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Old 08-08-2013, 10:51 AM   #7 (permalink)
Daox
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Germantown, WI
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CM400E - '81 Honda CM400E
90 day: 51.49 mpg (US)

Daox's Grey Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
Team Toyota
90 day: 49.53 mpg (US)

Daox's Insight - '00 Honda Insight
90 day: 64.33 mpg (US)

Swarthy - '14 Mitsubishi Mirage DE
Mitsubishi
90 day: 56.69 mpg (US)

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Welcome to the site!

The biggest gains are always from driving technique. Mods can help a lot if you get wild like basjoos, but driving technique is really the easiest way. It shouldn't be that hard to increase your mileage to 30% above EPA without any mods.

I'll outline my favorite techniques:
- driving without brakes
- timing lights
- slowing down

Those three things alone should be able to get you well above EPA rating.

The SG or UG will definitely help you see what you're doing that is good/bad. Either will pay for themselves pretty quickly. If you're saving 30% on fuel, you're effectively chopping over $1/gallon off the price of gas. How long does it take you to go through 150 gallons? If you fill up once a week and each fill is around 15 gallons thats only 10 weeks for the more expensive SGII.

Personally, I also prefer the SGII. It is a bit more flexible (especially for hybrids). The UG is a Chinese knockoff with no technical support. Linear Logic is an US based company that tries to keep as much of its components and assembly here in the US. I've talked with the owner of the company a few times, and he is a great guy. The support is WONDERFUL if you ever have any issues. Its just a good company to support IMO and that alone is worth it. To be honest, I haven't actually used a UG, but I've read about the issues of both the SG and UG here on the forums. The SG seems to have virtually no problems where the UG does occasionally have some quirks. The plusses for the UG is that it is much cheaper, and it also can show 6 gauges at once vs the SG's 4.
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