Hypermiling conditioning

[pgfpro]

Well I'm on vacation and about 400 miles from home, testing my H skills... and well... they still suck.LOL

We took my wife's 100% stock Toyota Corolla to see if I can better my mileage(Coeur d' Alene ID to Port Townsend WA. Last time on the same route I averaged 39MPG Today my best again was 39.99 mpg (65mph average speed). I even drafted (to a point not to upset the cargo van's driver in front of me) for 200 miles. I thought for sure I would have my first 40mpg with this car. But no. I still need to put some more miles on tomorrow and see where I'm at but it will probably be not good. I had to go over two passes, one that's 4000'. But I'm still happy with the mileage considering I haven't messed with this car. Its a good thing because there's always a chance something could go wrong and leave us stranded.

[FrugalFloyd]

All you have to do is slow down 5 mph.

[Philip1]

took the words right out of my mouth..er...keyboard

[theholycow]

39MPG is nothing to sneeze at.

What techniques were you using besides drafting? There's not a lot of useful techniques for highway driving. Reducing speed is an obvious one, but unlike other types of driving it actually adds up to your trip taking longer. On hills you can do some P&G...or if you're really patient and there's not a lot of other traffic you can do it on level land. Other than that it's tire pressure and aerodynamic modifications.

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

All you have to do is slow down 5 mph.

Yeah I know but we were like everone else late . It will get about 41 mpg at 60mph. But the trafic around us is all doing around 80mph on the freeway so I try to stay close to the 70mph posted to not get ran over.

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by theholycow

39MPG is nothing to sneeze at.

What techniques were you using besides drafting? There's not a lot of useful techniques for highway driving. Reducing speed is an obvious one, but unlike other types of driving it actually adds up to your trip taking longer. On hills you can do some P&G...or if you're really patient and there's not a lot of other traffic you can do it on level land. Other than that it's tire pressure and aerodynamic modifications.

Totally true. There is not to much you can do.
I did use a lot of P&G when I could going through the small towns and on the hills. Plus I found out it gets great mileage when aboard a ferry.LOL
The Seattle area has a ton of bike people and people that walk, its very pleasing to know that people still walk and bike to get around in the great USA.

[pgfpro]

Update:

On my second stage we got 36.50 this was about 30% city and 70% freeway.
So I need some more improvements on Hypermiling.

[add|ct]

I'm curious to know more details as to the kind of elevation changes you're dealing with. Are we talking long amounts of time into the wind and/or up varying grades of incline?

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by add|ct

I'm curious to know more details as to the kind of elevation changes you're dealing with. Are we talking long amounts of time into the wind and/or up varying grades of incline?

Just got back Home

996.7 miles total

1st stage 39.99 mpg
2nd stage 36.50 mpg
3rd stage 40.6 mpg
4th stage 39.12 mpg

We went over two major passes, Stevens Pass 4061 feet, and Snoqualmie pass 3022 feet.

But the whole time it is up and down in elevation with lots of large hills.

The route taken

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/2-RpkGr3G*

EDIT:

One thing that I find very interesting is how much ambient temperature can affect your fuel mileage.

On my last stages (98*F) I had my AC on with windows up and thought that my mileage would suffer a lot. To my surprise it turned out to be the two best legs of this adventure. There has to be a way to harness this when temps are on the cool side???

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by pgfpro

One thing that I find very interesting is how much ambient temperature can affect your fuel mileage.

On my last stages (98*F) I had my AC on with windows up and thought that my mileage would suffer a lot. To my surprise it turned out to be the two best legs of this adventure. There has to be a way to harness this when temps are on the cool side???

It seems that this is caused by a rather large variety of factors. The only factor that I think can be duplicated is intake air temperature; that's what a WAI (Warm Air Intake) is for.

It is generally agreed that A/C is less loss than open windows at highway speed.