Modest mods for the PT
 

Long story short, my old ride ('04 Saturn Ion 1 auto) is toast, so my wife has a new-to-her Mazda 5 and I get her old '01 Pt Cruiser auto as a hand-me-down for the foreseeable future.

Ordinarily this would not bother me, but I log about 60 miles per day on average thanks to 5 days per week of work commutes and 7 days per week of newspaper delivery. The commute is all city driving or aggressive highway driving, while the newspaper route involves plenty of stop-and-start driving that involves a great deal of accelerating to 30-40 mph, slowing down, accelerating again, and so forth and so on. As an added bonus, my route is on top of a ridge that requires a 1500-foot hill climb before I can even begin delivering any papers (if you've heard of it, it's the infamous 'W' road that goes up Signal Mountain/Walden's Ridge).

The PT has turned in a depressing 10-15 mpg on the route. I haven't figured its mileage on a combined paper route + commute yet, but it's probably not going to get any better.

Any suggestions on what I can do to improve the situation? I can't throw much money at the problem.

65+ Efficiency Mods
100+ Hypermiling Tips
That's for starters.

Here are the first things you should try:

• Higher air pressure in tires,
• Lose weight (car weight, too),
• Engine braking,
• SLOW DOWN!!

The only thing worse than highway driving is aggressive highway driving, so take it easy, noone's chasing you. And try 20-30mph between stops on your paper route instead of 30-40, with engine braking, of course.
Get rid of the rear seats and unused stuff, so that you don't dead weight around. Climb the hill slowly, then engine brake on the way down.

The useless stuff I can get rid of soon, since the PT no longer has the job of being designated kiddee carrier.

Aggressive driving, sadly, is necessary because I am always chased by time. The highway stretch I have to run is also populated by other aggressive drivers that make it difficult if not impossible to obey the speed limit.

But mostly I'm dealing with deadlines on the paper and getting to work on time otherwise.

I weigh ~140 lbs @ 6' tall, so weight loss will put me into anorexic territory. My wife and mother already worry about it.

I did read the mods page. Anyone got any PT-specific insight on which of those work well and which don't? I've been particularly curious about a WAI/HAI, since if I recall correctly, that only hurts the top end, and the low end is where I need the torque. Also wondering if DIYing it is the best way to go, or if SRIs or similar devices sold in the aftermarket work well for this purpose.