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Found this thread at TOV:

http://www.vtec.net/forums/one-message?message_id=557986

It's nothing special, just confirms that the US-spec Fit is way undergeared for FE driving. You can bet that none of these guys are driving particularly efficiently, of course. The one glimmer of hope is the German guy who posted his mileage:


Only inner city 37 mpg, 60 mph cruising at 1500rpm 54 mpg,
actually thats with our honda jazz in germany with cvt and 22000 miles on it


I want to shift my own gears, but that tall gearing sure does sound nice! Anybody hear if Honda has plans to cell the CVT version in the US?

are they using us mpg or uk mpg?

Maybe related, I saw a brand new red Yaris in the parking lot.

lol a honda fit to compete agaist the hchII is not a good idea in honda's book ;)

espically when the price is quite a few thoursands cheaper! no wait more than 5!

yeah if they only had a manual that allowed you to get under 2000 rpms at 60 mph... all the manuals i've driven never got to that state (duh manual is meant to be faster, its rare to see a manual tuned for efficency... maybe in the olden days) and the automatics on the highway rpms are wayyyy lower than any 5th or 6th gear offered by manuals.

sad but true.

Hi Phil:

___If you are thrashing a MT for performance, you would never ever see fifth gear in it anyway. Look up Psy’s 0 - 60 vids in his EX and it will tell you all you need to know wrt what gears are churned and burned when running stop light to stop light vs. what gears we all use for maximum FE. A low torque - Atkinson intake lobe with a tall fifth and final could make the Fit an incredible highway cruiser but not saddled with 5 and 6 year old 1.5 and geared to buzz :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

IMO, the difinitive fuel economy thread is over on fitfreak.net:

http://www.fitfreak.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3990

Most folks with the manual transmission seem to be in the mid 30's, which is pretty good, all things considered. There is one guy in there that got mid 40's. He claimed to be a former Insight owner and achieved that FE by using as many hypermiling techniques as his patience could stand.

Hi Brandon:

___Mid 40’s from a Fit rated at 31/38 is a gimme. The problem? A 50 - 55 mpg Fit could be a 60 - 65 mpg Fit for all of $250 worth of design changes :( Hybrids have a 20 - 25% premium for maybe 20 - 25% increase in FE. Is a 15% increase in FE worth an incredibly small 1.6% premium in the case of the Honda Fit? Honda must have thought that increase was not worth it for whatever idiotic reason?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

^^ well unfortantely people buy hondas for their reliablity and good pickup speed, fuel efficency comes last it seems.

by the way my car is 2700 rpms for 60 mph and i can usually get 50 mpg plus on the instant FE scangauge. 60 and more if i decided to drop my speed down to the mid 40mph's area.

so who knows? all i know is a gut feeling of mine says at least it can get the same city mpg as I or better.

Hi Brandon:

___Mid 40’s from a Fit rated at 31/38 is a gimme. The problem? A 50 - 55 mpg Fit could be a 60 - 65 mpg Fit for all of $250 worth of design changes :( Hybrids have a 20 - 25% premium for maybe 20 - 25% increase in FE. Is a 15% increase in FE worth an incredibly small 1.6% premium in the case of the Honda Fit? Honda must have thought that increase was not worth it for whatever idiotic reason?

___Good Luck

___WayneI can only assume you are ignoring the fact that the design goals for the Honda Fit were set in the late 1990's when gas was under $1/gallon in the USA. In fact the decision to bring it to the US had to be made a minimum of 24 months in advance, which would again peg it at some point in 2004, before anyone really had knowledge that $3/gas prices were not just on the way, they were to become the new norm.

Honda is notoriously cheap about vehicle designs. They put a car out there and don't touch or upgrade a single aspect of it for its entire lifetime. We've seen this with every car they've ever sold. Upgrades and changes are only done with full redesigns, and the Fit isn't due until next year. They probably ran the numbers and realized they'd sell every Fit they can make for the next 18 months even without the costly changes of offering a taller final drive in the manual version of the Fit.

Honda is just like Toyota and every other automaker - they're in it for the money. They sell every single Fit they have the ability to make, so why would they spend even a single extra dollar figuring out how to add capacity for an different transmission for the 1.5 liter Fit? They make more money by giving us the same transmission as the 1.5 liter comes with everywhere else in the world. The fact that Honda is so incredibly profitable is the only reason they can afford hybrid R&D in the first place. I imagine the next generation Fit, which unless it's like the Corolla and gets shoved back a year, is due in showrooms by fall of 2007. It will likely have improved fuel efficiency over the current generation.

Hi Brandon:

___This is pretty simple in my book. The Toyota Corolla was designed back in the late 90’s, hit the pavement in late 02 and hits 60 in less then 8.5 seconds while delivering 32/41. And it is not running anywhere near 3K RPM’s at 60 mph!

___Just because the average “Fit” purchaser hasn’t a clue as to how they are getting shortchanged doesn’t mean I will not be telling them about it. The 8th gen Civic is much more powerful, better handling, safer, and has a higher FE capability both around town and especially out on the highway. The 1.3 with the HCH-II’s CVT is an exact drop in as they do sell this over in Europe. The European Jazz/Fit. Except Honda played with the ratios over there too so as to not show up the HCH-II in the FE department? Now why would Honda spend the money to differentiate the Euro Fit’s performance and FE capability from the HCH-II when it would be cheaper to drop in the same drivetrain and mechanical’s right off the bat? The Asian based Fit/Jazz has the 1.5 but uses a 7 speed mode/CVT. Where did Honda find the money to design and place the NA based Fit’s Auto tranny? Do you know how much money that costs over and above a straight drop in?

___The next gen Corolla’s release date … The press release Toyota put out was BS. The Toyota insider’s said redesign immediately when the new Civic was finally made public.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

In general, 90% of vehicles are sold with an automatic and 10% are sold with a manual. That's where they found the money to design an automatic for the Fit and leave the manual alone. The Fit Sport was really an afterthought anyway. It was designed for the 1.0 and 1.3 liter engines and for the Japanese / European market. They had to design a whole new cylinder head for the 1.5 liter, ditch the twin-plug design, and gave it a short ratio transmission. It was a car with a whole different mission, basically. The fact that we got the Sport model (although funny enough it's called both the base and sport here, since we don't get the true base engines) is how we ended up in this bizzare situation.

When was the last time you saw Honda launch a vehicle in the US that had a shelf life of 18 months? I can't think of it ever happening, actually, although I don't doubt there must have been some point where they did such a thing. They gave us basically the best thing they could quickly crank out for extremely limited sales. Limited both because they are short on production capacity for the Fit and short because it would be very unlikely that it goes past next fall for the fully redesigned model.

I love the Fit, but obviously I haven't purchased one. As I've said several times the only thing holding me back is the drivetrain. The engine's power and torque are fine, but the fuel efficiency just isn't quite there, plus the gearing is so short that it only complicates the problem further in both NVH and FE. If my HX blew up tomorrow, I'd just buy a Fit and get it over with, but I'd probably end up trading it in next fall if Honda really gets the 2nd generation Fit right like I'm hoping they will.

As for the Corolla, never in the 30 year history of that car have they stretched it in to a 6th year of production. That is not by accident - either they have a HUGE ace up their sleeve or they are just laughing their asses off because its sales have gone up tremendously this year over last year in spite of it being the oldest design of the current crop of subcompact sedans. Toyota is pretty much unbeatable right now and the fact they could ignore the Corolla for another year is just like they're rubbing it in for all the other automakers how good they are.

Im not a fit fan at all. But I dont think a taller gear in it is practical. You get that bread box loaded down and Im sure it will labor with it current gear.

I was in a 06 Civic EX Sedan today like mine. But it had a AT in it. Myself and the driver was 500 pounds. His tools and my tools plus all he travels with, and it was all it wanted. The tq wouldnt stayed locked in situations like say our Accord will. These littke engines just dont have any tq.

I know on our recent PHX trip with the awful winds we had, if the car had been geared much higher I would have had to put it in fourth gear alot.

Im not a fan of ubber high final drive ratios in small cars. They just dont seem to have the guts to grunt around. Heck they have mega air bags in them. Power this and that. There bigger than ever. Even the Fit has some size to it. Im mean my civic has 6 or 8 air bags in it. Ive lost count! These car are getting heavy for tin can economy cars.

I would be much more in favor of lean burn, eco cam lobes at cruising speeds and the like, than a tall finale drive gear.

Folks want safety, folks want creature comforts, folks want hp, on and on and on. Im glad i dont build cars. Its got to be a nightmare even getting a car close enough to good to support major bitching about. :)

I guess I'm just used to downshifting all the time when going over mixed terrain anyway since there's a lot of hilly/mountain areas in northern Arizona and on the way to San Diego. It wouldn't really make any difference to me to drop from 6th to 4th rather than 5th to 4th.

Still, I hope they are doing something to improve the FE of the next generation of Fit, and I hope it really is coming out next fall. They may just go the route of a bigger motor and more power though. Seriously, I can't spend more than 10 minutes in the forums at fitfreak.com because it seems that 98% of their buyers are illiterate, childish street racers or something with total ignorance for the world around them. That would likely be reason #1 why it was "good enough" as it is, to sell in the US for a short time.

My last tank yielded 44 MPG. It's a sport auto. Average since new is 37.4 MPG. I dont do anything special other that follow the speed limits and try to minimize A/C and heavy braking. It's a fun little car. (I came from a Mercury Grand Marquis, 23MPG)

Wow, a continuously variable transmission which mimics seven sequential forward gears sounds very sexy. I've never heard of that before, but I wish I had it. I drive like a grandma anyway and I don't need 0-60 in 4.5 seconds (but I wouldn't mind a Tesla).

I'm really starting to believe hybrids have a TON of potential and have just been dumbed down drastically to make it look as if they are in it's infancy or they are just a gimmick. They can make normal petrol powered cars that can get the same FE as a hybrid yet they still try to make 2 door coupes with 200hp. They can make both, but why give people an option.

I just did some testing on my Honda Fit at southerncannuck's request and it's interesting, but not super accurate:
58 mph = 48mpg
68 mph = 38mpg
+/- 2 or 3mpg accuracy on these? The trend is accurate, but the individual numbers may not be.
AC = 2mpg hit at 58 or 68mph (even less accuracy on this, but it's not a big hit).
I don't have cruise control, so this was keeping the speed as steady as I can by the odometer. Aiming for 60 I got 58 mph, for 70 I got 68 mph.
Numbers are from the SGII, measured over around 5 miles.
This was on the flattest road I drove on this month--stretches with less than 100' elevation change, and I tried to measure over the flattest of these (maybe less than 50' change). This was the MassPike from Cambridge to Worcester.

The Fit auto is not a bad highway cruiser in the 55-65 mph range. Big hills are a big mpg killer for me. The AC is not as powerful as some I've had, but doesn't sap as much power as in my 2000 Civic HX (in the HX you could feel the loss of power to the AC).

I'll redo these numbers next weekend on a trip to CT on I84 (CT river valley is flat.) I'll try to record the elevation changes while I'm measuring.

Any recommendations on how to repeat these measurements for more accuracy?

--Walter

This was on the flattest road I drove on this month--stretches with less than 100' elevation change, and I tried to measure over the flattest of these (maybe less than 50' change). This was the MassPike from Cambridge to Worcester.
I drive from CT to Cambridge frequently and it seems to me the Mass Pike from Worcester to Cambridge is not flat. My impression is that it slopes generally downwards towards Cambridge, with a lot of rolling hills. I love driving it, especailly eastbound, because there are some wonderful long downhills I can FAS down. I grab some good mpg there.
I'll redo these numbers next weekend on a trip to CT on I84 (CT river valley is flat.) I'll try to record the elevation changes while I'm measuring.
I-84 does not follow the CT River valley, it cuts across the river at Hartford. There are some nasty mpg-robbing hills on it heading from Hartford towards Boston, and also west of Hartford.
Any recommendations on how to repeat these measurements for more accuracy?
--Walter
I'd suggest using I-91 north of Springfield, MA. It does follow the CT River Valley and as I recall there are some fairly long level stretches.

I drive from CT to Cambridge frequently and it seems to me the Mass Pike from Worcester to Cambridge is not flat. My impression is that it slopes generally downwards towards Cambridge,
You're right, it's not flat, but it's a lot flatter than the 1275' drop in elevation from home to Cambridge. The places I go regularly are just not flat.

I-84 does not follow the CT River valley, it cuts across the river at Hartford.
...
I'd suggest using I-91 north of Springfield, MA. It does follow the CT River Valley and as I recall there are some fairly long level stretches.
Even I91 is not completely level, but better than I84 except where it crosses the CT river valley. Maybe I'll go on I91; it's about 30-45min longer.

If there's anybody with a Fit, cruise control and a Scangauge, they'd get more accurate results than me.

--Walter

Thank you so very much! If you knew how happy I am to find out about the low loss due to a/c you would be shocked. 2 MPG, the a/c can come back on.

You might be right on everything else, but .. (probably are), but I have a 1996 Corolla. I also, at one time, had a Corona (sort of redone and made into the Camry), this was prior to that. Corolla was around since 1968. The current generation (9th?) came out in 2003. (Though truth be told they haven't changed that much since the last generation.)

See: http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/review.html

Gosh, never thought I'd become a gear head. :-)

--des

Hi Brandon:

___This is pretty simple in my book. The Toyota Corolla was designed back in the late 90’s, hit the pavement in late 02 and hits 60 in less then 8.5 seconds while delivering 32/41. And it is not running anywhere near 3K RPM’s at 60 mph!

___Just because the average “Fit” purchaser hasn’t a clue as to how they are getting shortchanged doesn’t mean I will not be telling them about it. The 8th gen Civic is much more powerful, better handling, safer, and has a higher FE capability both around town and especially out on the highway. The 1.3 with the HCH-II’s CVT is an exact drop in as they do sell this over in Europe. The European Jazz/Fit. Except Honda played with the ratios over there too so as to not show up the HCH-II in the FE department? Now why would Honda spend the money to differentiate the Euro Fit’s performance and FE capability from the HCH-II when it would be cheaper to drop in the same drivetrain and mechanical’s right off the bat? The Asian based Fit/Jazz has the 1.5 but uses a 7 speed mode/CVT. Where did Honda find the money to design and place the NA based Fit’s Auto tranny? Do you know how much money that costs over and above a straight drop in?

___The next gen Corolla’s release date … The press release Toyota put out was BS. The Toyota insider’s said redesign immediately when the new Civic was finally made public.

___Good Luck

___Wayne