Lousy fuel economy on new 2014 Accord sedan CVT
 

I've had my EX-L CVT Sedan for 3 1/2 weeks now and my fuel economy seems to be much lower than expected.
90% city driving.
461 miles on car

History from car's computer dash:
0.2 miles - 1.9 mpg (dealer)
119.7 miles - 19.6 mpg (some idle time while messing with functions)
165.1 miles - 21.6 mpg (hot August/early Sept with liberal use of AC)
176.1 miles - 22.1 mpg (current)

Filled up once and numbers were in line with above.

I drive fairly conservatively. Don't floor it. My dash shows the bright green led 90% of the time. Not using Econ mode currently.

I get that city driving will be less efficient and had considered the hybrid due to it (though don't drive enough miles to make it worthwhile financially).

Honda quotes 27 mpg city on the sticker...

Our 2008 CR-V is at 24 mpg currently in similar traffic pattern.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

E

Give it time, a car with 10k or 20k on the clock will get far better MPG than a new one. Im in a similar situation, my car has 6k on the clock and i'm getting far less than the average (62.7 MPG)

Then there's driving habits, every car is different, once you get used to driving it, you'll learn how todrive effeciently .

Sorry, but I can't believe it would take 1000's of miles to reach decent fuel economy. Car manufacturers must give the EPA a car with only a few hundred miles to figure out its official city/hwy estimates...

How many brand new cars have you owned to compare? Well I can only speak from experience, but I've only been driving 10 years since I was 17. I also believe that the test cars they use have several thousand miles on too, according to a friend of mine who works as an engine tester for Nissan.

I stand corrected. Found this on the US Gov't EPA site:

New vehicles will not obtain their optimal fuel economy until the engine has broken in. This may take 3–5 thousand miles.

Exactly, patients, you haven't even used a tank of fuel yet ;)

The test cars can also be hand built with time available to get everything together optimally.

My last 4 autos got the best mpg from the beginning. My Dodge Caliber had a CVT which averaged above 10%-15%EPA highway for all my driving. The Caliber CVT(Nissan CVT) is tuned to give best mpg around 2000rpm & can give slow acceleration near that rpm level. Pump up your tires (over 35psi), watch acceleration & speed. The burning of 100% ethanol-free gasoline will give 8% to 5% better mpg.

I think at least part of the problem is super short trips - under 2 miles.

But I was able to 'hyper-mile' around town and hit 37 once.

Another attempt only got me 22 though. Just all over the place and worse than I had expected from a car with 27 city on its sticker and a CVT engine.

Still wouldn't have made sense for me to get a hybrid but just wondering if there is something that can be done about this by a dealer, etc.

Dealers generally aren't that helpful when it comes to fuel consumption i'm afraid, they'll probably just tell you what I did that the car's still breaking in etc. Give it time and a few more miles, i'm sure your numbers will go up, and in the mean time, try and figure a way of reducing your short trips. Maybe if the weather's nice, walk instead of driving? 2 miles isn't far at all.

Have you checked the tire pressure?
The reason I ask is because when I brought home my new Rav4, the tires which are supposed to be set at 33 were sitting at 25! Since it has been getting cooler, your tires could have lost some pressure. Definitely worth a look.

Might want to check the accuracy of the odometer in that Honda. Honda got a slap on the wrist a few years ago when their odometers in ther cars were found to be routinely reading about 7% high. Made the MPG miles look better. And a car with a 36,000 mile warranty was out of warranty after only 33,480 miles had been covered.

Even a "legal" 5% error is a lot to people that track their economy closely. A calculated 20MPG in a car with a 5% over odometer error is really returning 19MPG.

Something to check and think about.