I’ve written in the past about the accuracy (or not) of EPA gas mileage estimates, and I also chronicled our purchase of a 2005 Honda CR-V (LX, 2WD). Being a bit of a stats freak, I thought that it might be interesting to take a look at how well this car does relative to the EPA estimates.

The EPA numbers for a Honda CR-V LX with 2WD are 29 mpg for highway driving, and 24 mpg in the city. So how do the real world numbers compare?

Well, on a recent roadtrip (ca. 90% highway, 10% city) I averaged around 25.6 mpg. In contrast, my ‘typical’ driving (more like 50%/50%) nets me around 21.1 mpg. Note that these numbers reflect cool-season driving, so there’s little or no air conditioning involved. If we scale the EPA numbers accordingly, I should have gotten somewhere around 28.5 mpg on the roadtrip and 26.5 during typical driving. In other words, my real world experience with this car was around 10% low on the roadtrip, and around 20% low otherwise. Not a huge surprise here, as the EPA numbers often turn out to be over-estimates. But my numbers aren’t nearly as bad as Consumer Reports suggested they would be (CR says to discount conventional car and truck mileage estimates by 30% when shopping for a car). Then again, heavy use of the AC during the summer would certainly have a negative impact on mileage.