Boring, mundane question. But this is the first time I've ever got substantially below EPA estimates on any car. No matter what I do I get about 18-22 mpg with this car. I once got 25 on a long highway trip. The dealership is a good one, having never given me reason to doubt them before. But they keep telling me lame stuff about tire pressures (I'm running 32 front / 30 rear like it says in the manual and in the door jamb. I adjust as often as practical, given how often the danged temperatures are changing up and down this winter.) and driving habits -- blah, blah, blah. Car has about 4500 miles on it now with about a 50/50 mix of highway and around town miles on it. I've had the oil changed twice. (I do this at least every three months, regardless of miles driven. Old habits are hard to break.)

Is this cause for concern (other than the money)? Is there something the dealership could do to find out if there's a problem with this particular car? I am using 87 octane unleaded Sunoco. I have tried up to 94 octane with no appreciable change, just for kicks. The engine and tranny behave just fine, with no hesitation / surging / pinging / other glitches I can detect. A mechanic at the dealership supposedly drove it around awhile and noticed nothing amiss. But 20 mpg? Whillikers! My wife wanted a CR-V or Element, and lets me know at every opportunity that we could have got one of those and done as well with the mileage!

Any suggestions?

 

hey yea your tire pressure is critical to your gas mileage. also the weight of your car makes a big difference. sounds like you may live in a snowy state. if you have 2,3,4 hundred pounds of ice caked on your car, its like pulling a trailer around. plus one more thing. sounds like its a new car. brand new cars get ****ty gas mileage until they are completely broken in, about 7-10k miles.

 

Yes. I should have been a little more clear about that. I'm quite a bit more finnicky than the average person about tire pressures. I check them (cold) at least once per week, and adjust them to deal with environmental changes. It's just annoying that no one at the dealership can offer me something I don't know. I've always bought new cars, and I've always met or exceeded the EPA estimates. (Well, since the EPA existed and started doing the estimates. I've been driving a lot longer than that.)

It's just frustrating that I can't seem to do anything to improve mileage on this car. I tried driving two tanks full fairly aggressively (not hammering, but not being miserly) to see if it would make any difference. I got 19.5 mpg on one tank and 21.2 on the other. Otherwise, I drive like a little blue-haired lady. I let the car idle off the start, and I just use slightly leading throttle to accelerate. I'm careful to coast down as gradually as possible, no tailgating, no sudden throttle position changes...

Nothing makes any difference. I get between 18 and 22 mpg with this car, regardless of what I do. On all of my cars, when new or broken in, I have always at least managed the expected mileage. There's some snow, but I don't let it stick under (or on top of) the car. It has been a rather warm winter, with a variance between normal temps and 20-30 degrees above normal.

The dealership is an outstanding one. I've never seen them at a loss to explain an anomaly like this before. I wonder if there's a service bulletin that might cover this. I guess that will be my next question to the dealership.

I like the car a lot. That's saying a lot. The Accord is a supremely "adequate" car in so many different ways. Obviously, this is not a sports/GT car. I'm used to cars that are very strong in sporting characteristics, and somewhat compromised in the creature comforts. (My wife says I like a buckboard ride.) I guess I'm finally getting old. But this is truly a fine car, overall. But the mileage thing, and a couple of weird things like electric windows that work most of the time and don't work at other times, are bothering me a bit. I'm quite aware of Honda's reputation for reliability. I don't know anyone else with one who has had these sorts of concerns -- especially with cars from this dealership.

I think we're all aware that an occasional sub-par vehicle makes it through the assembly line from almost any manufacturer on the planet. And, frankly, even with its present shortcomings, this is a nice car to drive. (Not to mention one HECK of a lot cheaper than the stuff I usually drive.)

 

My 2003 4cyl accord kind of has similar problem. It also has really low mpg. the honda service mechanic people say driving habit, cold weather blah,blah,blah as you heard from them. They also say I have to write the history of mpg, so i'm marking the mileages per the full tank. Ant I hope they will figure out what is the problem... Good luck !

 

Yes, I've kept a history of mileage for every tank since purchasing the car. I also annotate the history with the type of driving that has been done on each tank of gas. There has been no appreciable change in mileage from when I first purchased the car (warm weather, August) to now (highly variable weather, February). There were a couple of months in the middle of that period during which almost all miles were driven around town and not on the highway. I got the same mileage then as I got during the periods when I did a lot of highway driving. I tried two tanks full with somewhat more aggressive acceleration and driving, and that made less than 1 mpg difference. The car seems to be indifferent as to how it is driven, insofar as gas mileage is concerned.

I don't know whether or not a malfunctioning automatic transmission control would be a likely culprit. The transmission certainly seems to shift at appropriate points with none of the back-and-forth gear switching that used to be so annoying in automatics. I never notice it dropping to a lower gear and running the engine inappropriately fast or delaying an upshift except when demand is being made at the throttle.

But I'm not an expert on automatic trannies. This is only the second car I've ever owned that had an automatic transmission, and I've been buying (frequently) and driving cars for about fifty years.

 

i just got a new sentra the other day. like 6 months ago lol , and it was getting the ****tiest mileage ever like 24 when i know its supposed to get about 35. now that it has 9000 miles on it and im running mobil 1 it easily gets 31 driven hard.

 

I got same problem with 2000 accord my mileage is like 18-20 mpg city but on high way is wonderfull i just dont get it i run about 900 kilometers with a thank on highway and 350 t0 400 city.

 

Your very low total mileage of 4500 miles for a 2005 suggests many short trips where car never fully warms to operating temp. If this is the case, then mileage around 20 mpg or less would be realistic. This type of operation is not good for the engine either, and could lead to sludge in the valve train and crankcase. Very frequent (no more than every 2nd month perhaps oil changes would be necessary to get rid of moisture-contaminated oil.

I get 25-27 mpg w/ my 94Ex which hasn't changed for years on a mix of freeway/street driving of about 45-60 mins of total driving each work day. A long drive at 60-70 mph will yield just over 30 mpg.

good luck