Are you still hypermiling?

[Project84]

It seems like FE is more of a personal challenge now than a financial, moral, or environmental obligation as I used to feel.

I do still make conscious effort every single time I'm behind the wheel trying to anticipate red lights along my daily routes to/from work, coasting for turns I know are coming up, and no matter what kind of hurry I'm in I still always run the fuel nozzle at the gas station on slow setting while I pop the hood and check oil level and just generally glance around the engine bay for issues. I tend to take off easily from stops, and rarely exceed 5mph over the speed limit on the highways. I do still try to do some mild drafting when going long distances too.

Hypermiling is a big word, I can't really say honestly I was ever a hypermiler as my old '96 Saturn that I got into saving gas with was an automatic which restricts one greatly from being a true "hypermiler" IMHO. I did attempt to cut the engine off and roll down big hills a few tanks, but that's about as far as I attempted to get into the real gutsy stuff. Mostly I just run tires at 50psi, keep strict maintenance on the car, always record mileage and look for sudden unexpected changes in FE, and try smart braking and coasting at all opportunities. I'll never change any of that stuff now that it's part of my driving habits.

It does still drive me NUTS when I'm a passenger in someone's car and they NEVER COAST. I'd have to guess 80% of drivers are this type. They seem to think you must always be either accellerating or braking. Even when they clearly see an upcoming red light, stop sign, or traffic. It's not even my gas they are "wasting" and yet I still get an itchy feeling just seeing them do this, and I've mentioned it to all my friends and family and they don't seem to care enough to try and learn.... yet when I tell them I pull 40+ from a car rated at 33 highway, they're all fascinated and want to know more??? LOL Some people.

You can lead a horse to water... but you can't make him drink.

As for my manual transmission vehicles, I make attempts in my pickup truck when rarely driving it, to throw it in neutral whenever possible and I short shift the gears because it has enough torque to do so. In my Camaro I still treat it like a toy, drive the heck out of it when I'm rarely behind the wheel. It serves its intended purpose well, an adrenaline inducing machine.

As for my motorcycles, I beat the hell out of my little Ninja 250 which I've seen as low as 49mpg on (with a slight fuel tank leak, but low mileage mostly just from abusing the throttle) and on my Vulcan 900 I tend to baby it 95% of the time but there are the occassional WOT impulses which leave me smiling and not really thinking of the fuel I just wasted, that bike has seen as high as 55mpg which cracks me up... the 900cc 650lb machine out doing the 250cc 270lb machine.

Anyway, do you still think you try as hard as you once did to hypermile, or have you calmed down because we've all pretty much adjusted other aspects of our financial spending to accomodate $3.50+/gal.?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Hypermiling was never really successful in my truck. My best success was downshifting to force DFCO at traffic lights and such, BUT a few months after I started doing that, I started having transmission problems, which cost me about $1,000 to repair. Maybe it was coincidence that the torque converter failed at the same time I was doing this, or maybe the constant downshifting caused it to fail. I'm not sure. Anyway, what I've been doing since then was to simply try and reduce the miles driven as much as possible. Sometimes I can make a tank of fuel in the truck last almost a month.

[Project84]

Jay, I doubt it was coincidence as I've never in my life heard of a torque converter going bad if not for some type of abuse. There really isn't much going on in there but fluid being flung around anyway.

I hear you though on not driving as much. I tend to ride one of the motorcycles whenever possible but that's not really mileage inspired, more just for my hobby of riding and actually enjoying the ride to/from work instead of the monotonous drive. The added FE is just a benefit not really done intentionally.

I averaged 8k miles per year when I was daily driving my '96 Saturn, it'll be interesting to tally up my vehicle mileage at the end of march 2012 when that vehicle will have been sold for 1 year and see how many miles I drove all my cars totalled together vs. how many miles I rode the two motorcycles. I bet I exceed 8k but lots of it is just pleasure riding. I'll probably break even or close to it as far as expenses.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by Project84

It does still drive me NUTS when I'm a passenger in someone's car and they NEVER COAST. I'd have to guess 80% of drivers are this type. They seem to think you must always be either accellerating or braking. Even when they clearly see an upcoming red light, stop sign, or traffic. It's not even my gas they are "wasting" and yet I still get an itchy feeling just seeing them do this, and I've mentioned it to all my friends and family and they don't seem to care enough to try and learn.... yet when I tell them I pull 40+ from a car rated at 33 highway, they're all fascinated and want to know more??? LOL Some people.

I feel exactly the same way. "Itchy" is a great word to describe the feeling.

As for me, my financial situation has improved to where I don't need to hypermile heavily anymore. However, I continue to compete with myself to try to reach my goal of 30+MPG year-round average in my Buick.

Even if I ever have plenty of money to spare I'll expect I'll keep on saving fuel. It doesn't sit right with me to waste fuel for no reason. Eventually I might ease up on some techniques, and even now I find myself occasionally accelerating much harder than necessary...but I'm still trying for personal record MPG.

[Jay2TheRescue]

@Project 84: Well, the truck was 11 years old with 150,000 miles on it at the time. I think the forced DFCO at least contributed to the failure of the torque converter, if it wasn't the entire cause. Currently I try to consolidate trips, and take the bike as much as possible, leaving the truck at home.

I have plans to replace the truck, probably by the end of the year. My plans are to probably purchase a Ford Escape Hybrid to serve my 4wd and city driving needs, and to refurbish Rusty for my pickup truck needs.

[goofy1]

Me and my wife still hypermile. I haven't added her car(Pontiac Vibe) to the garage yet. She does mostly city driving with a car full of people and she still gets between 28 - 32 mpg with the techniques that she learned from here. My new car that we just got(Chevy Prizm) is still on its first tank. So far the scangauge is showing an average of 41.7MPG, today its 37.2MPG(using a/c). I do mostly highway driving, with traffic and with just me in the car. But the techniques shown here has helped. Ill post the first gaslog for the Prizm soon. But yeah, we're still hypermiling at my house.

[Ford Man]

I'm still trying to drive as efficient as possible. Lots of my driving now consists of city driving so I've started using engine off coasting in the manuals and turning the engine off more at red lights. My wife doesn't drive so I have to take her to and from work daily, the trip is about 9 miles round trip and I can usually engine off coast at least 3 miles of it. When I get in the car to leave the house there's a small hill in my driveway so if traffic allows I can usually coast anywhere from .4-.7 of a mile before starting the engine and when I get about 1 mile from where my wife works there's a hill if I top the hill at about 40-45 mph I can coast all the way to the entrance door at the hospital where she works. On the return trip I have another section where I can coast about 1.1 miles then another place where I can can coast .5-.7 miles depending on whether the traffic lights catch me or not. I've also been experimenting with another area on the way to take her to work where if I top a hill at about 40 mph I can engine off coast about another .8 miles and be down to about 10-15 mph when I reach the stop sign at the end of the road. Even with about 18 miles of city driving per day I've been able to get 40-45 mpg in my '88 Escort since the weather has warmed up.

[1cheap1]

Well, started to really get back into it early this year. I am driving less but still am getting over 50 mpg on my Mazda. Last year i rode my road bike more than the car. I just sort of do it now with out much thought, more eoc and going further on the glide. I keep it about 55 mph on the freeway and draft when i can. I really get a kick out of it when a Prius goes speeding by me and i know i get better mpg. People still drive the same, I see very few people doing what we are doing.

[bowtieguy]

i've made it a lifestyle, but that said, i'm not involved in mods and what some would consider to be "radical" or unsafe...like EOC(except when ending a trip).

i've vowed forever more to own nothing but 4cyl vehicles, watch my fuel mileage, and use driving mods for best results. i'm motivated by saving money and creating less pollution. the former is just common sense in regard to driving and living...i'd like to reach retirement comfortably, not depending on social security or other entitlement programs...they may not be there for most us.

now, if we could only get all levels of govt to be so frugal!

[FrugalFloyd]

This is my third year, and 50,000 miles of hypermiling. The thrill of playing the mpg video game hasn't worn off yet. If it ever does, I'll likely maintain most of my hypermiling habits. I carpooled, motorcycled, bicycled, vanpooled, and took public transportation my whole career, long before I hypermiled.