[piers.singer]

After months of reading the collective exploits of the Ecomodder forum but sans voiture, I finally got my chance to put into practice some hyper-miling techniques today.

Having returned home from university, I took the family Peugeot 206 back to my student place to move my things out. The journey is approx. 86 miles each way. I pumped up the tyres to 44 psi (of course) and set off - I started off with some neutral coasting but soon gained the confidence to try EOC. Wafting along in almost complete silence is a little diconcerting at first! My concern, however, is the gutless 1124cc engine, often my pulses are as long as my glides. Is this ultimately going to reduce efficiency? I try to keep a constant throttle otherwise. I did get some good drafts off lorries though, the improved aero efficiency was usually the only way that I could get some decent P&G, unless I was going downhill.

This hypermiling lark is a laugh though, never had so much fun at 55mph! As an aside, I noticed that on a particularly long coast with the engine off, the electric trip meter wasn't changing, so when I compared the trip readout with the Google Maps trip distance, it turned out that I'd gone with the engine off for over 10 miles! That's about 6% of the entire trip distance, which is not too bad considering that most of the journey is motorway.

Anyway, no figures as of yet, I'll brim the tank when I get back after the second trip tomorrow. My best-ever tank in this car is 46mpg(imp)/38(US), so I'm hoping to beat that. Fingers crossed!