How to get better gas mileage?

[cofetym]

Akhenax. No problems with my fuel gauge on the Pilot. The Pathfinder definitely had a problem. Replaced the fuel gauge twice and it never would read full. I thought it was just a Nissan thing.

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by 1stnflight

Does anyone know if they make a cold air intake filter for the Pilot? Will that improve gas mileage?

The Pilot already pulls in all the cold air it needs.

CAIs do nothing for mileage (and little for usable power)

[mikemcm]

I just got my best gas mileage of 23.3, all highway miles cruise control, speed from 60-75 mph, hilly, two adults, two kids plus gear. Quite impressed with this as this matches what I used to get in my 03 CRV. I average about 15 mpg at home and this is pure city miles and lots of babying. Any kind of fast driving drops it down to 13.

[buckeye7]

I got 23.5mpg on my 2005 EX-L. Going 80mph most of the way from Ohio to SC. I attribute it to my synthetic oil changes and using premium fuel. Not sure really how much that has to do with it but something is doing the trick.

[pete003]

drive barefoot..better feel for the gas pedal in city driving

[amburgs]

I have never gotten over 17 mpg. And I have noticed that the fuel gauge is off. At the half way point, I only have about a third of a tank instead of half. Doesn't matter, bought my pilot "on deep discount" in 2008 when gas was at $4.25 per gal and got 2.9% financing. 2005 EXL

[humanoid]

How many miles per tank do you get on average between fillups?

Originally Posted by amburgs

I have never gotten over 17 mpg. And I have noticed that the fuel gauge is off. At the half way point, I only have about a third of a tank instead of half. Doesn't matter, bought my pilot "on deep discount" in 2008 when gas was at $4.25 per gal and got 2.9% financing. 2005 EXL

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by humanoid

How many miles per tank do you get on average between fillups?

As many as I drive.

[rocky]

lol classic

If you want to get an idea of mpg from a variety of users go here. Browse All Honda Pilots | Fuelly

[theirishscion]

Originally Posted by rocky

Limiting yourself to 2000rpm will encourage a lighter touch on the throttle and surprising, you'll discover that you keep up with traffic.

This can definitely be helpful in saving fuel, but for me it came at a cost;

I bought a 2003 Ford Explorer new, and drove it terribly conservatively to spare the transmission and save a bit of fuel. I set 2000rpm as my ceiling for most non-merging acceleration and drove like that for the fat end of 80,000 miles. At which point my transmission went out.

My (trusted and much beloved) transmission guy rebuilt it for me, not a huge deal, but he asked me an interesting question when he gave it back;

"You've been babying it up to speed haven't you?"

"Um, yeah, a bit. I thought it'd be easier on the transmission and drivetrain that way" (I'd never owned or really driven an automatic before, this was just my best guess as to what it'd like)

"Well don't, you wore all the friction material off by forcing it to do slow/smooth/slurred shifts. Just accelerate firmly but steadily till you're up to speed."

That wasn't actually what had caused the transmission to fail, but apparently the friction material on the clutches and bands was largely gone in the 80,000 miles of very gentle driving I'd been doing.

Of course, that was a French built Ford 5R55W transmission which shares absolutely no common lineage with anything in your Honda. The Honda transmissions doesn't even have friction bands, though they do have plenty of clutches. My feeling is that much the same rules apply though, the more gently you accelerate, the more slipping you force the transmission to do in order to provide a smooth shift.

I get the impression that Honda have the transmissions programmed for fairly firm shifts right from the factory. My 2011 Pilot shifts firmer through every gear at every speed than my Ford ever did, even after it had its rebuild with quite an aggressive shift kit installed.

As I was having this work done shortly before buying my Pilot, I asked his opinion of the big Honda 5-speed. He said that once they got the shaft oiling problem sorted out, he mostly sees them for faulty sensors/solenoids, or normal wear and tear at astronomical mileages, which I found comforting. He did say that he would recommend a much more aggressive fluid change regime than Honda specify, not least because there's no fluid filter accessible to change. Apparently Honda hide lots of little filters throughout the transmission that can only be reached during a rebuild. He recommended every 20-25,000 miles, for what it's worth.

[cwa107]

Originally Posted by theirishscion

As I was having this work done shortly before buying my Pilot, I asked his opinion of the big Honda 5-speed. He said that once they got the shaft oiling problem sorted out, he mostly sees them for faulty sensors/solenoids, or normal wear and tear at astronomical mileages, which I found comforting. He did say that he would recommend a much more aggressive fluid change regime than Honda specify, not least because there's no fluid filter accessible to change. Apparently Honda hide lots of little filters throughout the transmission that can only be reached during a rebuild. He recommended every 20-25,000 miles, for what it's worth.

Not to get too far off-topic, but doesn't it amaze you that in this day and age, automatic transmissions still haven't improved to the point that they can be made to be reliable for the life of the engine?

I swore off automatics because of this for quite a few years until I got to the point where shifting for myself just got old (especially in stop-and-go traffic). But even as I assumed that automatics had gotten more reliable, it seems that they're still plagued by a variety of different problems. Who would have thunk that babying your car could lead to premature wear?

Anywho, it is encouraging to hear your friend's feedback on the Honda 5AT. Fingers crossed on my wife's Subaru CVT

[theirishscion]

Originally Posted by cwa107

Not to get too far off-topic, but doesn't it amaze you that in this day and age, automatic transmissions still haven't improved to the point that they can be made to be reliable for the life of the engine?

I swore off automatics because of this for quite a few years until I got to the point where shifting for myself just got old (especially in stop-and-go traffic). But even as I assumed that automatics had gotten more reliable, it seems that they're still plagued by a variety of different problems. Who would have thunk that babying your car could lead to premature wear?

Anywho, it is encouraging to hear your friend's feedback on the Honda 5AT. Fingers crossed on my wife's Subaru CVT

Well, I suppose it's reached the point that the vast majority of automatics will make it to 100,000 and quite a lot will make it to 150,000, which is fairly good, and is probably as long as most first owners will hold on to a car. From an engineering perspective, I feel they legitimately have a more difficult job to do. Friction is a thing you simply don't want in an engine, so from an engineering standpoint, you do everything you can to get rid of it. In a transmission though, friction is inevitable and necessary, and the smoother the transmission (as expected in this day and age) the more friction will be required. The DSG or automatic manual that VW and Audi and a variety of other (mostly euro) companies use look promising in the long term, but in the right here, right now, they've got a bit of a reputation for being reliability dogs. I don't know anything about the CVT that Subaru is using in your wife's car, but my transmission guy, when I asked about CVTs in Nissans, said "I rebuilt one from a Murano a couple years ago. Won't be doing that again. Link chain plates all over the workshop floor. Nightmare" I think he fixed it in the end, but it took him something like a week to do, the parts cost $1000, were harder to find than hens teeth, and he obviously felt it wasn't worth his time getting quicker at the process. He just don't work on 'em any more. 7 speed from a BMW 7 Series? Sure! Nissan CVT? Hell no! I'd say they have got the initial reliability pretty good on the CVTs now though, but I would be getting pretty nervous owning one outside 100,000 miles.

[cwa107]

Originally Posted by theirishscion

Well, I suppose it's reached the point that the vast majority of automatics will make it to 100,000 and quite a lot will make it to 150,000, which is fairly good, and is probably as long as most first owners will hold on to a car. From an engineering perspective, I feel they legitimately have a more difficult job to do. Friction is a thing you simply don't want in an engine, so from an engineering standpoint, you do everything you can to get rid of it. In a transmission though, friction is inevitable and necessary, and the smoother the transmission (as expected in this day and age) the more friction will be required. The DSG or automatic manual that VW and Audi and a variety of other (mostly euro) companies use look promising in the long term, but in the right here, right now, they've got a bit of a reputation for being reliability dogs. I don't know anything about the CVT that Subaru is using in your wife's car, but my transmission guy, when I asked about CVTs in Nissans, said "I rebuilt one from a Murano a couple years ago. Won't be doing that again. Link chain plates all over the workshop floor. Nightmare" I think he fixed it in the end, but it took him something like a week to do, the parts cost $1000, were harder to find than hens teeth, and he obviously felt it wasn't worth his time getting quicker at the process. He just don't work on 'em any more. 7 speed from a BMW 7 Series? Sure! Nissan CVT? Hell no! I'd say they have got the initial reliability pretty good on the CVTs now though, but I would be getting pretty nervous owning one outside 100,000 miles.

Well, since the wife's Subaru will be in the family for at least 7 years, we did go for the extended warranty. As such, it should be covered under warranty for that entire time.

Interestingly, we test drove an Altima and the Nissan dealer made it a point to tell us that the CVT had its own 100K mile warranty. We asked the Subaru dealer if they did the same, and they indicated Nissan's CVTs are belt driven, whereas Subaru's is link-chain driven. They implied that it was a better design. So, let's hope they weren't doing the typical sales pitch.

[theirishscion]

Originally Posted by cwa107

Well, since the wife's Subaru will be in the family for at least 7 years, we did go for the extended warranty. As such, it should be covered under warranty for that entire time.

Interestingly, we test drove an Altima and the Nissan dealer made it a point to tell us that the CVT had its own 100K mile warranty. We asked the Subaru dealer if they did the same, and they indicated Nissan's CVTs are belt driven, whereas Subaru's is link-chain driven. They implied that it was a better design. So, let's hope they weren't doing the typical sales pitch.

Huh! After some cursory research, I see you're right (an the dealer wasn't lying, amazingly enough.) I thought the current crop of mainstream CVTs all had a sort of crazy multi-plate metal "belt" in them. Those little tiny plates in the 'belt' are what the transmission guy was complaining about being all over his workshop floor. It looks like Fuji Heavy have done the same thing with a much more butch looking multilink chain. I've be very interested to see how reliable they turn out to be.

At any rate, the important thing here is that you have it thoroughly warrantied. Even if it turns out to be a good design, you're still a very early adopter. Heck, I bought the 8/120/0 warranty for the Pilot. My sense is that modern cars have such expensive components that it only takes one significant failure (the discounted price for just the LCD for the navigation system in my car is 967.57, or 1362.78 retail. That retail price is what I paid for the entire damn warranty) for the thing to pay for itself. I most certainly got my money's worth out of my 75K/mile warranty on my old explorer. Replaced the rear diff twice, which would have cost me over $1000 each time. Or course, it's now failing again, but them's the consequences.

(for anyone in the audience wondering about the terrible cross-topic drift going on here, hey, we're talking about CVTs now, they're great for fuel economy! Maybe have one retrofitted to your Pilot? )

[jonaz]

I got 6.7 mpg towing in a headwind, uphill, and about 5000 ft elevation- on two tank fulls. I never new a Honda could suck up so much gas! Normal towing I get about 9-10mpg. Non towing I usually get 14-15mpg city and about 19mpg highway. I bought my our Honda thinking good gas mileage for a 8 seater SUV and a decent tow vehicle for our trailer. It tows OK, but the gas mileage is definitely not outstanding, but its about the same as my old Ford Exploder.