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Yea I figured the scan guage would be more accurate since it's calibrated at fill ups. Still haven't ran across mine yet. I did borrow a scanner and I had a P0420 code which is cat inefficiency code. Possible secondary o2 sensor failing or converter going bad/plugging up, etc. I've cleared it for now, will see if it comes back or not.
Oil change done on the car, man that oil filter was super tight for whoever put it on last. Filled with full synthetic 5W30. New plugs, old ones looked good and I double checked with my dad (he's a mechanic) and he said they look fine. New air filter and cabin filter so the basics are covered. Rear struts were interesting, basically had to take most of the plastic off the rear of the car to do the job. Found out BOTH springs were broke. Now with new struts it sits something like 6in higher, I figured they sat lower for the econ. Anyway, I did some limited testing at 55mph and the mpg seems to work out about the same. Best round the block mpg my dad and I got was 53mpg but that one had a bit of 45mph speeds in it, wet roads which I wouldn't think would effect things too much.
I took the car to a test area, fairly flat ground 2 mile stretch of empty road. Stopped at the corner, reset the mpg trip and tried taking off a few different ways including the return trip (4 miles total). The one pulse and glide vid said to take off with the mpg and mph matching each other, In my little test I found that was the worst, round trip 57mpg @ 45mph. Taking off lightly targeting 1500-1800rpm seemed to give the best result, 60mpg @ 45mph, and taking off fairly hard, guessing around 2500rpm, maybe a bit higher and it ended up at 59mph @ 45mph. Seems like the take off doesn't matter too much. I coasted and turned around as close to the same as I could for all of the runs. The main focus was 45mph mpg in more or less ideal conditions (using cruise to be more consistent). On the way back I reset the trip while going 45mph and saw 70mpg average before the corner (by a lake, so likely a bit down hill) and by the time I got to my corner (about 4 miles) it dropped to 60mpg.
Oh, I also discovered more issues with the car. Driver's side wheel bearing is quite bad. Passenger inner tie rod is a bit sloppy, hard to really tell on the driver's side with the wheel bearing being so bad. I suspect that's part of why the mpg isn't quite as good as expected. I'll have to get the wheel bearing ordered and install it once it comes in. I don't think this is dropping the mpg based on the speed vs mpg chart. The way it's looking, it might just be engine wear causing it, I'd guess mainly rings.
Those mpg vs mph numbers for take off is pretty close to what I worked out. I basically target an rpm range on the engine (guessing, no gauge yet) and it's roughly 1/2 the mpg as the mph. I agree that it seems like the cold start setup is pretty stupid on them, even just wanting to move the car a short distance on EV only mode you can't really do that unless it takes under 30 secs. I'm not sure, but it seems like driving it under 30mph when cold it's running purely on EV mode and the engine isn't doing much. I guess the concept is to warm up the engine with no load for emissions, even though that's against mpg figures as I understand it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling to hit much over 25mpg for the first 5 min graph. I might see 30mpg. Second graph with my driving current driving style seems to be real close to 50mpg, but I'm "cheating" a bit by driving 45mph. My goal is 50mpg at 55mph which I think is achievable assuming the engine isn't worn enough to hinder things. I'll have to pull a spark plug some time and do a compression test on it. That should be an interesting thing to try to do lol.
So far it seems like nothing I've done has changed anything besides slowing down increasing mpg which is a pretty well known thing. I suspect the grill blocks and fixing up the belly pan should give at least a slight increase. It looks like the rear bumper can catch air a bit as well.
I tried the 15mph battery test on EV mode only, it didn't quite hit a mile before the engine kicked on, but the battery charge indicator didn't change at all which is weird. That was right after the warmup cycle on the engine, so might have been a bit early to test. I suspect a weak battery or bad modules could cause poorer mpg as well. Either case, even getting 45mpg, that's a lot better than my other vehicles. LS400 needs work, but it's around 20mpg in the summer. The Matrix I couldn't get very good mpg with it, best was 33mpg for a tank driving somewhat normal with coasting and such.
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