Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
I don't know if an '04 Civic is necessarily better than the '08 Fit on fuel economy. On Fuelly the 04 Civic sedan gets 31.8 mpg. I think their CDA figures are siilar, Fit might be slightly better aerodynamically actually. I don't know the number. But the Fit has significantly shorter gearing at highway speeds: 5th is 0.757 and the FD is 4.294, whereas the 04 Civic base model had 0.711 and 4.111.
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With the correct filters in place (1.7L, Sedan, EX) the Fuelly average for my '04 Civic is currently 33.26 mpg (see
link). The '08 Fit I was looking at with the correct parameters (1.5L, Sport) gets 31.60 per Fuelly (
link).
I honestly thought the Fit would get similar MPG on the highway and significantly better on the city, but most people on the internet say that the Fit beats the Civic only on slower speeds, but that (varying based on source) 55-60 is usually where the Fit starts sipping more. The Fit's taller gearing is responsible for this. I just looked up the coefficients of drag for both; the '08 Fit's is 0.35 and the '04 Civic's is 0.36.
Both are very fuel efficient vehicles and have Honda's legendary reliability and excellent fuel efficiency, so honestly both are good choices.
The longer highway trips I plan on taking won't account for slower speeds and excessive hypermiling, so I wanted something with better standard highway MPG, while I can hypermile in the city to get good city figures too.
Although if I could afford one, I would go with a 2015 or newer Fit, since they beat the comparable Civics by around 10%.