New user - 05 Corolla

[mush3gan]

Hi everyone, I found this site just looking for other people's specs on the 2005 Corolla.

About a month ago i was speeding at 104 mph when i was stopped by a police officer and received not only a $500 ticket but a warning that i could have been arrested. shocked and scared, I realized how stupid I was and just two days later i read about Wayne Gerdes on CNN. in a matter of days my entire ideology shifted. i used to be in it for the fun ride, trying to get to places as fast as possible, etc. but now, one month later i have no desire whatsoever to waste fuel by racing other cars or accelerating hard.

i used to get on average about 22-25 MPG on my 2005 Corolla, with a maximum of about 27 mpg for long trips. after my ticket i've slowly increased my maximum MPG to 35.6 MPG just yesterday modifying only my driving techniques such as coasting towards red lights and driving slower. i'm not ready to use any "engine-off" techniques yet... but does anyone else have any suggestions of "basic" techniques i can use to further increase my mileage??

thanks

[Blue07CivicEX]

If you know the stop lights in your area shutting the engine off at the lights is an easy, safe way to save gas, 8 seconds of idling = one engine start more or less. So if you're stopped for more then 8 seconds you'll save gas by stopping and re-starting the engine. Also, any extra weight in the car, look at the front end maybe there are some easy aero mods you can do to help out. If you don't have a scanguage or similar device it might be worthwhile to look into, I was skeptical but now that I have it i'm adjusting and I like it. The biggest thing is keeping a constant PEDDLE when driving not a constant speed. going 50 up a hill and 60 down the other side is ok in a 55mph zone. doing that will keep you at XXmpg up the hill and XXmpg down the hill (more or less) instead of burning a ton of fuel to get to the top then idling down the other side. If you haven't read the 100+ tips you might find some good info in there.

Hope that helps, good luck! I used to drive pretty quick too (had the civic around 120 and my old cadillac up to 135) now i'm just amazed I didn't kill myself or get thrown in jail!

PS Welcome to the site! good luck with the Corolla, if I had waited another year I would have bought an '09 Corolla over an '09 Civic but at the time the '07 civic had the corolla beat hands down for what I was looking for. They are spiffy little cars though!

[SVOboy]

Quite a shift! That is indeed shockingly bad mileage you got with the corolla before the big change,

Welcome to ecomodder!