New 2015 Honda Fit MT for me!
 

Hey guys. In February I traded in my 2005 Civic 5MT and bought a new 2015 Fit EX 6MT. I had driven some of the previous-gen Fits and liked how practical they were while still being fun to drive. This one has certainly been refined a fair bit, but I still think it's fun to drive which is quite important to me.

Driving for fuel economy is relatively new for me, and really coincided with buying the aforementioned Civic a little over a year ago. Warning though: even though I am looking to optimize my fuel economy a fair bit, I definitely won't wind up as hardcore as many of the members here are about it.

My MPG in the Civic seemed to be consistently in the 37-38 mpg range on a tank, and I drove the thing quite hard except for on the highway or long drives where I'd concentrate more on my MPG. Although when I had the Civic I drove about 80% highway because of my work commute, and these days it's split about 50-50. With that change, and with the new car not being quite as good on gas as the Civic probably was, I think my best full tank so far with the Fit was about 34 mpg. On flat highway trips up to OC or LA I've gotten as 42mpg for the trip and back.

I made a couple of changes in the past week: I removed some excess weight, and did my first oil change on the car. In Japan, every new Fit - including the models with the same L15B engine as we get in America - is approved to run Honda's 0w-16 and 0w-8 oils. I'm running the 0w-8 now in hopes of further reducing internal resistance and getting a little more fuel efficiency out of the engine. I've definitely seen an increase thus far but will have to drive more to see just how much better it is. I'll be doing a UOA next month to get an idea of how the oil holds up over 5K miles, and if it looks good I'll continue for a while until I've got enough miles on the car to do another UOA and get an idea for how the engine is wearing with the ultra-lightweight oil.

Anyways, that's where I'm at now. I look forward to reading up and seeing how much I can squeeze out of this car without doing anything too drastic. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the site.

What kind of mileage are you getting with the Fit?

Sorry if I didn't make that clear. In the Fit, given that now I drive a lot more city miles than I used to, my best full tank was only about 34mpg. On flat highway trips I can get up to 42mpg. These numbers are before the slight changes I made last week so I'm hoping I can improve upon them a fair bit! I think the EPA rating is 32mpg combined with the manual.

Woops, missed that part. :)

Do you have a goal in mind? Mods in mind?

No problem! :thumbup: Frankly, I'd be happy if I can get relatively consistent results in the ~40mpg neighborhood. I think this may be doable with the weight savings, low-friction engine oil, and some more practice driving for fuel efficiency.

I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I'm already getting more like 36-37mpg (compared with 34mpg before) with those minor changes. I won't continue to run the 0W-8 if it shows unsatisfactory results in the wear department though. I'd probably move up to 0W-16 at that point.

Looks like a cool car especially that it has the new generation Earth Dreams engine with direct injection.

Thanks Mauricio! Really love the CR-Z by the way. I drove one a little while back and found it to be a blast.

I really like the L15B "Earth Dreams" engine in this car. Plenty of power for what it is, and fairly efficient to boot. Honda still knows how to make a fun car when they want to.

Slight update.

Since removing some weight, switching to 0W-8 engine oil, and trying to drive a bit more efficiently, I improved on a personal-best MPG for a trip I take every couple weeks. My previous best had been 42mpg for the trip, and this time I got right about 45.5mpg. About 80% highway driving.

Getting 40mpg on a tank still looks pretty daunting. I tend to do at best 50-50 city/highway miles, and I struggle to get much more than 30mpg in the city. I'm not good at efficient city driving, nor do I even enjoy it. Most of my eco-driving is on long highway trips.

Wait, 0W-8 engine oil?
You've got a story to tell there...?
EDIT missed it in your first post - sorry.
Found this link on thin oil: http://www.gf-6.com/way-to-better-fuel-economy

I use Honda Green oil in mine, and that helped me a lot this winter. Honda Green Oil does not come with a grade but I suppose it would be '-5'W20 as its cold spec is much better than ordinary 0W20.

Anyway, the Fit is a nice car with very good FE potential.
I was in the market for a Fit Hybrid when my Insight came along with a deal I could not refuse :)

The Insight is a nice car! I wish we got the Fit Hybrids over here because I would've been very tempted to go for that.

The Honda Ultra Green oil will probably actually be called "0W-16" eventually. I'm using Honda Ultra Next, which similarly has no SAE grade for the time being, but should fall in line with the new 0W-8 classification. I don't know if there are plans to have lower 'W' numbers but it's possible!

I had a virgin oil analysis done on the Ultra Next, and it is incredibly thin and has a lot of moly for friction reduction. l'll have an analysis done on the used oil when I get back from a 4k mile road trip next month to see how it held up. If for any reason the 0W-8 seems to provide inadequate protection I'd probably switch to the same 0W-16 Green oil you use.