New to the forum and new to this ecomodding thing.
 

So, I recently bought a 2014 Nissan Versa Note and I have been looking into ways to get better gas mileage out of it and my 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup. I deliver newspapers in the Note, so I expect that my mileage will not be nearly as good as many here, since in the 90 miles per night that I run, I have to make 150 stops. That really puts a damper on hypermiling, but I am still giving it a go. I am hoping to eventually get it to 50 mpg on my route, but we will see. It also has the CVT transmission, so a little iffy on neutral coasting or EOC. I filled up today and checked it by hand and I got 37 mpg out of this half tank. Not too shabby considering the highway rating is 40 mpg and I definitely wasn't highway driving. If anyone else is running one of these, feel free to let me know what you are doing to improve yours, and what kind of numbers you are getting. Thanks for all the great information on this forum and I look forward to adding some of my own. :thumbup:

Dang, and I thought my 40 mile route was bad . . .

Then again, I was delivering in a late 90's Land Rover Discovery, so those 40 miles equaled 4 gallons of gas a night :eek:

Welcome to the site, you'll definitely benefit from being here!

Yeah. I ran it in my truck for a while but at 11 mpg it wasn't working so great. The nissan is working out well.

Williamsburg Va here, welcome aboard. Are you close to Williamsburg?

regards
mech

welcome!!!

Air up the tire to 40+psi.

Nah, I'm from over near Blacksburg. Thanks for the welcome. I was looking at one of those Mirages before I got the Note. I like the size better on the Note and it doesn't get bad mileage either. Do you like your Mirage?

Just bumped it up to 45 psi. Max sidewall. Got the oil changed to 0W-30 full synthetic. Trying out a few hypermiling techniques as well. We will see how it does. Takes 2 days of running to get back to half a tank typically, so it will be a couple days before I see how that goes. On a bright note, at 90+ miles a night, even without a scanguage I can get pretty quick results. I've heard that the factory mileage meter is a bit optimistic, but it was pretty close on this tank.

when you get ready to buy tires post up. There is a lot of combined tire knowledge on this board!:thumbup:

My mom has an 1.4L benzine with an 5 speed manual transmission. And she gets with no highway and an distance of 16k (10miles) an fuel consumption of 4,9 to 5,5l/100km (58 to 51mpg).

No hypermiling technieks except of driving and accelerating below 2200rpm.

Welcome to the site.

Thanks guys. When I pulled in the driveway this morning the factory mpg gauge was showing 41.1 mpg. Don't know if that's right or not, but if it is, that's right at 4 mpg improvement on a paper route. We will see in another day of running if it's correct or not.

Try to avoid carrying dead weight, that is one of the most effective tricks to enhance city MPG.

I typically clean the car out every day when I get done so that the clutter and extra weight doesn't add up. In general, when I start my route I have around 200 lbs extra in the car during the week (about 150 papers) and closer to 400 extra on Sundays (right at 200 papers), so between that and the stopping and starting, I am very pleased with how this little car is working out.

I just added another fill up. New personal best since I started tracking it. 39.6 mpg calculated. The factory mpg gauge is a little optimistic (showed 41.3 mpg) but it has a real time and avg mileage gauge, so it is still very useful in adjusting my driving habits.

With so many nuts and bolts, it's still somewhat surprising that people don't look at that nut behind the steering wheel while trying to find some "miraculous" way to improve fuel savings :D

You are right about that. I have done very little as far as actual mods to the car, but I have been adjusting my driving habits and my last tank average was .4mpg lower than the EPA highway rating. I can only imagine what this little car is capable of in situations other than daily paper delivery.

So I have started prototyping some grill blocks. Testing with tape to see how much I can cover without issue and what improvement it will give before I put too much effort in. I'm thinking just top grill as the bottom has active shutters already.

How about finding /building a set of active shutters for the top. And just tap into the control circuit for the stock lower shutters. Just an idea.
Gumby stay flexible.

I hadn't considered it, but that may be a better way to go. I recorded my best tank to date today. 40.6 mpg. I'm sure the extra traveling off the route helped that a bit but I am still stoked! ��

So I am now averaging 39.5-40.5 mpg consistently. The upper grill block seems to have helped a bit. Thinking of testing smooth wheel covers next. I am loving this car. Loaded all 5 of us and the stuff for my 1 year-old's birthday party in the car no problem, drove about 60 miles that way and barely lost any mileage. Can't wait to see a 50mpg tank.

Paper delivery around me is the type that are thrown from the car to the bottom of the driveway. Are you stopping and running up to each door to deliver? Or does the route just have that many stop signs/red lights?

Great job on the progress so far. I'm concerned with the upper grill shutters tieing in with the lowers; on the highway when the shutters close, all of them will and unless you have bottom cooling will cause the fan to work overtime and risk overheating.

The only thing that still makes me somewhat afraid of smooth wheel covers is an eventual decrease on the air flow to cool the brakes.

I have never heard of anyone having brake overheating issues with smooth wheel covers. You still have the spokes inside the wheel acting as a fan as well as the rotor itself with the fan built into it.

It might be more of a fear because I never tried it. But anyway, maybe I'd feel more confident to try it in a car fitted with carbon-ceramic brakes :D

Dead men tell no tells .

I wondered about that too but as soon as I wear this set out I'm going to ceramics anyway so it should be fine. Curious about the effect they will have.

As far as my delivery route, almost all of my customers have a paper tube (mailbox for newspapers) so I have to stop to put them in the tubes. So far with the top completely blocked I am not seeing any higher than normal temperatures so I think they would be ok if I did active shutters tied in to the current ones. Probably not necessary though. I will most likely be doing removable blocks instead.

So you need a "paper in the air tube" cannon, LOL.

regards
mech

They retain more heat and are less prone to fading. The lower weight is advantageous too, since it decreases the unsprung mass. But where are you going to find ceramic brakes for the Versa?

Rock auto appears to have them.