Whining about little stuff - 2003 Hybrid

I have 7000 miles on my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid CVT now.

I make a fairly long trip once a week, 140 miles each way.
Heading south, I climb from 1109 feet to 1225 feet in 12.5 miles.
During this stretch, I am slowly eating in to the battery charge.
Sometimes I will be charging the battery going uphill at around the 13
mile mark. I reach 2217 feet at the 17 mile mark, and then head downhill,
back to 450 feet at the 21.7 mile mark. For that 20 mile portion, with the
up and the down, I often see 53mpg on the display.

Then there is a long portion of medium speed road, usually 55-60mph, to the
55 mile mark. From there to the 135 mile mark is pretty much freeway,
where I usually do 65-70.

At the end of this trip, my mileage is indicated as 52mpg.

The trip home, measured separately, is sometimes as low as 42mpg.
I don't know if this is because it is uphill overall, or because of
different traffic patterns, or different driving style.

In 7000 miles, my mileage is around 46mpg indicated.



Items about my Civic that bug me:

1- The MPG displayed is high by about 10%. Others have made mention of the
same defect in Honda Forums, so it's not just mine.

2- I would like to be able to "idle stop" by pressing the econ button. For
instance, if I'm stopped at a light, and one car turns, I move forward one
car length, and the engine continues to run. I'd like to put it back into
idle stop by pressing the button.

3- The cupholder lid rattles when it is open. I put something behind it to
pad it, but it needs some rubber stops.

4- The glove compartment rattles, and any hard item in it rattles. It is a
poor shape. This makes it hard to put much into it, and leaves large
flat surfaces to act as a drumhead, magnifying the rattles.

5- The air vents don't stay put. They seem to float off to some balanced
position within a few miles of travel.

6- I can't display what track the CD is playing by pushing one button. I
should be able to press the CD button and have it display. If I really
want to know, I can press the tuning knob five times.

7- I can't display the radio station.

8- I'd like auto-locking doors. My other cars have a dealer-settable
option to lock the doors at 15 mph.

9- There's no flat spot on the dashboard to attach a handsfree phone, or my
GPS. It would be really handy if there were some accessible 4mm
mounting screws pre-installed that could be used to attach mounting
brackets for other gadgets. With handsfree laws popping up, this might
be a worthwile feature. As it is, there isn't even a good blank space
to glue a mounting bracket.

10- No trunk release on the remote key fob. I can unlock the doors, but not
the trunk.

11- The cylinder-idling VTEC is annoying when headed down a long grade. If
the battery charges up fully, there is almost no engine braking, as the
cylinder idling does a wonderful job of eliminating that drag.
The feature should cut out if the regeneration isn't on.

12- The instantaneous mileage bar graph is silly. 0-120mpg is a useless
range. It would be far more useful if it were 20-60, or 80. Below 20
and over 60 are aberrations, not indications of fuel consumption.


Things I want to ask:
1- Do I just have a cylinder-idling VTEC, or does it also control the
valves like other VTEC engines?

2- If I have a multi-purpose VTEC, when does it operate, and what modes?

 

There is no such thing as a metric gallon.

 

Sorry about that. I just did my research and I guess I was talking out of
my ass based on what I'd been told once. Here's the real deal: 3.785
litres = US gallon. 4.5 litres = British Imperial Gallon. The Imperial
Gallon is used in Canada which is why it is sometimes incorrectly reffered
to as a "metric gallon". Here's the link with the info on the differences.
Again, I appoligize for my mistake.

http://members.shaw.ca/metric/volume.html