Question for CRX HF owners
 

I am considering purchasing a 91 CRX HF 5 speed. I know on the highway they can get close to 50 MPG. My commute is only about 10 miles. I drive about 3 miles city and 7 miles interstate traffic. Most of my other driving is city driving.

Does anyone know what kind of MPG an HF get's in mostly city driving?

The car I have now get's about 22 MPG with my current driving. It's a 98 cavalier. I probably don't drive enough to justify buying a 1991 car with no ac and some rust, but I think it would be nice to have a car that get's 45 MPG in city driving. I could always add AC later from junk yard parts.

Any other advice appreciated. I have also considered the insight, but I would have to spend $8000 more to get one if I could find one that is...

why is your cavalier getting such bad mileage. when I first got mine, I was getting 30 easy. I am now averaging 35 or so. it isn't 45 but still it isn't 22 either.

Not sure. I typically only drive in town and it's automatic. I have been running 87 octane. Maybe with Premium it would do better.

It's also the z24 so that might make a difference.

I have heard that some of the auto trans' are 3-speeds and not 4. mine is a 4. and you have the 2.4 liter where as I have the 2.2 liter. probably tuned for power too since it is one of the Z series.

probably pretty fast when you need it to be as well. mine is pretty slow but 40 miles a day, I will take slow and steady.

given this new info, maybe a honda is the way to go for you. you may still be able to get the mileage up some but maybe not to where I am because of the bigger motor and the sport tuning (Z series stuff).

You can see what kind of mileage I am getting with mine. I have a 120 mile daily commute and i'm using basic techniques, no EOC. On the other end of the spectrum you can see what happens to the gas mileage on a 93 LX when you swap it to a B16A. 4.9 to 1 final drive sure is hard on MPG, but it's a blast to drive.

Yeah it definately has more power than I thought it would. I picked it up from a friend who was getting a new car so I really just got it because the price was right. I had a TDI before, but was spending more on the loan than I was saving in diesel so I sold it and downsized to this cavalier. I just don't drive enough to really save money with a high mpg car.

I am starting to think maybe I should just settle on 98 or 99 civic hx instead of the older crx. But I am still impressed with the crx mileage.

My commute is about 80% fwy and 20% city. You can see from my gas log I'm getting about 42mpg. This is probably because I'm driving too fast, but I think you'd have to really be gentile on the gas pedal to get 45mpg with all city driving in an HF. I would think low 40s would be realistic.

another consideration with your mileage. not sure if it is 10 miles 1 way or per day. you may be better off just keeping the cav and saving the money that you would spend on this other car that you are talking about getting. I have struggled with that myself.

If I get another car, I can get 5 mpg better but it will cost me 2-3-4k to buy the car. I ask myself if it is worth it. so far the answer has been no. that may or may not be the case for you. it is still something to think about.

That's kind of where I am at. Maybe I could just buy a scangauge and watch my MPG and see what I can do with what I have.

Hey simply peter, I have a 1988 CRX HF with over 172K miles on it but when I drive soley city miles, I average 38mpg (lowest) to 43mpg (best). The lowest has been with the ac on and driving 'normal'. The only 'techniques' I use in my whopping daily 5 mile rountrip work-home commute to get the better mileage is putting it in neutral when comming to a stop (just remember "don't speed up to slow down to a stop sign/light") & not reving past 2K rpm much.


Now is may vary if the CRX you're looking at is a non-ca (mine is a CA version so the final gearing is slightly less than a non-ca CRX HF) and if it's well tuned. I try to take care of all my scheduled maintnance to ensure it's in top running condition. I have NO worries about jumping into it and driving it long distances whatsoever.

Anyway hope it helps in your search...good luck!

The one I found has around 180,000. Sounds like it's been well cared for, and the current owner has done a lot of maintenance to the engine. She says it needs an oil pan gasket, which shouldnt be to bad to replace. The big issue for me is that it doesn't have air. I am in Iowa so it would be really hot in the summer. I think I would probably dig up all the parts to add ac after I got it.

I would think for city driving, the slightly higher final drive of the CA version would give a little better mpg. Mine is a CA version and 1st gear is still rather tall, I sure wouldn't want to drive my HF up some of the hills in San Francisco.

I managed to find the parts for AC from someone here on GasSavers. It was alot of work, but I have AC in my HF, which considering the heat here in So Cal, will be much appreciated this summer.

scangauges are awesome. if you are planning to do a grill block or warm air intake, the scangauge will also show you your temps as well. I am all for working on an existing vehicle depending on how bad your starting point is. with an SUV, it may be better to trade down to an economy car. with a cav, I would assume that you could better that number tremendously.

the scangauge will also tell you throttle position and engine load. you can monitor those on your drive. I have seen places sell them a little cheaper than the scangauge web site but I think the best I have seen is around $160 but that is a lot cheaper than a car you have to put a/c on.

I say to get the scangauge and give it a few months and see how it goes. with only 10 or 20 miles a day, it will take a long time to pay for that extra vehicle.

just my opinion

with an si transmission on my hf engine i got about 45mpg 50% city 50% highway on my long 9.8 mile commute. With the hf transmission i could get 50mpg without trying.

iowa summers? ive lived without ac in virginia in the summer for about 4 years.

Really hard to believe since Si transmissions have the RPM's in the 3500 range at highways speeds...plus they were rated at approx. 30mpg highway...and that is when it was BRAND NEW.

I'm not calling you a liar, no way...but it just seems super crazy to believe especially when you say you get very that type of mileage 'without trying'.

I get my MPG info from www.fueleconomy.gov in case you want to see where I get my data. :)

EDIT:
My tired a$$ didn't read it correctly until late late last night and by then I had already openned my big mouth....sorry. An HF with an HF engine/tranny should break 50mpg easy but that's on the open highway and when properly tuned and running right. With an Si transmission, I personally don't know as I don't have that set up just seems interesting to be pulling over 40mpg with it as I've read Si owners claim they run at over 3K rpms doing 65mph. But I can't say for certain, just seems odd to me that's all I meant.

but he is saying an SI trans on a CRX HF motor. the HF motor is known for mileage where as the trans is not so you can't really go by the fuel economy numbers since he is using the engine from one and the trans from another.

Yeah I realized my mistake late last night but I was way too tired to edit my response....my bad. :P

I think you are all wrong. The HF motor plays a part but the trans plays an even more significant part. If I remember correctly at 2K RPM my HF is going around 68mph. There are guys on the CRX forums that build "hybrid" transmissions. They take the 5th gear out of an HF trans and put it into an SI trans. You don't have the final drive ratio of the HF but the 5th gear swap alone is a significant improvement.

Look up the ratios, the HF trans is geared very tall. I generally drive my BMW around town in 5th (although it admittedly has more torque). But I can barely get my HF to 3rd gear around town because it is geared so tall.

This is where my arguement/rebuttal was coming from. I mean take a look at these pictures I took of my CRX HF's transmission 5th gear highway rpm and notice the differences between a CA HF transmission and a non-CA HF transmission at the same speed same highway stretch. Now compared to a Si transmission which by some Si owners claim they're reving at well over 3000+ rpms, you can start to see how that seems unlikely.

CA HF Transmission: 77mph @2500rpm
https://img229.imageshack.us/img229/7...phrevs2vh8.jpg

Non CA HF Transmission: 77mph @ 2250rpm
https://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7784/dscn0846ic0.jpg