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.

Belated welcome to the forum! Congrats on the Fit - I bet it's fun to drive.

Also, a well-driven manual should spank even the higher rated CVT in city/combined driving.

Need more info there!

I find city eco-driving/hypermiling way more interesting because you can dramatically improve your fuel economy while keeping the same average speed as an inefficient driving style.

And it's far more engaging.

Out on the highway, the major fuel saving technique for most drivers is speed reduction. (Or drafting, but I won't do that for many reasons.)

Admittedly I'm pretty new to fuel-efficient driving so my lack of enjoyment trying to improve my fuel economy in the city may be the result of just not knowing how to go about it. Generally I accelerate quickly to my cruising speed and then cruise in the highest gear possible for the situation. That said, the best I can get in this car (rated 29mpg city) is probably 32 - avoiding all drive-thrus of course.
Before the oil change, I wasn't getting more than 29.

You're right about the highway. It's generally boring, but then again I don't try to have real fun on the highway anyway - cruising along at 80mph isn't really any more fun than cruising at 70-75. I just adjust my speed to try to keep it in the 45mpg range on the little fuel efficiency indicator in the car and figure that's probably the best I can do without doing anything dumb like drafting or turning the car off.

How accurate is your dashboard MPG display? Have you compared it against full fill-ups?

It's never any more than 1.5 mpg off, and it's always optimistic compared to what I actually get at the pump. So if it says I got 40mpg for a tank, the worst case scenario is that I got 38.5mpg.

That's pretty respectable, at around a 4% max error based on your current 90 day average.

The last couple of cars with factory gauges I've checked (Mitsu Mirage, Nissan Micra) have also been in the 4% range. Maybe the manufacturers are getting away from the stereotypical lie-o-meter approach.

sub'd for oil inspection results :)

To tide you over, here are the virgin oil analysis results ;)

http://i62.tinypic.com/105zm6v.jpg

Here's the UOA. Sample taken with 5,802 mi on the oil with Blackstone's sample pump (works great). MM reading 50% oil life remaining. I plan on running some 0W-20 Sustina I have left for the next OCI after putting at least a couple thousand more miles on this stuff. Then I'll likely return to it after running the Sustina.

http://i58.tinypic.com/5kecuf.jpg

Wow, that iron level is shockingly low. Mine was at 32 after 6500 miles (first oil change on the Cruze). Maybe that's explained by the fact that I have an iron block but yours is AL? But then I would expect to see more AL in your sample, and there isn't much more. Is this a full synthetic oil?

I'm curious. Does anybody else have other ideas? Maybe Chevys come a little tighter from the factory.

http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/attac...comparison.png

Wait, I see now that this wasn't your first oil change. That probably explains it...

Thanks for the comments - unfortunately I don't really know as I'm not familiar enough with Chevys or what sort of wear numbers are typical for them. All I can say is that I think my wear numbers are fairly low even if they aren't the factory full numbers - I've still got less than 10K on the clock altogether, so still technically in the break-in period.

Hmmm..... I thought that even the Aluminum blocks had steel cylinder liners? I believe my 2009 Toyota 1NZ-FE engine has the "spiney" type liners which twist lock into the Aluminum block. It would be or should be the steel liner which give account for a higher iron content during break in. The other difference is that Honda and Toyota both use a private patented micro-polishing process on liners, pistons, wrist pins, and cams and crank bearings, which GM does not use. I believe they have another process altogether.

Depends on the block, chevies are just all aluminum for the ls1, typically over 800hp they switch to an iron block

Hondas are sleeved blocks but I can't recall sleeve materials as I believe it was done primarily for cooling and not for strength so I'm guessing aluminum sleeves

0w8 would be too thin in the heat here.

It's already been driven in 90+ degree days often, and yet the UOA is great. Temperatures here are frequently 100+, especially in the summer, so I suppose we'll find out how it holds up. The next change will be Sustina 0W-20 though, since I have some left over. Then back to the Ultra Next.