wiz

I just got home from my first road trip in my TSX. I have broken 6000 miles now. Here are the gas mileage numbers for the trip:

388.2 miles on 12.1 gallons = 32.03 mpg (with some AC on and some windows down no/AC)
401.7 miles on 12.9 gallons = 31.14 mpg (with some AC on and some windows down no/AC)
444.3 miles on 13.6 gallons = 32.67 mpg (Whole trip with AC on and windows up)

Needless to say, it looks like I am getting better Gas mileage with the AC on low than keeping it off and rolling the windows down and creating more drag.

The car held up well through some tough rains and a little bit of hail...I am pleased with it though!

Also, as I entered Tennessee I noticed an Arctic Blue Pearl TSX coming up behind me. I ran with him (and his female friend) for a while before I got my first speeding ticket in my TSX. Yup, I got pulled over for going 88 in a 70 (my radar detector is dead by the way, doesn't work anymore apparently). Luckily the state trooper was super nice and complimented me on the TSX and only wrote me a ticket for 75 in a 70, and said that with the speed being so low it won't put any points on my license. I just have to pay the $91 fine via money order. No biggie though, I was just glad that I don't have to pay $200 plus. Back to the speed limit driving for me!

Now, here are some pictures from the trip. First the ABP TSX that came up behind me that I drove with for a while:



Nice shot of the dash in action:


I drove down a back road up near Jellico, TN and as I was stretching my legs, I hear the police siren coming up the street...he was going somewhere in a hurry (you can't tell but his lights and siren were on):


The rest are at http://imageevent.com/tsx_wiz/roadtrip/

jwaters943

Nice write up. I'd like to hear more about the comfort/handling of the car on your trip if you have time.

Nice pics as well, you do know that driving barefoot is a big no no in most states right? (Not sure about yours) Better put on some shoes! :P

wiz

Yes driving barefoot is only illegal if you don't have any shoes in the car. I had my sandals right there under me so I could slip them on if I needed to. When I was pulled over, I had them on though.

As for the comfort, the seat was very comfortable, I just didn't get a chance to stop enough to let my legs and back stretch out on the way home as I was ready to be here. On the way up there, I stopped a couple of times for lunch and to just take a break, so it wasn't a problem at all. However, this is one of the most comfortable cars I have ever taken a road trip in though.

As for the handling, it was like a dream. I took the 20 mile back road up around the TN/KY border to check out the handling of the car on the twisty back mountain roads and it handled everything I threw at it like a champ. Very impressive...

provench

That is some awesome mpg's there. Very typical Honda engine that will keep MPG higher than published numbers

jkoyote

great pictures wiz... glad to see you on the new site!

btw, thanks for all the great pictures you have provided, help me decide on the carbon grey myself :-)

wiz

You're welcome guys...yeah the MPG was awesome on the interstate, even with the A/C on the whole trip!

Check out this picture...it's my reflection in my brother in-law's black 2000 BMW 323i after we waxed it...it was shining like crazy!

JeffPhx

Wiz, thanks for the pics and sorry about the ticket! Glad to hear the seats were comfortable after sitting in them for hours and you got some good MPG too.

Visorboy

Nice pix man, and that is some shiny bimmer.
Did you get a chance to pass through Deal's Gap?

wiz

Can't say I know where Deal's Gap is. You'll have to give me the skinny on where I can find it. I have relatives that live up in Jellico, TN so I know a few of the back roads up there, thus the reason I took 25W from Lafollette to Jellico.

briny319

What road did you get a ticket on?

Visorboy

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

get the ins and out here. this is one of the most awesome road in the U.S. IMO. I ride down there from CANADA each year around the May24 weekend.
It would be amazing if we can have a TSX meet there one day.
Each year all the motorcycle brands holds rallies there, and last year, they had the WRX rally with 4 cars that got into an accident.
The statics are 1 in 4 motorcycles are dropped there.

If you do go through there, take it easy!

wiz

I-75 Northbound, just outside of Chattanooga through the "Fog Advisory" section. he was sitting behind a bridge up on the on-ramp looking south-bound. As I came under the bridge, he got me and I saw him pull out, and I knew he was coming after me, so I just got over in the right lane and when he pulled behind me I pulled over.

briny319

That sux. I use I-75 also when I go to AL. My speed is also 90mph in TN. I'll have to be a little more careful in the future.

Nice pix.

wiz

Well there were more state troopers out than normal this weekend due to the holiday. I knew this and was not careful enough though. thx for the link Visorboy, I'll be sure to check it out next time.

AcuraIllinois

That Artic Blue TSX in the picture looks familiar with those plates. I think someone in the other forums had posted pics of their Artic Blue TSX with those IUPUI plates. Small world

Skyhawk

Are you sure that's IUPUI?

It looks (to me) like a straight IU tag with one of those "House Divided" Frames. I am certainly not sure, though.

Yes, I know what IUPUI is...

AcuraIllinois

Oh, I just figured that if it had Purdue and Indiana on the same plate, it had to be IUPUI. That is the same plate I saw a pic of on a blue TSX on the clubtsx forums.

Didn't realize they had House Divided plates. That's what I get for Assuming.

sheik28

Great PICS!! Nice to hear about all of these great road trips. I can't wait to pick mine up next week. Browsing through your pics I noticed your radio.... volume half up... how does it sound?? Anything wrong with the speakers or do I have nothing but good things to look forward to?
I am coming from a '98 Civic EX Pretty good radio coming from such an econo car.

As a side note, I tried to get the MP3 player when I ordered my TSX I got talked out of it... BY THE DEALER!!!

wiz

Yeah, I figured the person driving the ABP TSX is probably somebody from the site, I just don't know who it is. It was a guy driving with a woman in the passenger seat, fairly young, I'd say young to mid 20's.

As for the radio, when the windows are down, I have the radio up to 30 most of the time, with the windows up, I can't get it above 20 (halfway) without basically going deaf. I think the radio (or moreless the CD player) sounds great, except for the slight rattle in the passenger front door. I have narrowed down where the vibration is though and will be taking it to the dealership to have them check it out the next time I have an opportunity.

I kind of want the MP3 player, but not for the price they want.

sheik28

Thanks for the response!! yeah the price is VERY steep considering you can get an IPOD with adapter for less than that. Still though the convenience factor is there.

wiz

Well, I would prefer to just replace the head unit with an aftermarket MP3 unit, but since it is one piece attached to the A/C unit and all, that might be kind of hard, if not impossible. So I guess I'll just continue to make my own CD's from the mp3's.

larchmont

Don't understand any of this stuff even though I'm (sort of) a musician, but it gives me the chance to say
-- HIYA WIZ -- great to see you!!!!! Been too long!

wiz

Heh...sup larch. Nothing much to understand. If you have an MP3 player, you can have hundreds of songs and like 10 hours of music on one disc compared to mp3's that are converted to regular CD's which holds only about 15-20 songs and only lasts about an hour to 90 minutes. Big difference, not sure why they just don't make all cars with CD players MP3 compatible. It will come to that eventually I'm sure.

Good to be back on the site...the REAL site!

snap

Wiz: stupid question, but what exactly do you have your A/C set to?

I recently completed a 6 hour journey from Portland, OR to Vancouver, BC, and achieved about 30 mpg, but that was with a lot of hills, rarely used cruise control, and had speeds that ranged from 60 to 90 mph.

-snap-

sheik28

If you look at his pics he has it set to 63 degrees.
I have a couple of more questions.
How is the fan speed? Does it suffer that 4cyl. power loss? Or does it blow really hard?( no comments please.. )
Also...
Is there anything else displyed where the clock is? That seems like a pretty big disply for just a clock.

wiz

The pictures were only taken on the way up there, when I rode for half the time with the windows down and AC off, the the other half of the time with the windows up and the AC on, and set in the 60's as I was sweating when the windows were down.

On the way home (when I got the best gas mileage) I had it set to 75 the whole time with the fan setting on the lowest. I think this confirms that you get better gas mileage with the AC on and windows up as the AC unit is not that big on this car and doesn't eat up as much gas as a larger unit would, but the drag that having the windows down creates slows you down and makes the engine work just a little bit harder, or so it seems to me.

I am going to keep the air on most of the time now...especially with it being so hot down here in Atlanta.

wiz

Oh, and no the car's 4 cyl does not seem to suffer when the fan speed is higher.

Also, the top display is just the clock, nothing else. It really is not that big, but the area is big, but the actual place where the clock is, is not that big.

Jason

If I could add my $0.02: that display at the top is much more on the navi-equipped cars. It displays stereo and HVAC information, as well as being a clock.

wiz

Yeah, I kind of wish I would have gotten the navi, but I just didn't want to pay the extra $2k for it either...although maybe I could get it after the fact...hehe.

larchmont

That first part answers something I had wondered about. On our old site I pointed out that we hadn't emphasized enough how the Trip Computer is a learning tool and even a research tool, enabling us to know at every instant what kind of fuel efficiency we're getting and how every factor plays into it. One of the most striking things was that A/C has little effect. That shocked me; I had always thought A/C was the MAIN thing, but I found its effect to be literally undetectable -- and I thought it meant my prior belief was wrong. From what you say, I guess maybe it wasn't exactly wrong, just not applicable to TSX. I would still guess that on cars in general, the A/C effect is probably less than I thought and less than most people think. But this aspect of TSX is yet another selling point for the car, and it deserves some emphasis.

I have the same impression about windows open vs. closed, and I think I've seen it borne out by the Trip Computer, but I'm not sure because I didn't give much attention to this.

P.S. As I noted "on the other side," while A/C doesn't have a noticeable effect on TSX's gas mileage, I was shocked to see how much effect there is from "jackrabbit starts" -- does that phrase still exist? That's what we said back when I was starting out. Every time you floor it, you eat up about half of your tank (at least with AT).

wiz

Well I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head there larch, but if you actually look under the hood, you will see that the AC unit on the TSX is friggin Tiny compared to most AC compressors in other cars. When my father and I (who is a huge car nut and shadetree mechanic) were peeking under the car, he was amazed at how small the AC unit was and remarked that he had never seen one that small before. I think this has a lot to do with how it affects the gas mileage, because if the motor doesn't have to do much work to churn the AC unit, then it's not going to affect your gas mileage as much as a car with a larger unit does. I also do not notice when the AC is on when I am accelerating. Maybe for a minute I do during hard accelerations, but during normal driving, it's just like it's off.

I wish that the non-navi had the MPG generator at least up there where the clock is, and I think that it might be something that Acura can add to the car in the future models to give you a few more things to play with for people that don't want to get the navi. However I definitely believe that the fast starts and getting the car up above 4k RPM's when shifting really hurts the gas mileage more than anything. That's why I try to keep my shifts low when I am driving around town, maybe I'll get upwards of 26 MPG one day in the city, that would be nice.

provench

Keep in mind with the A/C ... there is a good chance that at WOT the TSX is disabling the compressor. I am pretty sure it was my CL-S that did that and it is likely that is the case with the TSX.

Somone wanna blast cold A/C and then floor it to confirm it gets warmed while you are at WOT?

wiz

That's a long time at WOT, and if you have to shift, the warm air might not come out of the vent by the time you go to shift, unless of course you get up to 6th and just floor it. :P

provench

And you know what ... this is exactly why they do it. Temperature won't be affected, but the result is ZERO A/C bog down. I think it is brilliant actually

wiz

Yup that is pretty smart...especially in a manual transmission.

provench

Drive by wire

larchmont

Seriously -- is that a big part of what we owe this to?

provench

Yep - the ECU (car computer) can do lots of things based on accelerator position ... preventing wheel spin, fuel management, A/C compressor control, whatever else is electronically controlled in the car.

What I want is when I give it WOT to jam my stereo up to volume 25 as I get pumped about the take off ... HAHAHAHA

wiz

I think prov just wants to have sex with his car Easy there tiger!

provench

Booooo ... hey ... I was just pointing out why the A/C compressor cut on might not be felt