[lusth]

Hi all,

Just came home from the dealer with a new Pontiac G5 XFE, 37 mpg highway. It's rather hilly in northern Alabama, so I tried something that looked like it would give me a significant mpg boost compared to straight cruise control. I'm wondering if it makes sense.

From reading the forums, cc is not optimal since it will accelerate a car up a hill. So what I did was tap the "adjust down" cruise control button periodically as I went up a hill and then tapped the "adjust up" button going down. After a while, this became natural and I didn't even think about it (the buttons are nicely placed on the steering wheel). The instantaneous MPG reading on the info panel (great feature) seemed to show improvement.

This wouldn't work on my wife's Honda CRV because when you tap down, the car overshoots on the slowing and then accelerates back up to get to the new speed. On the G5 however, the adjusts are smooth as silk.

Oh, and I also cycled the AC - off up the hill and on down the hill. It's hot, hot, hot, in the summertime!

Sorry if this has been discussed but I could not find anything like this in the archives. Just high tech mods of cc for constant mpg.

In any case, is this a smart strategy?

thanks,

john