It applies to all cars!

[brucey]

Recently a family member bought themselves a fancy new car. Very pretty, very spacious, plenty of power. They asked what the wheel covers on my car were for (my usual response to strangers is "It's what's in style now") and I told them it helps with gas. She asked what gas mileage I get, and I told her average is 33 highway and about 25 around town. She was shocked as are cars were similarly sized. She said her computer says it gets about 19 MPG, but she thinks it's less than that. (Typical of most on board read outs.) Plus she wasn't happy the manual recommended premium gasoline.

I explained to her that the mods are only a little part of why the gas is good, that in the city the biggest change can be had by just taking it easy, and on the highway the biggest change would be just slowing down a bit. She didn't believe I could do much better in her car as "She drives real careful."

So on the next trip out, I asked if I could drive. I reset the trip computer (I would take my scangauge out, but it's semi permanently installed at this point.) And drove to our destination. The trip computer readout was: 36 MPG

I had nearly doubled her numbers. She was amazed that it could make that big of a difference. How true the readout was I'm not sure, but it seemed like 30 was possible because the car is equipped with a CVT transmission and most of the time I had it just barely turning over. I actually gave her this sites address and told her to read some of the tips, and if she had any questions to give me a ring.



Long story short, your car doesn't have to look weird to save on gas (although it helps), you just have to get yourself out of the rat race!

[piers.singer]

Good job, Brucey, keep spreading the word!

I do find that it's a bit difficult to preach efficient driving to people who profess to "driving carefully" already as I don't want to raise my eyebrow at them and say, "Bet you don't!" as that's just offensive, haha. Most people won't believe until they see so the sooner I get myself a Scangauge with which to show them the better.

[Piwoslaw]

Almost double? Good job, Brucey!
I wish I'd seen her face...

[Fat Charlie]

Almost double the first time you drove it- sweeeeet.

[brucey]

For what it's worth, I guess I should mention the car:



That thing, rated at 18/23 EPA for the 2WD version. With the speeds I went (backroads, 40~45 mph almost the entire time) I think low 30's seems pretty reasonable.

[UFO]

That's pretty nice. I know several people with trucks similar to mine, and they are all amazed I can get 30mpg with mine where they are all in the high teens to low 20s. No mods, just proper tire pressure and "taking it easy".

[hackish]

I've found just getting a driver to let off the gas about 2s earlier to roll up to a red light ends up improving city MPG by approx 10%. It's not crazy that an accomplished driver can beat the published stats by quite a bit. For the record the driving cycle to determine fuel economy are very specific and try to emulate the average driver. If you want to save gas you have to move away from that "average".

[euromodder]

Good demo of what is possible.
It's on the same OBC as the 19 mpg she was getting, so the difference is for real.

Originally Posted by brucey

Long story short, your car doesn't have to look weird to save on gas (although it helps), you just have to get yourself out of the rat race!

Yup.
My car is (appears) stock for the moment.
Still gets decent mileage.

[Kodak]

Originally Posted by hackish

For the record the driving cycle to determine fuel economy are very specific and try to emulate the average driver. If you want to save gas you have to move away from that "average".

I never thought of that as a way to explain it. It shifts the concept of the tests away from the vehicle and onto the driver inputs and conditions.

[Fat Charlie]

That's the new test. The old test reflected the way that nobody drove, and the results were artificially high but well short of actually trying to save gas. In a practical sense, I think the new test shows lower mpg because of ethanol.