An interesting one here..
Myself and a colleague commute from the same town to work and back every day.
Average daily run is 50 miles total. Approx 85% motorway, but at peak hours, so max speeds of approx 60mph.
She had a Nissan Qashqai (I pronounce it Cash Cow
) 1.5 litre diesel.
Pics can be seen here-
qashqai - Google Search
Not exactly "Aero" or actually practical for having 2 kids (high boot floor for lifting in prams etc)
Vehicle was about 6months old when she got it, and was costing her a fortune each month in repayments, not to mention 10k miles to a set of front tyres(£180 EACH!)
One day last week I had a natter with her regarding the car/costs ec, in comparison to my 318iS. Turns out 9000 miles in my car, including purchase costs was only about 5 months payments on her car-no fuel/servicing/tax included.This planted a seed
I was dispatched with a budget, and told to find a suitable car up to 3 years old- needs to be 5door and a full size car, no compacts/subcompacts. must be diesel and no more heavy on fuel than the qashqai...
This was my solution..
A 2009 Mazda6 2.2 diesel 6speed manual
Basic specs as follows:
Cd=
0.27
Frontal Area= 2.19m2
Cx=0.59
1520kg (3350lbs)
2.2, 161bhp@3500rpm
266ft/lbs@1800-3000rpm
Fuel Economy
7.0/4.7/5.5 l/100km urban/extra-urban/combined
40.35/60.1/51.36 UK MPG
33.6/50.04/42.76 US MPG
I'm pretty happy with it, and so is she, now she's been driving it for a couple of days..
Advantages are
Lower CD/Frontal area
Much better torque for getting high BSFC out the engine
Bigger boot than previous car
A name you can spell
It looks cooler!
Anyways, I've managed to get her to reset the Average MPG on the computer so I can get a baseline on the car (i was bored, ok!?)
I'm thinking I'd like to start introducing certain elements of hypermiling and driver techniques slowly over time..
so, the question is- Have any of you taught others to hypermile?
if so, how did you approach it?
What are the easiest techniques to show/explain?
Thanks for reading my ramblings!