Quote:
Originally Posted by pletby
My car is under my name, it's The Car... (Ford Contour '98 GL model with optional V6 loaded with gas guzzling extras)
Lights are timed...poorly. Must drive pretty slow in spots to keep moving. Most traffic roars past racing to the next red...
Today I EOC'd for 2.1 km/4.8km with lots of room to expand on that, just need practice. My car seems to coast between 30 and 40km/hr forever.
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OK. You are driving a relatively large, American car with an automatic transmission (I assume).
I still have some questions, but ones that you probably need to ask yourself as well: Are the lights timed poorly only in one direction? Are they as poorly timed in the other direction (on your return trip) as well? Or are they being overridden by cross-road traffic waiting at triggered sensors?
I would suggest that you try the highway route for a week with no other driving and take note of the FE. You can do this by filling the tank, doing nothing but the specific route, then calculating the MPG when you refill the tank.
Then do the other route, the local one with the stop signs. Fill up, calculate, etc.
Considering your vehicle, my prediction is this: if you can drive the local route knowing where every stop sign is, you can accelerate briskly enough to get into a higher gear, then put the A/T into neutral to coast to the next stop sign. predictably enough so as not to slow to a crawl. You won't harm the A/T any as long as you don't throw it back into gear at a speed of above 10 MPH. You won't have any stress about anyone passing you or pestering you to drive faster. This will give you the maximum benefit of coasting. And probably also the best fuel economy.
