2009 Yaris at 54mpg combined!

[I'mHurdlingThroughSpace!]

Is it too early for me to post one of these? No matter...


Basically, I my dad bought me my first car in September, which is my current car. Until this January I had been driving very aggressively, doing jack rabbit starts, hard braking, and cruising on the highway at 75+mph. At the end of every day I watched myself burn through an entire gallon of fuel with only having done 24 miles of commuting. I was filling up at least once a week and sometimes more. I had pretty much resigned myself to having a car with bad fuel economy and frequently fawned over hybrid cars, not realizing that there was a better way to solve my gasoline related woes.

Anyway, in January I began to research if I could remedy my bad fuel economy in other ways than buying a hybrid car. It was then that I discovered hypermiling. The next day I immediately began changing my driving habits by coasting frequently and accelerating slowly. The difference was immediate, and suddenly it was taking more than one day for me to burn through a single gallon. Slowly I added more techniques, I even began driving at 64mph on the highway! Suddenly I was getting 45-50mpg, as opposed to the lowly 24 I was receiving in the past.

Anyway, with my last few tanks, my calculations began to get a little unbelievable. I had began taking my speed back down to 60mph on the highway, doing pulse and drive instead of using cruise control, and stopping my car at intersections as opposed to idling. My last few tanks began to come up as 55mpg+. I considered this impossible, but it drove me to finally buy a Scangauge.

So I bought a scangauge, hooked it up, and sure enough, I was getting 51 city, 57 highway. I was astounded, I never thought my little Yaris could be so efficient!


Despite all of my progress I'm not stopping at 54mpg. I am currently building a diy upper grill block and have plans for rear wheel skirts, partial lower grill block, and filling on those little spaces where the fog lights are supposed to be. My rules for my mods is they have to removable (so I can keep my warranty, free oil changes, and maintenance from Toyota) and they must look good. I'll probably post my projects later.

Hopefully all of these will get me above 60mpg and possibly higher.

[GRU]

Do a test on hard acceleration vs. slow acceleration. you might get better fuel economy getting up to speed quickly as long as you will hold the speed for a while (example: getting on the freeway) but if your stoped and the next light is close and red then accelerate slowly

[I'mHurdlingThroughSpace!]

I usually do the slow acceleration for lights around here. Some of the traffic lights are very badly timed. It makes everyone behind me angry, but oh well.

As for the freeway, I definitely need to do more hard acceleration. I think the only reason I didn't make it to 60mpg is because after I went up inclines using constant throttle (letting speed fall from 60mph to 55mph) as opposed to letting cruise control compensate, I accelerated a bit sluggishly back up to 60mph. I think in some ways that may have cost me a bit of efficiency. When I did hard acceleration I saw an overall gain in mpg, though.

[yostumpy]

we've got a little yaris, 2000 MY 1000cc, used to get around 45-50mpg thought that was good, then I found this site. Now the onboard avg mpg computer, on shortish combined runs mostly urban sits around 58mpg. But on a recent 125mile return run it was up to 64.8mpg there, and 63.9 return. Absolutely NO mods whatsoever, with a slow puncture in the front tyre. All down to driving style, mostly accelerating, then knocking it out of gear on the downhills/.slip roads etc. Oh thats UK miles and gallons.