[ramanak]

Originally Posted by rr_zen

Hey vasoo, what a coincidence. I too did some hyper-miling last weekend on ECR from Pondy to Chennai (half way only though) and maintained speeds between 70-80kmph and was pleasantly surprised to see the MID show 19.7 kmpl. If not for my impatience to stick to those speeds, I am sure it would have touched 20 kmpl. I had two adults, 2 children and 1 pup in the car with 33psi on the tyres.

Originally Posted by vasoo

See the picture below from my latest FE drive while going on NH7 south of Bangalore. I maintained the RPM below 2000 whenever possible and speeds below 100 kmph throughout the 121 kms. I was using a/c 100% of time and had 3 passengers in the car with tyre pressure at 34 psi.

Hi, My V A/T gave 19.45 kmpl on the vellore -krishnagiri stretch during an early morning drive without the a/c while driving at 80 kmpl at 1500 rpm.I maintain tyre pressure of 32 PSI on stock tyres.Is n't 33/34 PSI too high? Does Cruise control give even better FE?

Cheers.

[vasoo]

Originally Posted by ramanak

Hi, My V A/T gave 19.45 kmpl on the vellore -krishnagiri stretch during an early morning drive without the a/c while driving at 80 kmpl at 1500 rpm.I maintain tyre pressure of 32 PSI on stock tyres.Is n't 33/34 PSI too high? Does Cruise control give even better FE?

Cheers.

It should be possible to get better FE. But its too difficult to maintain RPMs at that level for long. Tyre pressure at 34psi is absolutely not an issue. I sometimes bump it up to 36psi while going on long drives with full load. My tyres are Michelin Primacy LC, which is made of pretty soft compound. It don't feel very harsh even with fairly high pressure.

CC will not give better FE since it may downshift and/or makes the engine work harder to maintain the speed at different road conditions. If we do it our self, we can afford to go a bit slower or take off the legs from gas pedal in some situations which will help save more fuel.

[manim]

Originally Posted by ramanak

Hi, My V A/T gave 19.45 kmpl on the vellore -krishnagiri stretch during an early morning drive without the a/c while driving at 80 kmpl at 1500 rpm.

Great!

I got a max of 17 kmpl, and regularly 15+ kmpl on 4-lane highways at steady 85 kmph.

[dot]

Originally Posted by vasoo

My tyres are Michelin Primacy LC, which is made of pretty soft compound. It don't feel very harsh even with fairly high pressure.

Agreed. I try to maintain 35-36 psi (hot condition) on Primacy LCs and the ride quality does not suffer at all, unlike the stock NCT5s.

[jatinpatel]

@vasoo and dot

aint it risky to keep high pressures on soft compound tires?
cause high pressure means more stress and more contact between the middle treads much like tire bulging out from center.
Owing to which more stress concentration at center and since these are soft compund tires it will result in more ware and tear.

Safe bet to get good FE as well as tire life is to stick to 31-33.IMHO

[sgiitk]

There is a range of about 4psi which should be Ok. If the pressure is too high the wear will be predominantly on the crown (middle) of the tread. If too low then it will be on the outside. As long as wear is uniform do not bother too much.

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by manim

Great!

I got a max of 17 kmpl, and regularly 15+ kmpl on 4-lane highways at steady 85 kmph.

Do you get this with the a/c on all the time ?

I understand that the Civic has a drive by wire technology. ie unlike older generation cars there is no accelrator cable rather there is some sensor or something(not sure) which measures the pressure on the pedal etc and gives the input to the throttle (i hope i am right).

Now when i start the car , i am sometimes try to rev the car after a while ie the needle rests at the <1K mark and i find that there is a slight hestitation in the rpm moving up.It it because there is delay in getting feedback from the gas pedal to the engine because of the drive by wire thingy?

[manim]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Do you get this with the a/c on all the time ?

Nowadays I drive with AC 100% of the time.

I use my Civic only on the highways, so can manage to average 15+ kmpl over long distances. I resist the urge to overtake (tough!). I have trained myself subconsciously to NOT use the brakes as much as possible, so I have to anticipate traffic.

I record my fuel consumed in the spreadsheet and try to beat my earlier records. This motivates me to hypermile.

(My last 6,000 kms were done with 417 litres giving 14.4 kmpl).

[dot]

Originally Posted by jatinpatel

@vasoo and dot

aint it risky to keep high pressures on soft compound tires?

Safe bet to get good FE as well as tire life is to stick to 31-33.IMHO

Jatin, I am following this habit with Michelins for the last 4-5 years. Have not faced any issues so far. Normally the air is topped during cold conditions at 33 psi. This translates to 35-36 psi during normal driving conditions.

Was reading on the forum somewhere that reducing tyre pressure on the Civic makes it more prone to bottom scrapping. Maybe maintaining higher tyre pressure is one reason Scorponok does not bottom scrap. I dont remember experiencing bottom scrapping in the last 6 months.

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

I understand that the Civic has a drive by wire technology. ie unlike older generation cars there is no accelrator cable rather there is some sensor or something(not sure) which measures the pressure on the pedal etc and gives the input to the throttle (i hope i am right).

Now when i start the car , i am sometimes try to rev the car after a while ie the needle rests at the <1K mark and i find that there is a slight hestitation in the rpm moving up.It it because there is delay in getting feedback from the gas pedal to the engine because of the drive by wire thingy

You are right about the drive-by-wire technology. Is your observation of this hesitation to rev during cold start conditions?

[idofsuresh]

The best I have managed to get in my A/T Civic in 4 lane highways is 14 kmpl when I first got my car. At present I am more interested to work the rpm meter than kmpl. A spirited drive in sports mode gave me around 10.1 kmpl last time.

The engine mount gave up 2 days before at 55,000 kms and set me back by Rs 8000 including labor. Looks like it is not an uncommon problem in Civic. Apart from that the car is going great.

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by dot

You are right about the drive-by-wire technology. Is your observation of this hesitation to rev during cold start conditions?

Yes ,
its during cold start conditions when i tap the pedal to rev the engine a bit (max 2k).I also have noticed a slight delay between the responsivness of the engine and pressing the gas pedal sometimes.Hoewever this happens only on gentle push of the pedal.Push the pedal hard and believe me there is no hesitation whatsover .

[dot]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Yes ,
its during cold start conditions when i tap the pedal to rev the engine a bit (max 2k).I also have noticed a slight delay between the responsivness of the engine and pressing the gas pedal sometimes.Hoewever this happens only on gentle push of the pedal.Push the pedal hard and believe me there is no hesitation whatsover

I can understand. The ECU has different maps for different input conditions which includes how fast or hard the accelerator is being pressed, what is the temperature of the engine etc. This delay should not be present if the engine is at optimum operating temperature.

[civic-sense]

My civic has developed a rattling sound (a cluck-cluck-cluck sound) from somewhere under the rear side, when I take a turn over a bad patch of road. Nothing, if I am going straight, or if I am taking a turn on a good road. I have been hearing it for almost a year now, but lately it seems to be a bit more pronounced. Sometimes I feel that the rear tires' are failing to grip the road properly during the turn, causing something there to rattle. Not easy to diagnose, though. Has anybody gone through anything similar? Planning a 1500km long drive at the end of the month.

Thanks!

[spadix]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

My civic has developed a rattling sound (a cluck-cluck-cluck sound) from somewhere under the rear side, when I take a turn over a bad patch of road. ... Has anybody gone through anything similar?

I (or rather, my Civic) is going through something similar. It started sometime before its 3rd service (early Feb. '11).

It started off as a mild clunk from the front right wheel when turning over a bad patch of road, specifically dips in the road. Then it started occurring on humps as well as dips. Slowly it started occurring even when the car goes straight, but only over a certain speed. In time, the same thing developed albeit to a much lesser extent on the front left wheel as well.

With great difficulty I got Pride Honda in Hyderabad to "hear" the sound some 2 visits and 8k kms later. By that time I had to relocate to Gurgaon and I couldn't leave the car with them for as long as they wanted to diagnose and fix this issue. Ring Road Honda in Gurgaon has (in 1 visit only so far) not been able to fix it either. I doubt if either A.S.S. even looked at it in detail. In my case they have ruled out engine mount failure. In your case this shouldn't even apply considering it's the rear wheel you're hearing it from.

Lalu (laluks) had a similar problem with his Civic. After a lot of diagnosis and determination he narrowed it down a loosely mounted metal fluid canister in the engine bay area. But once again that's in the front of the car and not rear.

Have you checked the stepney and tool kit area of your car and verified that nothing is loose there?

Regards,
spadix

[dot]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

My civic has developed a rattling sound (a cluck-cluck-cluck sound) from somewhere under the rear side, when I take a turn over a bad patch of road.

Is it possible that the one of the rear calipers is loose? To find out if they are, you can try to drive the car with slight pressure on the brake pedal. If the sound goes away, then the calipers are most likely loose. It can be tightened easily by any auto garage.