG better in summer than in winter for the same conditions and speed. The Acura normally gets about 35 MPG in the summer for a 25 mile mix of rural highways, some stoplights and a short run on the Interstate.

It points out the importance of having a good thermostat (replacing one that was stuck partially open raised the temperature from 160F to 204F and the mileage jumped about 3 MPG) and avoiding short trips if possible. Before I got the ScanGauge I thought that the Acura warmed up in less than 10 minutes but it actually takes much longer.

 

BullFrog--That is very interesting. Thanks for the post. It helps to explain some of the data we see.

Cheers.

 

lol no but a white car is a cooler car that needs less A/C use... meaning higher mpg

 

45.8mpg on the dash calculated to 42.4mpg at the pump for me on my MT Fit Sport. First tank! Looking forward to seeing what I can do as the engine breaks in!