Intrigued, I was referring to this quote by Charlie.
Quote:
|
i get dreadful milage. i'm talking like 12-13 miles a gallon.
|
Also, you bring up an interesting point. As an ASE mechanic, you know about drag measurement of wheel bearing loading, such as that specified for Toyotas. A quarter turn back out has been standard practice since forever on Detroit products, but I wonder how far can we go. As a mechanic myself, I've always used spec settings, of course. But a as a hypermiler, how loose can we go without damage or risk? Have you ever experimented with this? I bet there's a general rule that is specific to bearing diameter and weight footprint.
I'm a old dry lake sailcar nut. We always used vasoline on all our bearings back in the day and never noticed any wear. Of course, there was hardly any loading and we frequently repacked - as loose as possible. Probably today a synthetic would work even better. Any thoughts as to how this would apply to hypermiling?
I do have one bone to pick. You say that suspension movement "eventually" robs your potential return on increasing tire pressure, I disagree because in my experience max pressure as marked on the sidewall provides enough cushion on most pavement surfaces to override by far any loss. In fact, thus far, increased tire psi results in increased mpg on a steady cruve. If a claim is made that suspension movement is robbing mpg performance, I suspect the argument is theoretical.
Handling is a different matter. Increased tire pressure can lead to dangerous and unreliable grip, which also seems to manifest itself on a steadily rising tire pressure curve.