Quote:
Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy
And these MPG figures are still with just the 1.0L and no IMA battery?
How has it gotten driving it "gutlessly"?
It would be interesting to see a speed vs. MPG chart in the various gears w/o the IMA battery...hint hint  |
Yep, still the 1.0L, 240,500 miles at this point (still young for this engine!
), no IMA battery.
Hills and mountains hurt economy a fair bit, because any time the engine needs to be rev'd over maybe 2500rpm, economy tanks, and it's completely gutless at low rpm. With the IMA system working, you can sometimes chirp the tires in 2nd gear. Without it, dropping the clutch at 3000rpm even in 1st gear will nearly stall the car - you really have to finesse the clutch in traffic, and forget about hills. Starting on a hill, I have to rev the crap out of it and still finesse the clutch to safely get moving forward, whereas the IMA motor makes it virtually impossible to stall the car.
It has real VTEC which kicks in around 3000rpm and it's definitely
not a slow car above that, but you also lose economy there.
Even with all of that, it's fine to drive. I keep rpm low when cruising and rev it when I need to (which wouldn't be necessary with the IMA working). However, I'm not looking forward to winter, where there will be a lot of extra drag on the car from cold, thick fluids and deep snow and slush on the roads. I sincerely hope I have the new engine in before we have much snow on the ground.
I can't remember, maybe it was Doax who made this chart? Anyway it's pretty realistic for the car as a theoretical max without engine-off coasting which, frankly, does a lot less for the Insight than most cars since it has great gearing already. Be aware that it's much harder to approach the "max" numbers at lower speed, because things like stop and go are more common, and other factors like head winds, road conditions and parasitoc drains are relatively a much larger portion of energy used. I find that I can realistically approach 100mpg if condiitions are great between 35mph and 50mph. A slightly cool day, wet roads, or needing to run a lot of electrical accessories can easily subtract 25mpg from that number. In winter, I can struggle to get 60mpg even in otherwise optimal conditions until the car fully warms up.
