Just wanted to introduce myself. I live in Cincinnati, not exactly a hypermiling-friendly place (too many hills), and I've been hypermiling for a little over a month. My wife and I have two cars:
1) The primary car: 2000 Toyota Echo, manual. On the first full tank where we phased in hypermiling techniques, we got 41.65 mpg. We're on the second tank (seems like we've been on it forever), and we seem to be on pace for around 45 mpg.
2) The little-used, soon-to-be-sold gas guzzler: 2004 Honda CRV, manual. We got this because we do a ton of gardening and thought it would be great for picking up furniture at antique shops, but the inside isn't as big as you'd think.
I don't have a scangauge; trying to convince my wife it's worth the cost. My goal with the Echo is a consistent 48-52 mpg as we get more comfortable with the techniques.
Also of note: I've just started a website about various ways we're trying to green our lives here in Cincinnati, a city with bad mass transit and horrible governmental red tape that prevents real progress. It's greenincincinnati.blogspot.com if you're interested. I'm going to post a video about hypermiling soon, in part to dispel the dumb AAA myths about what hypermilers do.
Wow, quick reply--we both need to detach from our computers
Not sure about mods yet. Technically, I married into the car, so any and all mods have to be agreed upon with my wife. But I'm close on covers for the back wheels, with a cover for the front grate the next project. (Along with the ongoing scangauge debate over dinner.)
The other thing, which is less a mod than an unmod, is the bike rack: she likes to ride her bike, but it's impossible to get to a decent trail around here without driving. (Unfriendly drivers, badly designed roads.) She doesn't like that I take it off, even though it's pretty light and easy to reattach.
As for a replacement vehicle, we're thinking either none (I'm lucky to live near a bus route that goes where I need to go), or a scooter (a Buddy or Stella). The scooter is relatively inexpensive and gets great mileage, but the winter weather makes it useless for several months. We keep waffling about whether we want it or not. We're planning to sell the CRV, then see how a one-car life goes.
We're only getting about 23 mpg with the CRV. The caveats/lame excuses:
1) We've driven it very, very little over the past month. It's in good shape, but we've only driven it to garden stores and hardware places. Which leads to
2) Half the time it has bags of mulch, paving stones, and other junk in the back, so it's got extra weight.
3) I'm so used to hypermiling with the Echo that the CRV feels completely foreign to me. I keep getting stop sign distances way wrong, and I find it strangely hard to time anything right when I'm driving it.
All that said, it's a good car. It's just not right for us.
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