Have you ever given 1-on-1 ecodriving instruction? (Here's how I did it.)

[slowmover]

How long is your route?

Trucks have oversized cooling systems compared to cars with sand drivetrain. The HVAC heater can be on its own circuit (not a good gauge as to warmup). Tires and axles also longer to warm. Etc.

A grille block at 41F or lower would have been “good” (See operators manual).

Im simply suggesting that specification differences per design (it’s a truck and not a car) should be kept in mind, first.

[MetroMPG]

Route is just over 7 km.



With ambient temps around the freezing mark, agreed: the truck was nowhere near normal operating temperature. It had been driven only ~5 km prior to starting the loop.



That makes it all the more surprising that it could do as well as it did, when driven with economy in mind.

[MetroMPG]

My brother just bought this car:





The car's EPA ratings are:

• city: 10.7 L/100 km = 22 mpg
• highway: 8.7 L/100 km = 27 mpg

(Interestingly, the manual and automatic Xb have identical city/hwy ratings.)


Updating this thread for posterity: I took it out on the city coaching loop in pretty ideal conditions (warm weather, warmed-up drivetrain, light traffic).


Results: 6.4 L/100 km = 37 mpg US reported on the factory gauge.

Again, no especially fancy driving techniques: just avoiding rushing into avoidable stops/slowdowns, upshifting to top gear as soon as practical, neutral coasting and DFCO where appropriate. I shut the engine off at 2 long stop lights.

When we took his 2005 Nissan X-trail through this same loop in 2014, I squeezed 31 mpg from it with similar (normal) ecodriving techniques. (34 MPG when repeated with some engine-off coasting.)