90mpg @ 65mph

[Ecky]

Drove to sell some things today. On the way home, 26 miles, I averaged over 90mpg, with a target speed of 65. At times I was up to 70, and there were a few areas where I was doing 55.




My housemate has been driving my Insight more than I have lately, but I managed to bring the tank average up from 38mpg to 45mpg.

[Daschicken]

38? Ouch. You have to try to get that bad!

[Ecky]

I expect he just isn't accustomed to the RPM range the Insight prefers to be in. My experience has been that typically more sedate 4 cylinder engines "like" to be ~2500-3500rpm, whereas more high strung ones might often be 3000-4500rpm during normal operation. My old B16A, for instance, cruised at 4500rpm at ~70 on the highway, with a redline of 8200. The Insight is very happy putting around at 1200-1600rpm.

[Magician]

Interesting... I didn’t realize driving an Insight hard would drop the mpg’s so significantly. I can drive my VX pretty hard and not drop much below window sticker mpg.

[Ecky]

Mind you his are mostly sub-2 mile trips through a series of stop signs. I usually use a bicycle for getting around town.

[elhigh]

I have discovered the hard way just how awful a bunch of stop signs can be. My son has been visiting his girlfriend a lot lately and taking the Civic; his short tank was under 40 miles per gallon, the lowest the car has ever been.

But dang, 38 in an Insight? Was he towing too?

[Baltothewolf]

Short trips kill the insight mpg due to tall gearing.

[Magician]

Likely he's not a terribly efficient driver. My VX has tall gearing as well and short trips don't kill it that badly.

[Ecky]

Yeah I can't see how tall gearing would ever be a handicap. My experience has been that it allows for a wider spread in economy (depending on how you drive) mostly from the upper end. Unless, perhaps you mean that tall gearing hurts city driving due to having fewer reasonable gear choices at low speed, and thus tend to stay in a gear longer and run at higher RPM than necessary?

[MPGeo]

I'm just excited that you managed 90mpg @ 65-70mph! Great in my book! Have allot of work to put in to catch up to those figures, but I like the fact that it is being done!