Anyone ever get tired of Hypermiling for a day?

[DarbyWalters]

Sometimes...like today...I just feel like enjoying the ride without concentrating on throttle position/coasting/timing lights/speed/ect. It seems to happen every couple of months or so

[Hateful]

The only part I tire of is being tailgated. Recently I did take a 120mile round trip on 65 and 70 mph highways just doing the speed limit steadily. I still got tailgated. I averaged 41mpg as I had gotten 44mpg on the same trip before using the hypermiling techniques. This was the beginning of my last fill-up and it's been dropping since back in town doing only short trips from light to light. coming on the final 1/4 tank I'm kinda wishing I'd gotten the extra 3mpg when it was more easily obtained. I never tire of timing light because I get no pleasure out of stopping. Tank has already dropped to 34mpg. I might not be as upset about it if I didn't have the ScanGauge in front of me.

[JanGeo]

I took off last weekend for a quick 2 mile run down the road and floored it in first to 6k rpm. The engine was already warmed up but the interesting thing was as I was going down the road after that the trip average was already in the 40's mpg and I was getting an instant of 50-60mpg. Seems the little first gear blast loosened up the engine a bit. The last two tanks have really dropped - not sure if it was the lack of acetone use or not but I put 4oz in the tank after I drove 20 miles back from the fillup. One interesting thing I notice is that after hypermiling for a while, the little blast of throttle sure seems to be a little more powerful than expected. I know a lot of guys that keep wanting more power in the xB and I can't see why they need more.

[usedgeo]

Yes, I get tired of it sometimes. I just hypermile one car really hard and drive the others more normally.
I hypermile the silver one with the mods. The green one I just drive sort of normal. My wife's car I drive normal. This gives me breaks from working too hard at it. I have admitted before that I use the silver one on trips where I know I can do better.

[kamesama980]

yep. could times a week I just floor it to 80 merging into the highway. stick shift (and my car in general) is just too much fun. maybe not a couple times a week but I don't avoid the tall pedal much in traffic

[landspeed]

Originally Posted by kamesama980

yep. could times a week I just floor it to 80 merging into the highway. stick shift (and my car in general) is just too much fun. maybe not a couple times a week but I don't avoid the tall pedal much in traffic

One advantage of hypermiling, and of having instant FE feedback, is that you can do extreme things, while still maintaing good FE. In my last Bluebird (the turbo one), I had been known to do 0-85 with full throttle, but then I would make that up by hypermiling more extremely once on a more quiet stretch of road It lets you choose when to waste fuel - and also stops you 'giving up' after some bad driving, since you see that you can still recover your FE afterwards.

[kamesama980]

Originally Posted by landspeed

It lets you choose when to waste fuel - and also stops you 'giving up' after some bad driving, since you see that you can still recover your FE afterwards.

EXACTLY

Originally Posted by VetteOwner

hehe yea, chevette may be slow but my does it drift in such a low rpm/speed its crazy. yet you lt off the gas and it instantly corrects, unlike my truck which will keep going

werd. my cars VERY squirrely in the snow since I don't bother to deflate the tires from 50 psi. 1200 rpm in 4th gear (35mph) with decent snow. sideways is completely natural direction for me to be moving since most of my friends are track drifters. I waved at someone who stared at me (I wasn't trying that time...not that it matters much) it gave him a start :-p

I'm actually not much good at traditional donuts. I prefer twisty subdivision streets :-p I do parking lot width sideways circles tho.

Originally Posted by Erdrick

Nope... I am hardcore. Never letup -- ever. I drive all cars to the max. I just enjoy hypermiling. The one thing I have to admit, is to using the heat. Mornings here are a bit too cold to drive to work w/o heat.

how does using the heat waste gas? no, that's rhetorical. I still think you're nuts.

[Erdrick]

Originally Posted by kamesama980

how does using the heat waste gas? no, that's rhetorical. I still think you're nuts.

By taking heat away from the engine. If you use the heat, especially soon after startup, then your engine takes longer to get into its optimal running condition. MPGs suffer during the warm up phase. My car has such a small engine, that even just coasting will noticeably make the temp guage start falling. Using the heat during the winter definitely hurts my FE.

Oh, and most hypermilers are nuts. Perhaps you would oneday like to join the club?


On a related note, it seems like gassavers.org has been inundated with people who are only half into saving gas. This used to be a really dedicated and hardcore website... but it seems like most of the top performers have moved on. Perhaps it is just the winter that scared everyone away, but I can't help but feel that the caliber of interest in hypermiling is going downhill.

[baddog671]

[QUOTE=Erdrick;88518]By taking heat away from the engine. If you use the heat, especially soon after startup, then your engine takes longer to get into its optimal running condition. MPGs suffer during the warm up phase. My car has such a small engine, that even just coasting will noticeably make the temp guage start falling. Using the heat during the winter definitely hurts my FE.
QUOTE]

I dont know how true it is, but Ive also heard that using the defroster or a combination including the defroster actually utilizes the air conditioning unit aswell. Why, I have no clue, thats what I heard. Doesn't matter to me as I dont have AC anyways..

[kamesama980]

Originally Posted by Erdrick

My car has such a small engine, that even just coasting will noticeably make the temp guage start falling.

Gotcha. makes sense. not enough oomph to do all the basics.

Originally Posted by Erdrick

Oh, and most hypermilers are nuts. Perhaps you would oneday like to join the club?

So I guess I'm the pillar of reason? I guess my cost/benefit crossover point is just lower than yours. I'd rather enjoy the time I spend in my car than dread it. Lifes too short to make it any harder. plus I'm a theatre tech and mechanic so I've got my own brand of crazy. lets compare sometime.

Originally Posted by Erdrick

On a related note, it seems like gassavers.org has been inundated with people who are only half into saving gas.

such is life. everyone hears about this great thing and wants to join up. that and you can either maintain a huge dichotomy and a few people save a lot of gas or average it out and everyone saves some gas. the net result will be higher if everyone does some.