Hypermiling..is it worth it?

[Project84]

Originally Posted by 1cheap1

Less speed means no tickets for speeding and i arrive more relaxed.

Great point.... I have parked my Camaro Z28 as of October 2007 just for that fact alone. I need a few years for my driving record to be whiped clean, then the beast comes back out, until then, I'm gonna keep honing in my skills and improving my FE.

[palemelanesian]

I agree that 2mpg is really not worth it. That 52 is a great result from just driving the car. I wish my car would do that.

It's absolutely worth it for me. I got mid-30s mpg before, and now I'm getting in the 60s.

[Loserkidwac]

Yea not really worth it for a small gain...since my VX bit the dust I am stuck driving my Mazdaspeed Protege till my Del Sol is road ready...I tried to use some hypermiling techniques with the MSP but I would get very minimal gains, I am still new to some of these techniques since the VX reacts a little different to some things because of the lean burn so I have to do things a little different in the MSP but it wasn't worth it...

[Fr3AkAzOiD]

I wouldn't do it for just 2 mpg.
On mine EOC, P&G, any using A/C only sparingly give me a good 6 - 8 mpg better and I feel that that is definatly worth it.

[guest001]

the 52mpg is technically hypermilling if your cars only rated at 30 something.

for me it's totally worth it, the less money I spend on gas period the better. plus the majority of hypermilling I do is instinctive. it's how I've driven normally for years; slow acceleration, not speeding up to stop at lights, watching what's going on ahead of me. I don't even EOC, drift, P&G, or anything like and still see great gains from decreasing top speed, keeping up with maintenance, tire pressure, removing uneeded stuff from the car, etc. The most extreme thing I really do is not run any accesories. which is more of a luxury then effort and decreasing top speed, which I have to leave earlier.

there's more to it then driving techniques too, like maintenance and mods. which you should be doing anyway to get the best life out of your vehicle and avoid major repairs. The way I drive hypermilling puts way less stress on my car.

[Snax]

IMO, the number 1 technique for hypermiling that anybody can do any time without causing additional wear on the car is to keep the rpms low. P&G and EOC'ing is more of a game to me than a serious effort to save money. I doubt either really pays back in the end from a cost perspective, but the flip side is that any reduction in emissions is not a bad thing.

I routinely shift our 5 into 5th gear at anything over 30 mph and it will cruise at 40 mph returning over 40 mpg. My wife on the other hand drove the car around today never shifting above 3rd in the 40 zones. We didn't get it above 30 mpg. It was only a 1200 rpm difference, but nearly 60% more rpm than in 5th. That's allot of extra parasitic loss.

[ma4t]

The biggest changes I made were driving slower, and keeping my vehicle in top condition.

I drive a Mazda tribute, V-6. I got interested in hypermiling when I still in law school and not working. I saved some money by just slowing down. I tried all kinds of things like taking off the luggage rack trying to make fog light covers. It's an auto, but I still tried to cut the engine and coast to stop lights.

I found out that just slowing down did wonders. Anything after that didn't make enough of a difference on a weekly basis to justify the time spent.

M

[brucepick]

Slowing down is almost a sure fire way to success.

In my case I'm car pooling to work, 60 miles each way. My car pool partner drives just over 70 mph when it's his turn. With that distance to cover, I really can't drag him along at 55-60.

So when riding with him I do everything else that I can. Tire pressure around 50 psi for starters. In the HX, my main effort is to get it into Lean Burn mode (as shown on ScanGauge) and keep it there. For cooler weather, that requires grill block and WAI. In any weather it requires very dedicated handling of throttle position, monitored on SG as TPS readout.

I'm thinking about doing some aero mods when the weather gets warm enough to work outside. Underbody sheathing would be likely.

[bowtieguy]

bruce,

is your car pool partner paying attention to your efforts?

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Definitely the best thing you can do to get your fuel economy up is car pool! I've picked up non-threatening looking hitch-hikers just to raise my mpg/person. Doesn't help me cost-wise, but I feel good about it.

Hypermiling isn't a sharply defined thing, so I'd say the answer's in the thread title: take those steps that are worth it and skip the ones that aren't. I do some hypermiling steps just for entertainment, personally.