Hypermiling stories thread
 

I haven't seen a thread for stories of little hypermiling happenings. You know the ones, they're not worth starting a thread for each one but they don't fit anywhere else (except under annoyances/smiles). I've usually thrown mine into the gas mileage blab thread, but that's not really what it's for- they're not gas mileage stories.

Enjoy.

Yesterday morning I was going down the second lane from the left on a four lane highway. That's okay- the left two lanes and the right two lanes split off from each other, so I was in the right lane of the section I needed to be in. Traffic wasn't that bad but I had a Civic right behind me. I think she had her cruise set to just below 60 and was determined to not break it. I had tightened my glides down to 62ish-55 because she was there and I was waiting for her to go around (the left lane was well clear). I pulsed up over a rise and heard a horn to my left. She had "tried" to pass me, but didn't want to break her cruise and my pulse made her think that I was trying to prevent a pass! She pulled back in behind me, waving her hand out the window at me. She stayed behind me until I left the highway.

This morning I actually passed a guy. I caught up with an xB that was doing a solid 50 in a 55. I couldn't pass him in a normal passing zone because while my average speed is faster I'd mess things up by doing that. I'd start a group of people passing him (nobody was in the mood for a two car pass, it seems) and I'd be in front of everyone. I waited until we got a passing lane and the others blew by then I worked my way by. After my next big glide he was just a tiny dot in the mirror.

You messed up an excellent opportunity to go only 50 :snail:

I enjoyed it, but that 2.5 mile glide takes me up to 60. :D

I met the xB again today. He was going a little faster, so I didn't pass him. I had to hit the brakes twice on my 2.5 mile glide. I didn't pass him for my next 1 mile glide, but the big one after that is important so I passed him for it.

It's great to see someone else on my commute working for mileage.

10 mile EOC that registered over 4500 MPG

I went for a drive up to a local lake, 25 miles up approx. 2200 ft. elevation from 30 ft. start point.
Once I got to the top I positioned the car to a good rolling point, and let her roll then EOC, to my surprise it rolled for just over 10 miles on the first leg of the trip down the mountain, and the MPGUINO showed approx. 4525 MPG.
I was able to do a few more EOC's on the remainder of the trip.
I achieved 53 MPG going up, and 175 MPG down for a round trip avg. of 114 MPG.
I will be trying this again and I know I can do better.
Maybe a good place to try out new areo-mods.

You get 53 mpg going uphill :eek:

:D

It must be my flatlander mindset :o

I borrowed my neighbor's elderly F150 to haul a playset home for the kids. The tank looked full at the outset, so I topped it off at the end. 28 mi / 0.93 gal = 31 MPG, although my error bars have got to be quite large on a fillup that size. I even wonder if it's possible for the pump to have made a totally erroneous stop, although that has never happened to me before.

I was being somewhat moderate with his truck, 1.5X combined EPA is typical for my "moderate" hypermiling mode (moderate = not quite as much EOC P&G). I think the truck is a 7th gen, not really sure, so 1.5X would probably land me in the 20-25 MPG neighborhood. Then again, I didn't check his tire pressure, so 1.5X might be optimistic.

I told him I might have got 30 MPG, he said "no, that truck gets 8 miles per gallon."

"Not today."

"Oh, that's right, you're the guy who gets good gas mileage."

I hope I'm not just bragging, anyways. :D

One of the guys came by at lunch today and said "I saw you at the tolls last night. Huge line of traffic held up in the left lane, so I pulled right and when I got to the front of it I saw your Subaru moving at a glacial pace!"

I just smiled and explained that I exceeded both the toll plaza's PSL and the toll booth's PSL. I asked him if I was really going so slowly, then why did it take him two miles past the tolls to catch up with me? He paused, said "I guess you weren't going that slow," and walked off.