Quote:
Originally Posted by endurance
I started out with an US EPA rated car that is estimated to get 22 city, 28 highway, 24 combined. I was averaging 27-28mpg winter, 29-30mpg summer. When I started hypermiling I managed 32-34mpg. As I brought in more P&G that came up to 36-38mpg, then winter came. Now I should be getting the worst mileage of the year, but I've managed to hold it around 36-38mpg because I'm going EOC at every safe opportunity. I suspect if it was summer I'd be pushing 42-43mpg with EOC P&G. My last tank was 39.3mpg.
IMHO, just good hypermiling technique will buy you a 15-20% improvement over EPA highway numbers. Simply by anticipating stops, avoiding unnecessary braking, coasting when practical, using DFCO on longer, steeper descents, and driving with a light foot near the speed limit. Adding in some pulse and glide with the engine on will give you another 10% and shutting the engine off on your glides and at stop lights will gain another 10%.
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Completely agree. From reading threads here and on CleanMPG by some folks posting stellar numbers, driving style is by far the single biggest thing you can do to raise that post-EPA percentage. In my case, I'm hitting 26-39% above (last two tanks were 36.7 and 40.4, EPA combined is 29) with almost no mods. I removed a few carpets and some plastic from the under panels and made a clear tape grille block. Besides that, everything else has come from driving with FE in mind. I don't have instrumentation yet, so my feedback is tank to tank (although I'm comparing odometer numbers and fuel needle positions to my eventual tank MPGs to see if I can get more intermittent feedback from gauge position), and it's already clearly making a difference. That said, my next tank will be revealing, since I went back to using E10 gas for the tank and have also been using P&G in the city consistently for the first time. I'm curious to see what effects the temperature drop, P&G, and E10 sum to.