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Old 05-07-2011, 03:17 PM   #1 (permalink)
Fat Charlie
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Al the Third, year four - '13 Honda Fit Base
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New guy

Hello, all. I stumbled in here a week or so ago and read about pulse and coast, so I decided to give it a shot. I really can't believe how big a difference driving technique makes. My speeds haven't dropped much, but the mileage has skyrocketed.

I drive a 2005 Legacy GT that I bought new. Back then it had an EPA rating of 19/25 with a combined 21. The new EPA rating is 17/23 with a combined 19. I've always tried to keep mileage up when I wasn't leaning on the turbo, but my mileage has always been so-so. In the summer the dash computer showed me getting 23 and change for a tankful, and in the winter I was lucky to scrape into the low 22s.

My first tank using pulse & coast (it wasn't even the whole tankful) showed 27.5, a dramatic jump from the 22.8 of my previous tank. For my next tankful I ditched the roofrack that I had been too lazy to pull off and added 5 PSI to the tires. The fronts call for 35 and the sidewalls say 44, so 40 is a nice happy medium. I got 28.5 on that tank. I had been at 30.2 but there was a traffic tie-up on the last day. Still, it was the first 400+ mile tank I've had since the summer of 2006, a boring overnight drive through Quebec and Ontario that got me 25.2 for the tank.

Now that I understand how to do it effectively, I'm really excited about it.

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