31 MPG city with my 98 Civic

[prr]

First time I filled up the tank after a tankful of just a little bit of ecomodder driving. Out of 263 miles of driving, only 30 was freeway. I got 31 MPG, and the revised estimate is only 25 (city; 28 combined, although I'm not sure what percentage of each the combined figure is). That's pretty good!

As I said I am not hardcore ecomodder. But I have been consciously applying some of the things I've read about here and elsewhere. In order of importance and how often I do them, I look for opportunities to coast. That really controls when I brake and accelerate, so it is just simpler for me to see when and where and how long I can coast. I have been surprising myself with how often I can do this (when I back out with my automatic Civic from my driveway onto the street, or when I am going to pull into my driveway). Just this one thing will probably help you out a lot, if you aren't ready to become a hardcore ecomodder and get 150 MPG from your 98 Civic.

In addition, I have given myself speed limits for city and freeway: 50 MPH on city streets (of course I'm talking about expressway/boulevards, not residential city streets or school zones) and 60 on the freeway. I am pretty good about observing them but not perfect. My 30 miles on the freeway was all 60 MPH.

Finally, the right lane is your friend. I basically use the left lane only to make a left turn.

[elhigh]

ONE OF US, ONE OF US.

Tooling along at 50 is in the butter zone on a Civic, I think. It's almost as if the engine is just there for the look of the thing.

You're a little handicapped with the automatic but you still have lots of options open to you. One thing that I found makes a huge difference is knowing exactly where the torque converter locks up. On my Forester that's right at 45mph when you're feather-footing it, and then cruising at just above that mark passes the miles at a reasonable pace but just sips the gas. The more time you can spend above that locking threshold the better.

If you're not willing to go full Basjoos on your ride (and let's face it, not many of us are) then something like a TC lockup switch (there's at least one thread in these pages from a guy describing how he installed one) is one mod you could do to your ride that doesn't shout look how thrifty I am!

31 in the city. Nice work, man.