[cvtonly1]

:lol: To all those cvt owners who want to achieve manual stick mpg's. I recently obtained 68.3 mpg's going between 55-68mpg's (52.0 mpg trip). I was only able to get 48-52mpg's in the city. Great improvement!! To get this awesome mileage. Let the car drive you! It was built for this. Go CVT
owners!!!!!! 2002 CVT Metallic silver owner...390 miles curently...

 

[Resist]

I was able to get 71mpg on a trip home from work one day on my CVT. And that was average, not instant mpg.

 

[glitch]

Why is my CVT getting 40mpg then?

Why am I getting 40-41 mpg then with my CVT? I've tried driving nicely, and it doesn't help it very much at all. Is the trick to accelerate so slowly that you piss off ever car behind you? I tried accelerating quickly to get to the optimum speed and then easing back on the accelerator, this way I minimize the time I'm getting bad mileage. I've tried accelerating slowly to see if that helps but all it managed to do was piss people off behind me, they're probably thinking hybrids aren't very fast, or it's just another slow economy car, and I hate them thinking that about my car. I've reset the trip meters and the "segment" thing many times to see if I can do better, but so far my lifetime mpg is 39 and my segment is like 42 and my trip A and trip B hover around 40 and 41. Jeesh.

I don't live in a city with tons of stop and go, I live in the suburbs with moderate/normal amount of stop lights. Not a lot of heavy traffic but it can occur occasionally, but nothing to severe.

So far the trip B which I reset when the dealer filled it up, reads about 240 miles on it and I'm now at just below half tank, so at empty I should be able to do 460-480 which with a 10 gal tank means something like 46-48 mpg. How do I break the 50mpg barrier and get anywhere close to the 57 mpg mark as promised?

 

[Allnighte]

glitch:
i recall hearing about new Insight's getting bad mileage at first. i'm almost positive it's a normal thing during break in. it will go up soon. the only time i've gotten less than 45mpg on my way home from work i was doing 80mph on the freeway and flooring it/S mode when passing. just being a speed demon :twisted:

it doesn't hurt to drive slow and work on your footing though, but try not to engrave too many things in your mind until after break-in when the engine will act normal
how many miles do you have on it now?

 

[glitch]

Ahh, so I'm not crazy and everything will be ok

It has a little over 300 miles on it. It had about 50 when I left the dealership. How long is the break in period? What's the optimal way to break in a new engine?

I'm glad to hear that this is normal. I was beginning to worry. I'll wait it out. Love this car to much not too. hehe.

 

[Insighter]

Break-in

I had the engine rebuilt on my 280zx by a very reputable Z shop a few months ago. They told me the break in period was 500 miles, and that during that time you should vary your speed a lot, not go exceedingly fast and engine break a lot (which the Insight encourages with its charge display, anyway). That's how I'm breaking mine in. At 4 or 5K, I'm switching to synthetic. You definitely don't want to use synthetic until the engine is fully broken in (about 3-5K miles from what I've heard).

All of this is less important with modern engines because they are so precisely engineered. But I think it must still be important.

 

[Resist]

You don't accelerate slowly, you accelerate quickly! You want the engine to use the electric assist. Then let off on the throttle and keep a light foot once you've seen the instant mpg indicator at 75mpg, try to keep it there. Let your foot off the gas way before coming to a stop. Accelerate going down a hill to gain speed and let off going up the next hill to save gas. Take your foot off the gas as much as possible. It's the little things that add up. Find that sweet spot on the pedal for your speed. You will find it using the instant mpg indicator. I'm sure you will get the hang of it.....I did.

 

[fizzixrat]

I do the fast acceleration thing, but I'm still not getting a very high average. I think it has more to do with the commute than anything though - prevailing speed on the freeways during morning rush is 70+ mph, and I'm not usually awake early enough to be able to afford the luxury of dropping into the right lane and moving more slowly to cut drag. Still, when the weather was good, I was getting 50-52 mpg on my commutes. In the harsh of winter, having to run the heat high to keep the windows from icing up, it dropped to about 42 mpg. (It was so cold there for awhile that I didn't check tire pressure for about a month. Once I pumped it up a little, I pushed the mpg up to about 45.)

About the best I've done were some trips to Columbus last summer, where I got about 55 mpg each way. Of course, I was still breaking the car in then, and still didn't have the hang of how to drive the thing, so I'd probably do better next time around. My average around town in Ann Arbor last summer was only about 43 mpg, but that involved mostly short trips - I don't drive much when I'm not teaching, typically.

 

[boogetyboogety]

Your mileage may vary...

Those of you with few miles on the ticker may not get the optimum mileage. Also, whatever your dealer did before you got the keys may factor your LMPG (ours had 250 mi. on the odo, and a 28 LMPG! First thing I did, I reset it to have a TRUE history of OUR driving the Insight). As I have posted elsewhere: We usually just acelerate rather heavily to our target speed, THEN start feathering the throttle if mileage is our goal. Only use "S" if we want to go boogety boogety (merging, passing, etc.), otherwise, we just let the rubberband tranny use its ESP to get us where on the speedometer we want to go. Our best mileage on our 2001 Insight CVT came after 3000 mi. or so. I had the Rostra cruise installed, it helps us a lot to maintain a set speed, but it is not that super on mileage (I can anticipate hills, feathering the throttle on the way up, cutting out totally on the down side for the desirable "150 mpg", etc.). Also: Your best mileage is in town with few stops (if you time the lights right), under 50mph. Regardless: We have 50 pounds all around, a/c on econ. since day one (set on 70 and NEVER turned off), lots and lots of highway miles (70+ mph is our usual cruise), and our LMPG is ~54+. Our best: 68 mpg in KS, heading E with a tailwind, no cruise, few hills if any, and 200 mi. without a stop. Bottom line: Punch it to get up to speed yhen ease up, 50 pounds in your tires, and wait 'til 3000+ miles on the clock.

 

[nnielsen]

i traded a 98 ford zx2 in for my insight. februarys fuel bill for the ford was 125.50, the fuel bill in march for the insight is 28.00. i just now wish i could average more than 48 in the city.

 

[cvtonly1]

CVT with a smile....

I have been averaging about 52.0mpg in the city. This is pretty good for an Automatic. I have noticed that with freeway driving the car does better on segment trips and slowly bumps up your Lmpg! Good Luck!! :lol:

 

[Insighter]

52 mpg...

How many miles do you have on your Insight? At what mileage did you start getting 52 mpg?

Thanks

 

[rone]

pump up your tires

this has been mentioned in other MPG discussions. so i finally did it. the dealer had them at about 30#, i put 44/42 in them. not quite bold enough to do the 50# recommended in those other discussions. anyway, my MPG jumped from the 48 range to the 53 range.

btw, is is a generic problem that the tires lose pressure. this always happens in bike tires that, of course, have higher pressures. but i notice that my insight tires lose 2-4# a week if they are pumped to 44#. is this normal? it could make sense. in a 'normal' car tire with only 24# pressure, there is a lot lower differential to ambient pressure (14#) so they would lose air a lot slower. or is something wrong with my insight's tires?

 

[Braxus]

Took me around 4000 miles to reach the 55MPG mark on a tank.

 

[amplifiedmouse]

i'm getting about 53 mpg now and my car has 2200 on it

 

[Nagorak]

The location in which you live really seems to have a major impact on your gas mileage. For example, in extremely flat areas (the basin of a valley, or near the beach), I've noticed that I get an extreme amount of gas mileage, easily equal to or higher than the listed MPG. Unfortunately, in hilly areas, you seem to suffer from a major drop in MPG, just because as good as the Insight's hybrid power system is, no system can be 100% efficient. So, the amount of energy you generate going down, isn't as much as you use going back up.

Also, in dense city driving you don't average 57 MPG. Overall, I'd say the EPA recommendation for city driving is a little bit optomistic. On the other hand, I'd say the high way MPG for the Insight is a little pessimistic. It wouldn't really surprise me if those who are getting the higher MPGs either drive mostly on the highway, or live in extremely ideal areas (almost completely flat, without too many lights or stop signs, so you can "cruise" without slowing down and speeding up all the time). Oh, and if you only make extremely short trips your overall MPG will suffer, because the car never gets fully warmed up.

Even so, keep in mind that even if you don't get the rated "57 MPG", any other car would an equally reduced MPG. In fact, EPA MPG readings are probably quite optimistic across the board, which means those SUVs are really getting closer to 10-14 MPG (which is absolutely abysmal).

 

[Tim Maddux]

Even so, keep in mind that even if you don't get the rated "57 MPG", any other car would an equally reduced MPG.

That's only somewhat true, because the Insight's fuel economy is not only a function of vehicle design and efficiency but also driver behavior. Many of the things we do to drive the Insight in a fuel-efficient manner (or not) won't give the same benefits (or detractions) to MPG in a regular car. This is apparent when you see test-driving numbers on MPG from magazines, or if you look at the LMPG of an Insight on the dealer lot.

It is possible to beat the EPA estimate in the city as well. I do this frequently if the weather is nice on short (~5 mi) drives.

 

[redpriest]

I get about 55 mpg on average now in my 2002 cvt. My best trip mileage was a 22 mile trip back from work where I got 70 mpg driving rather conservatively.

I had a bad rut of low gas mileage a while ago where I was consistently getting about 46 mpg per tank, did a little investigation and found a rather large wad of paper towels lodged in my radiator (fixed my air conditioning problem!).

My best tank of gas so far over 15000 miles was a trip I made from Virginia to Massachusetts (550 miles) and I made it there in one tank -- for a good 300 miles of the trip I was averaging 62 mpg.

 

[cvtonly1]

Mileage!

redpriest,
How did you manage the 70 mpg? How fast were you going? I got 68mpg once. I spent alot of time going about 55mph and coasting alot. Also, how did you manage to get 62mpg on a 300 mile trip. That is great for a CVT! How many miles do you currently have on your 2002. I have about 2750!
CVT 2002

 

[4.3 Insight]

I bought my automatic at Christmas & it had a lifetime average of 40.?
I've gotten up to 43.4. In the winter around town I was getting up to 58+. I found it was best at a speed of about 45-50. I'm considering selling to get a a 5 speed. In the summer here in Florida I'm running the air alot & I'm not averaging much better than 43 or so, also I quit trying to get good mileage. But it's still alot of fun!