I have had to do some driving my minivan this week. Was a mixed bag of 50% 4 lane 40% two lane a bit of in town and some SAG duty behind a bicycle 20 miles. 50% was relatively unloaded and half was with two people 3 big dogs 5 cats, guns and food for our trip to the farm.
I have used information posted here and good sense about driving habits. I am not going to do the pulse and glide with my automatic, it inevitably likes to choose the next lower gear when shifted back to drive.
My mini van is pretty stock. I went around and aired up my tires. 3 were at 30 and one 28. I have a rating of 44 on the side walls and went to 42 as a trial last week. I took out the grill and made a carbon fiber cover for it. I took off the rear mud guards (behind the rear wheels and moved them to in front of the front wheels. They are about 2/3rds as wide as the tires but better than none.
A week ago somehow the battery got run down after some 200 miles or so. The trip odo reset. I estimated low and got 21 mpg. Today I filled up again and ended up with 24.9 on the third click. 25.8 on the first click.
I always round to three significant digits. I figure that is accurate enough to land on the moon and this is not rocket science. None of the miles are straight highway miles yet.
I bought this car when it had about 70,000 miles on it for 5400. Hey it is a ford and that is just broke in.
My motor is not new. My transmission is not new. Nothing is new. I have to admit I looked from a distance at a blue geo metro that did not have that much rust but was not for sale.
I don't think that I could pay for something like that with fuel savings once I figured in Insurance and repairs. Seems like most repairs happen in the middle of winter when I least motivated to change a starter or do an oil change.
Still 25mpg seems like a success at this point considering the load and numerous ridges that I must climb to get home. Yeah no trailer this week.
In the 7 years that I have owned this car I have not gotten this good of mileage. Next tank might lower or higher.