I had a nice little getaway over the weekend to a stargazing event under the dark skies of central West Virginia. In the process, I got my first 30 mpg tank ever!!
. The car is rated 19 city / 26 highway.
If anything, a slight overfill if the tank, as I just went ahead and topped it for an even dollar amount. It could have been 30.5 - 31.0 mpg. Tank was 75% interstate miles, remainder 45-55 mph state highways. Could have eeked out an extra 2-3 mpg, but felt compelled to be punctual to the event. Went ~67 mph in the 70 mph zones, maintained speed limit all other zones in the 45-65 mph realms.
In the hills of Wood, Wirt and Calhoun County, DWL was what really put me over the top. Every time I had done this trip (which was before I started hypermiling), I only got 25-27 mpg. A lot of that gas was burned trying to maintain speed going up the hills. This time, I just tried to keep the tach at 2,000 RPM going uphill and let the speed be what it is, often decreasing to 40 MPH at the summits before coasting and increasing back to the legal 55 mph at the bottom.