Only a week old - have seen & heard the 7K - 10K mile 'break in' advisories - BUT with less than 15 mpg on mostly highway driving - I'm worried, no I'm WORRIED, maybe even WORRIED. Especially when prior to buying I was hearing 20 - 22 mpg on the highway from other owners. Someone make me feel better.

Ok here is what I have found out on my 06 RTL, I purchased this vehicle with 36k on it so I assume it is broke in. I drive with the cruise on and always keep it at 65mph. This keeps me from hitting the breaks in high traffic area and iI always staying with the flow. Even on the interstate on a christmas morning with no one else around, I would still drive 65mph. My constant mpg stays 20.0 to 21.. 10 & 12 mile hops and it will go down to 19. I do not think it will get any better than that..Gary

Only a week old - have seen & heard the 7K - 10K mile 'break in' advisories - BUT with less than 15 mpg on mostly highway driving - I'm worried, no I'm WORRIED, maybe even WORRIED. Especially when prior to buying I was hearing 20 - 22 mpg on the highway from other owners. Someone make me feel better.

But are you worried? It's a 4,500lb 4-wheel drive SUT.

Only a week old - have seen & heard the 7K - 10K mile 'break in' advisories - BUT with less than 15 mpg on mostly highway driving - I'm worried, no I'm WORRIED, maybe even WORRIED. Especially when prior to buying I was hearing 20 - 22 mpg on the highway from other owners. Someone make me feel better.
And what your getting from other owners (like me) who have posted repeatedly. Sorry. :eek: :mad: :o

OK, here's your bromide: It's not broke in yet and it's all your fault for the way you drive, keep your right foot out of it, it's all your fault, use cruise control as much as you can, drive level surfaces, it's all your fault, reduce weight, mpg will improve as you put more miles on it, keep your tires at 35psi and lastly, don't forget, it's all your fault if you don't get 20mpg. :rolleyes:

Don't know if this will make you feel any better (maybe worse!), but on my first fill-up with my new '08 RTL, I got 15.1 with all city driving. On the second fill-up, I got 20.1 with 85% highway driving. I've now got a Retrax bed cover, so I'm hoping that will give me one more mpg on the highway. So far, my RTL is performing BETTER than stated on the sticker.

I do think there are things that help gas mileage (as everyone has stated). Following advice from forum members, I keep my revs below 2500 most all the time. I inflated my tires to 35 psi. If I'm cruising at 45 mph, I speed up to 47 or so, and let the tranny shift into the higher gear so the revs will go down. So far, it's all paying off. And the mileage is supposed to improve after the truck has around 10,000 miles on it. If it does, I'm walkin' in high cotton. (If you're not from the South, that means I'm kickin' a**!) :D
Tom

I am on my second Ridgeline (wrecked first 2006 RTS at 42,000). Got 20 MPG 1 time on a long highway trip using mainly cruise. Mostly averaged around 16 in 80 % city / 20% highway mix. My new 2008 RTS with 1000 miles on it and same 80/20 mix is averaging about 1 mpg less. I will give it a few more thousand miles before deeming this a step back and my guess is this new RTS will settle in at same mpg as first. That should be good proof that it is the DRIVER who determines what side of the posted mpg you will be closer to. I am an aggressive driver with a strong foot and I am not changing how I drive to save $5 a week.

My mileage is not what I had expected but I say that it has improved as I have put more miles on the truck. I am now just over 5k after about 4 months and I am seeing closer to 17/18 mpg around town which is better than the Pathfinder that the Ridge replaced.

It gets better.... just give it time. I would also recommend using gas from the same place so that you can eliminate the quality of the gas as a variable. Also, keep in mind ethanol will kill your mileage. As stations shift to summer fuel with lower ethanol content, you can expect mileage to improve.

Here's my updated fuel economy graph for my first 20 months of ownership... The red up-down bars are the actual mpg. Two polynomial regressions are also shown as trendlines (through the miracle of Excel): (1) a 3rd order regression based on actual mpg is shown in green, and (2) a 3rd order regression based on cumulative average mpg is shown in dark blue.

As of 3/30/2008, the cumulative average fuel economy for my truck was 18.40 mpg. As you can see from the graph, I've had six instances where I logged less than 16 mpg vs 12 times over 20 mpg. The truck's all-time best was 21.78 mpg & it's all-time worst was 15.0 mpg.

http://www.djeaux.com/images/2007_Ridgeline/ridgeline_mpg_04012008.jpg

The up-turn on the actual mpg trendline (green) in December coincided with an oil change & (importantly) air filter change. (Nothing fancy with respect to that stuff -- Castrol & an OEM filter.) Based on the cumulative mpg trendline, I don't expect much improvement on average. However, I generally expect to see 19 mpg & I'm disappointed when it's less than 18.

I do not hot rod & I do my best to get to the "magic" 47 mph shift point when possible. On the Interstate, I dial her in around 72-75 mph, but I do drive as traffic & circumstances dictate, so I frequently am in the 78-80 mph range. I think if I drove even more conservatively on the highway, I'd break 22 mpg... Tire pressure is 32 psi all around.

And oh yeah, my first tank above 19 mpg was en route to a ROC mini-meet. So, I'd have to suggest that attending a ROC event may be critical to effective engine break-in procedures. (I'm sure Mr. Flint would agree :))

As a side note, I cannot stress enough how just a 10% addition of ethanol seems to kill mileage. In my limited experience with my Ridge, that variable seems to vary mpg by 2-3 miles. There's nothing scientific to back that up though.

MY RT first 2 tanks have been 16.4 and 17.0. It goes 2 miles to work, and 2 miles home, with a few highway trips mixed in. Temps have been below freezing quite a bit around here too.

Also consider that the dealer may not have given you "a full tank of gas" as posted on the sticker.

I am more impressed with Djeaux's chart than with the RT mileage!!;) Great job!!:)

Like others have mentioned- the ethanol gasolines seem to hurt my MPG. Likewise, premium didn't seem to help- apparently the premium DOES help when towing and is recommended by the manual.

From my own driving (60 highway 40 city) a typically get 16-17 MPG on 87 Shell. From my buttometer and mental mileage tracking it seems to get the best MPG for me. :) Also, my mileage did seem to go up a bit after about a 12K mi. break in.

Likewise RPM at shifts makes a BIG difference in my truck. No more than 3,500 between 1st to 2nd; around 3,000 from 2nd to 3rd and around 2,500 from there on.... that will typically get me 16.5 - 17.2 MPG on my driving mix.

My high was just short of 22 MPG on the flat coastal area of NC while on vacation.

Best of luck to you!

I am more impressed with Djeaux's chart than with the RT mileage!!;) Great job!!:)

LOL! For 15 years, my primary job was "institutional research," which is academic-speak for "he who converts raw computer center data into fancy Excel spreadsheets." And as a true geek, I keep my mileage records in DocumentsToGo, which is a PalmPilot program that writes basic Excel files to an SD card, which I then transfer to the PC for prettification.

15mpg with 'mostly highway' means the gas pedal is being used as an on/off switch and/or you're doing 80+mph.

15mpg with 'mostly highway' means the gas pedal is being used as an on/off switch and/or you're doing 80+mph.
April Fools! Very funny!

April Fools! Very funny!

Or you have a 2" lift kit, oversized tires, 20# of steel welded to your A-pipe & a 300# load of stakes, machetes, transits & chains stuffed in the in-bed trunk, plus a party crew of five, six ice chests & 14 GPS devices in the cab :p

Hey thanx for the feedback, as many of you have suggested, I am the problem. Not my foot as much as my brain. I'm pretty embarrassed to admit I've been driving around with D3 on - I thought it was overdrive. I expect my mileage to get better now that I'm using all 5 gears.

Hey thanx for the feedback, as many of you have suggested, I am the problem. Not my foot as much as my brain. I'm pretty embarrassed to admit I've been driving around with D3 on - I thought it was overdrive. I expect my mileage to get better now that I'm using all 5 gears.


what do you mean "D3 on"?

what do you mean "D3 on"?

The button on the end of the shift knob. The one that locks overdrive out.

(I hope HondaTech or someone chimes in, because I don't know if running D3 all the time might have some effect on the transmission fluid or something like that...)

Hey thanx for the feedback, as many of you have suggested, I am the problem. Not my foot as much as my brain. I'm pretty embarrassed to admit I've been driving around with D3 on - I thought it was overdrive. I expect my mileage to get better now that I'm using all 5 gears.


You were driving around with 4th/5th locked out?

If this was an F150 forum (yes, I had one) someone would now chime in with a 'that wouldn't affect fuel economy negatively, you're keeping the engine in the powerband thus it will be more efficient and use LESS gas'.

luckily, this is not an F150 forum. (yes, I had one)

07 RTS, 5000 miles

My mileage is improving a bit as the engine breaks in. Getting a tad over 17mpg, 60/40 highway/local driving. AC compressor usually off, no jack rabit starts, no bed cover

Manual says to use D3 only for engine braking when going downhill towing a trailer.

I have averaged 15.5 mpg with my new 2008 RL. It has 1,300 miles on it so far. The Gas Mileage stinks!!!

I have averaged 15.5 mpg with my new 2008 RL. It has 1,300 miles on it so far. The Gas Mileage stinks!!!

I've got about 2900 miles and this is what I average. Most of my driving is city, so that seems about right to me....

I have filled up twice now, The first tank was 13.35 Mpg and the second was 13.99 Mpg. This being my 3rd honda I know it will take atleast 4000 miles for it to break in and to start seeing better mileage, Atlest that was the way it was with my Element. If I get 14 to 15 Mpg for city driving then I am happy. The sticker says 15 city and 20 highway. This is a truck afterall,,, Not ment for mileage, but that is just my opinion. I have yet to have it on the highway so I do not know what kind of highway miles I will get. Dave