How to get my wife to drive smarter
 

So our new family car should get an EPA 31MPG combined. My wife just pulled a 24... WTF! I tried to gently explain that it is the way she drives. But no! I'm the jerk. She likes to accelerate at 3,000RPM, until she hits 80MPH on a 65.

So how do I show her it is her driving style that soaks up fuel? Anybody with any experience with the spouse conversion?

I've been lucky enough with the second tank to do a fair bit of the driving, about 5 or 6 round trips of 40 miles. So we'll see how the FE rebounds...

"You can lead a horse to water..."

Good luck. Consider the relative value you place on mpg and on your relationship and proceed accordingly.

The same can be said to her.

It's funny: with the stick on the mini, I've seen her shift at 4,000. And I am the jerk when I say she must must hate dinosaurs for the way she's ripping through the dinojuice.

With the Altima, she likes to remote start the engine and finish a long conversation on her phone through her parked car. grrr....

And then I was doing a tape test for wheel covers on my Ranger and she ripped them off!

How about a game? Let each driver get points both for how fast s/he drove and for their trip MPG. Lowering fuel consumption while trying not to lose too much time should make both of you happy, and I know (but don't tell her) that the laws of physics will be on your side: You can considerably reduce FC while taking only slightly longer to get where you're going.

I assume that remapping the wife's ECU for economy is out of the question? ;)

Wow, ripping off stuff from your vehicle...sounds anti-ecomodder rather than merely apathetic..yikes.

When I showed my wife the $$ value savings on paper, the stats of everyone she knows getting tickets, multiple accidents because of speed... it was enough to get her to see the light....

...but then common sense doesn't always grab everyone the same way.

FYI: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...elp-20958.html

A couple of ideas in a very similar thread.

I assume she pays for her own fuel? :)

Glad to be single! :thumbup:

There is no way on God's green earth that this will work out, at least without a great deal of pain.

The only way to do it is to hit her in the wallet. The two of you should determine a monthly gas budget for her based on the mileage she should be getting. Give her that money; no more no less. If she runs out of gas money, oh well.

Everyone thinks they are a good driver. Telling someone they should change driving styles is akin to telling them they need to lose weight; however well intended, it won't be pretty.

Good luck with that.

glad the wife doesn't drive!:thumbup:

get a device for teens that limits the speed of the car, then set it to say, 56 MPH :)

Good idea set it at the max speed limit in your area and do it secretly, at least it'll help the mileage once on the hw

Got my wife an UltraGauge and now I have to be careful or she'll get better mileage than me!

But my wife had incentive, since we get by on a small income. You have to incentivize your wife or she won't do it. Ex: Save this much in gas money and we take a cruise with that money... The thing being if she learns the habits, they are very hard to unlearn!

Get her an UltraGauge. Set it up for her. Instant, short trip and trip mpg are the most important things. Throw in instant mpg and you've got four big, easy to read numbers that don't require any interpretation.

I put coolant temp on hers, and ended up removing instant gph to fit ambient temp because she had the cluster set to show the outside temp instead of the odometer (???).

If she don't care, she just don't care.

Right, but having the numbers on display will bring her around eventually.

i had the same issue, then i started talking about how much money per month it would save to drive better... really helped when i could show how much i was saving.

Funny thing is that my wife knows I went from filling up 4 times a month to filling up 3 times. Maybe we should do a fuel budget by distance and highway MPG... she would lose money and I would get more! (There is a NG armory across the river selling M1 garands for $500-$1000) But Financially hurting her is pretty hard because we have joint accounts; and if I suddenly set my own up, she will think I have a mistress on the side or something! (A wife and daughter are expensive enough, I don't need to pay for another girl LOL)

And here is the ironic thing, I started hypermiling because she thought me making the mini go sideways in every turn was irresponsible with a pregnant woman (her) in the car. So she complained about my driving habits and I changed after about a week and some research. Although I was heading that way with driving my truck to work in the morning. Rangers aren't really that fun to get sideways...

And I do have a SG2 and an ultragauge. And I have threatened to put alarms on the UG to bug the hell out of her if she is being bad. And she promptly said she would throw it out the window doing highway speeds. (she will, she's crazy)

So I might bring some points up and see how she responds. Thanks for the inputs

Yeah, so she worked you over with negative incentives and you changed within a week... lol :p

You have to give her a convincing reason to try for better mileage and let her be able to control part of it (like what to do with the money saved). Show her the ecomodder garage showing you saved $235 over EPA so far in just 15 fill-ups. Restart the one on her car and have a competition to save some money. But the outcome has to be one that she will enjoy. With a side-effect of permanently lowering your gasoline bill. :thumbup: Now my wife could not stop eco-driving habits even if she had to! :D

My wife didn't really care about mileage when we first got our Escape. She wasn't doing terrible, but after seeing what I could get from it, she became interested. Now she strives to squeeze more miles out of each gallon. One of the biggest helpers for her is the Ultragauge showing the instant mileage. She even told me that she wants a Scangauge so she can see what is going on with the hybrid stuff. The best part is that I'll probably have an easier time convincing her to let me do some aeromods to it.:D

One thing you could do is show her the difference between your tanks or trips and hers. Even better would be showing it as cost per mile (or 10 or 20 miles). One of my main motivations for hypermiling is saving money, its hard to argue with several hundred dollars saved every 10,000 miles.

In the end, though, it all comes down to how far you're willing to push it.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-la...012-images.jpg If nothing else; pick a wife that is mpg material.
!
This could be your nightmare! Aren't you happier now!!????

Ouch! Somedays you get the elavator, somedays u get the shaft...i have the same issue....i have not dared to broach the subject.

my gf and i had the same... She's more relaxed with trying new things because i annoy and drag her into things wheather she likes it or not... eventually she'll budge and hop on board! ...she knows the (frequent) crazy things i do, works... and i don't just do them without relative cause.. $$$ is teh biggest incentive for US, as we drive ALLOT! so anything saved goes back into our pockets to do other cool fun "togetherness" stuff instead.

So what's her weak spot?

Reward system like you have 4 tanks of X mpg...

= spa day for her
= weekend just the two of you
= you make dinner for a week
= ??

Look at my Wifey's fuel log, you can definitely see some tanks where I have driven compared to her. But she refuses to look at things or consider ideas if she perceives that I am being a jerk. And she assumes that I am as a default!

I got her weak spot! I have been holding out for just the right occasion. I have never, EVER, no even once given her flowers. My rationale was that only men who were in trouble give them to women and why would I give you something that dies as a token of my love. Odd that she still wants them, she is a florist hasn't she got apathetic to their presence yet?

Give flowers thats living w roots in a potted plant!

Withhold sex.

My girlfriend drives my cavalier now. She's 23 and has student loans to pay down. So I broke it down for her in dollars and cents and she understood that. Now I've got her coasting, drafting trucks, she's no pro but vastly improved over her old habits. She use to push the gas while she drove and then brake then gas then brake. Drove me insane.

Tell her you'll put the money saved on fuel towards the vacation.

I must be going with the wrong women... withholding sex is more likely for for the ladies than the men in the circles i travel in :-:-P

If fuel economy is effecting your relationship; break up or divorce them.

You clearly have way bigger problems if you have to develop tactics to force them into following your lifestyle.

It's not about FE, as such- MPGranger isn't asking her to hypermile, it just hurts him to watch her make 78% of EPA.

I think he's going to have to bite the bullet on this one, though. It's hard to put someone in a sporty little thing and expect them to not use it that way. I think throwing an SG or UG in there will at least let her see the numbers and he should leave it at that.

Flowers are a tough subject, it's been my observation over some successes and failures that a man in a committed relationship should have flowers delivered to his woman's place of business at least two (her birthday and one random day) - and at most 4 times a year. Even if where she works is a flower shop, and especially if you order them from the same shop she works at. Yes, it's $50-100 to do that. Yes it's a lot of money if you think what you're buying is just some flowers.

If you've never bought your woman flowers before, or if it's been a long time... it could look a lot like a pre-apology to a suspicious spouse, but if you're truly clean as a whistle there's not really anything she can do about it - but why's she suspicious in the first place? After you get past that obstacle it's pretty sweet :)


We all know how that goes... ya' don't pet yer dog, he finds someone who'll pet 'im. :snail:

Choosing your battles is probably best, the more freedom you give your spouse the more freedom you can expect (and take) in return. Some folks just will not be convinced to conserve energy - most housemates I've ever had have likely never moved a light switch down or turned off a home entertainment device in their lives, and will go to their graves believing those things turn themselves off like the light in the fridge because I went around turning things off for them.

I know convincing my g/f to save more fuel would be very nearly impossible as she commutes exclusively by bicycle..

I had the same problem with my ex-wife..just did not care about doing any better when it came to saving fuel and she didn't care about money, because she didn't have to pay for it...good luck

I had a similar situation. My wife lives in another part of the state, and I commute to be with her when I can. This reason makes mpg very important.

She is having a hard time financially, and we mostly try to stay out of each others finances.

I told her, I will mod her car. No expense flr labor, or parts. Anything above EPA, she pays me. The 3 dollar role of duct tape I bought has since paid foritself. When she wants somethin in a store, I bring it up. A new car? Better internet? Cable? A kitty cat?

Less fuel used, means more money. Your experience will depend on your wife, and her goals, and your situations. Surely you are happy. If you had problems, you most likely wouldn't be on here commenting on this lol. But if she doesn't care about money, fuel, dinosaurs, so on, then it won't work. I taught my wife not to race to red lights, as step one.

People fly past as I coast to a red light. Get there, it is turned green, second gear, and gone. Less fuel, less brake, and past them. When she realized momentum is better than being the first to a red light, the seed was planted amd she started growing.

I hope the circumstances work out to your liking :)

Post Script: what if you challenged her in that you matched her fuel savings on here? For a trip, or whatever. If she sewed, a new machine, so on. After the first gift giving holiday you put it towards, tell her she can keep saving money by just driving that way. College fund for your young lady? Fees for sports? Either way, I hope it works out. I know the anguish when someone puts on air con when , in my personL opinion, God has blessed us with free air con outside.

My wife learned "old school" - a 66 Chevelle 6 cylinder with 3 on the tree. She nailed the shift points right away.
Upgraded to a Chevy Citation 4 speed, she loved that car.
Then came kids, and its been automatics for her ever since. But I wouldn't hesitate to have her drive the XFE.

I just had a few thoughts. :) Mostly perspective thoughts.

~ Your wife could be driving a car that gets a lot lower EPA to begin with.

~ Consider your savings as a part of her savings. You save for the both of you! :)
PaleMelanesian gets great mileage by not doing any mods, just driving techniques. And there are some things you can do to the car that your wife wouldn't care about - tire pressure up, synthetic oils. Lol, if you had some time to work on the car without her observation, you might even be able to install a WAI. She'd have less power too. I would suggest a gradual transition with that one. You wouldn't want her thinking the car is having problems.

~ Adding an Ultragauge or SG would be good too. Don't say anything, just put it in. Off to the side but still in view. Subtle is a good way to encourage change. :)

~ Give it time. It may take her years to come around, but when she does it will be well worth it. The best things don't happen over night.


~ This might sound unrelated, but the philosophy still applies. If you want her to take an interest in something you like, take an interest in things she likes. :) She may reciprocate the interest. And through that you can also continue to strengthen your marriage at the same time. That is NEVER a bad thing!! ;)