[sohl]

Hello folks. I've been lurking for a bit less than a week, but I'd thought I'd post an intro. I have a 2003 Mazda Protege. I've always been a bit disappointed with the FE of it, although I've enjoyed it's pep around town. It's mostly used as a commuter car for me (26 mi. roundtrip, almost all suburban start-n-stop driving) and a kid shuttle. Our family also has a `01 Honda Odyssey that we need when more of us need to go somewhere.

The Protege is not known for good FE in the automatic models, despite the EPA estimates for the manual not really being much better on paper (25/31 vs 25/30 for the auto). Quite a few people seem to be disappointed in the real world FE (21 to 24 is not at all uncommon, and my first few years probably averaged 23 or 24 around town). I guess that's the price we pay for the "Zoom-Zoom" feel, which comes from a lower transmisssion gearing and performance-oriented engine cals, I'm sure. But with gas prices like they are, I'd like to start doing better.

The only eco-mod to my Protege is oversize tires, and that was not really intentional. I had a blowout a few months back and needed a new set of tires anyway. The shop did not have much in the 195/55 R15 tire size, so I got 195/60s. At first I didn't like the rubbery steering feel of the 60s, but now with gas prices, I think I'll start to like them better as they help keep the RPMs a bit lower.

Also, I know in the past I've not done the best at keeping our tires fully inflated (car and van both). Mostly, this was just due to the inconvenience of going to the station to do this, but recently, all the gas stations around here went to the coin operated air pumps. This finally motivated me to get a my own pump, which I just did yesterday. And now that I have it, it will be a lot easier to keep my tires topped up. I think this will very quickly pay back in FE and not paying for the gas station air. I also picked up a new air filter and fuel injector cleaning fluid, so I'll taking care of those soon.

I'm a contracted embedded systems guy in a Big Three R&D department, and have a degree in physics, so I enjoy seeing some of the efforts going on here. Maybe I'll try a few more things over time. This should be interesting, anyway!

** EDIT ABOVE ON MY TIRE SIZES **
My sidewall aspect ratio is now 60 instead of the stock size's 55. I mixed that up with my tire width number, which is still the normal 195.