Found success, Didn't know it

[autoteach]

I owned a 1994 Ford Probe for 2 years. Great shape, but really wasn't "me", and I wanted to consolidate. So I sold it a month and a half ago. I told the people that I routinely got in the low 30's with mixed city and hwy driving. I also told them that I easily got 37mpg on a long trip up north. The honest truth was that I did this with little effort, daily. I replaced the exhaust after the factory rotted off, went with "tuner" style because it was cheap. No cat, but my best mpg was with completely stock vehicle. here is where my suprise comes in.

After joining the forum, and getting the bug, I am thinking that I already had the perfect ecomodder. The shape was there, it just needed help on the little things. I started looking up the MPG to see where I was and how much improvement could have been had...23 city 30 hwy. My weekly average for 50/50 driving was 33ish. I was always, I mean always, beating the avgs, and sometimes by alot. I would never consider my driving THAT eco-conscientious, but I am floored by the mpg I got without trying. Now I am thinking the couple that I sold it to are probably pissed that I lied about it.

Has anyone else, prior to enlightenment, consistently beat the mileage with their vehicles??

My others: Blazer- 14-18 rating, consistently for 3 years at 19-20mpg, alltime high of 24mpg
Honda Superhawk- 35-42, consistently high 30's with beating it, highway 45, all time around 48-50mpg.

[Nevyn]

I had a 1997 Escort base model with the 2.0L SPI CVH series engine and the 5MT. I routinely got 33-38 MPG with it, and I beat the tar out of it. I'd LOVE to have another one and ecomod the b'joogers out of it and see what happens.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I have generally always gotten better than average in my minvan, and a bit less so in the Maxima. I don't know if I've just happened to accidentally tune my van well or what, but when I read reviews of it written when it was new, they complain about it having too small an engine with not enough power. Sure it's rated at 150 hp (IIRC) but it'll scratch the tires rather easily. And I've never had a problem keeping up. I think the people who review cars read the stats sheet and prejudge the thing before giving it a drive.

[gone-ot]

...frugile drivers who really don't like paying "...thru the nose..." for transportation and gasoline often are latent "...eco-drivers at heart..." but don't realize it.

...that's *why* they find enlightenment upon visiting here at ecomodder-nervana!

[wagonman76]

With my Celebrity, I used to consistently get 29 mpg to work and back and 32 mpg downstate and back, which is better than even the old EPA numbers for highway. Always going the speed limit. That was before joining here and learning mods, driving tricks, instrumentation, everything. See the first few entries of my fuel log. My friend always said I drove like a granny, even when I thought I was driving pretty spirited. Maybe he was right.

One thing I noticed that before trying, my mileage used to be very consistent. Since then, it varies greatly depending on weather conditions but is still always better than what I used to get.

[Red Lion]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...frugile drivers who really don't like paying "...thru the nose..." for transportation and gasoline often are latent "...eco-drivers at heart..." but don't realize it.

...that's *why* they find enlightenment upon visiting here at ecomodder-nervana!

That's how I got started!

[SentraSE-R]

I've consistently beaten EPA highway mpg with my combined mpg in cars, dating back to the mid 80s. I always aimed to get 30 mpg in my DD, and the EPA hwy ratings for my last three DDs were 27, 29, and 26.

[autoteach]

Well, I figured that their were some of you out there, I just never realized that I was one of those that was "out there"