[Noddy]

Not posted here for a little while, but I've been driving to and from work all the time. My daily commute is 26 miles each way, mainly on A-roads but taking a winding, hilly route through a number of towns and villages. My first two miles involves town driving and four pedestrian crossings controlled by traffic lights. The road surface is often rough, with potholes and surface damage from heavy vehicles, tracked military vehicles and the weather.

That said, I've been getting some record mileages in since the weather improved in April. The tank before last (32 litres, but with some left over from the previous fill) got me 473 miles, and the last (36.6) got me 483 miles! I have nearly, tantalisingly reached 60 miles per Imperial gallon so obviously that is the target. According to my calculations I have nearly reached 50 mpg US as well.

This is due to all the usual hypermiling methods, though I have found P&G to be less use due to the road conditions. DWB works well on the roundabouts and I have tried to time entry onto those, DWL is good for the hills, and I can glide down a couple of longish hill stretches. I accelerate slowly to reach a max cruising speed of around 50mph, pushing to 60 only before a long glide downhill.

I have also improved the passenger wing mirror delete by taking my old wing mirror, hacksawing off the mirror assembly, and then filling the hole left behind with auto filler. Then I painted it the same colour as the car.

Next up is to improve some of the grill blocking - MetroMPG pointed out that my current block has small holes which cause more drag than one large hole. Also I need to do something about other aero mods.