2004 Honda Element...oh The Shame

[michaelburke]

I just joined and would like to do something about my horrid mileage (18 mpg around town). I have tried modifying my driving habits and can get only a mile or two per gallon from changing my style (honestly, I am trying). I have read that changing out the air filter to a K & N helps. I am looking at lowering it and adding a pan or skirt to the front. Anyone have any experience with these boxes?

[SVOboy]

Someone on here has one as well. Forget what he's getting, but I think it's better than you.

Welcome to the site!

[bbgobie]

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/view/365
A lot better
=)

Take some time to read around.

[Bill in Houston]

Hi, I have an Element as well. It is a 2wd 5-speed. Or as we say in Element-speak SOPEXS2WD5MT

What is yours? Do you have the stock tires and wheels?

I don't put much stock in the K&N or a CAI.

I think lowering might be good if you can stand the ride.

I put an air dam and front pan on mine. It behaves better on the freeway and in crosswinds but I am not convinced that my mileage is better. My dam may be too big. I am planning on putting on a belly pan soon to try to smooth things out over the gas tank.

I'm sure that you can improve your mileage a bunch if you hang out here some and listen to what these great folks have to say.

Welcome aboard. And there is no shame. The only shame would be if you didn't care at all.

Bill

[Gary Palmer]

Welcome to GasSavers:

I don't know what sort of epa ratings the Element has.

One thing I do know is that it's unlikely that you will be able to get better mileage, until your aware of what you are currently getting and your interested in trying.

One difficulty is that as you make changes, they are usually percentage changes. If your starting out from a base of 18, around town, then even if you have a 10% improvement, it's only going to amount to 1.8 mpg. If you were at 30, then you would see a 3mpg improvement.

A big challenge is that it's a box on wheel's.

I would get a scangauge, before I even considered anything else, just so you can see what your doing, how it's working, what seems to help, what doesn't seem to help. Their are other things you can do, but until you get a tool to help you figure out what you can do to improve the driver, everything else you do is going to be an extended, blind exercise, where it is hard to draw conclusions and easy to become discouraged or disallousioned.

Glad to have you.

[Bill in Houston]

Michael, are you still here? How's it going?

[budomove]

i drove an 03 4wd auto for about 5 months. k&n stole about 1mpg. 21mpg with normal accel, 22.5 with really slow accel. sometimes there is no diff in mpg, regardless of driving style. great functional car, terrible fe...and there is nothing you can do. the 5spd is prolly much easier to squueze mpg out of though. good luck with the rolling toaster!