CRV 2006 Gas Mileage Problems

I bought a 2006 CRV 2 months ago which is giving me only 200 miles for a tank of gas. Although the 2006 version claims to give 22 miles in the city and 26 on highway..my car is averaging only 17 miles. I can probably blame some reduced mileage due to winter and some to the fact that it is a new car..but I wanted to confirm if such low mileage was reasonable. Please advise

Thanks

Gas mileage depends on a lot of things. The most important however is how you drive it. If you always drive it in the cold on short trips on a cold engine and always floored it, then I wouldn't be surprised if you only got 17 mpg. However, if you drove constantly on long highway trips at 70 mph, then I wouldn't be surprised if you got over 30 mpg. Please give a bit more details about your driving habits.

You are right..I have been using this car to drive to work (approx 10 miles one way) using inroads all the way. Since this being winter time does not help further. I am still not sure when Honda say 22 mpg in the 'city'!
Do you think the mpg gets better as the car gets older? I have only a couple thousand miles on this one yet.

Thanks

You have to understand that it's not Honda that puts those numbers on the window stickers. It's the EPA that runs these gas mileage tests in ideal conditions. Just to give you an idea as to how ideal these conditions are, the numbers printed on the window stickers are 10% lower than what the actual test results show. The highway test never goes above 60 mph!

If you want to improve your gas mileage, try driving longer trips and take it easier on the acceleration. Those two things should have a pretty big effect on it.

Age can affect your gas mileage both ways. You engine gets a bit more worn in reducing the friction and increasing the efficiency, but then again ignition components and etc will start wearing out, which would decrease your gas mileage.

I have a 2005 CRV LX auto AWD and my fuel consumption has been not bad. You do consume more during the winter, but you are right. The CRV is a bit of a pig in the city. I've tried driving it very gingerly in the city but the fuel consumption is roughly the same. I get on avg 20MPG during the winter and 22MPG during the summer (80% city driving). Don't go by what the EPA states. Those are always ideal numbers.