Alright, I'm convinced.
As "clean" as the 2K7-11 Accent hatch looks aerodynamically, something's seriously wrong here.
I'll explain. I do enjoy cruising at a decent speed since I have a busy life and need to get a lot of things done in a short period of time, not terribly fast though; usually within 5 MPH of the posted limit.
So I made a trip to Baltimore recently, and noted something pretty surprising. On the way down, I tried to DWL with my throttle set at a meager 15. Was kind of scary at times for that stretch of I-95, especially on those long uphills where I'd end up doing 40 and everyone else was flying by me, but I remained dedicated to my cause. Still, the carefulness paid off - at 185 miles, I still had over half a tank! On flat stretches, the little hatch would get around 60 MPH at 15% throttle.
But heading back up, time was a little more scarce. I decided to keep at or around the limit... but I'd have to hold nearly 22% throttle to maintain 65 on flat stretches! That's a huge difference that also took a hit out of my return MPG and whittled the tank's average to 33. That suggest to me at least, a ton of aero resistance. I'm not sure why, because the car has a long hood with a good-appearing leading edge and an abrupt end to the back, but eh...
Something's definitely wrong, aerodynamically speaking. Past observations reflect the data I collected on my most recent trip; in the past, during the occasional rush-to-work when I'm averaging 85 MPH on the turnpike, the throttle is almost 3/4 down and forcing a downshift to 3rd. Funny that, because I never had to apply that much throttle in my ol '90 Tercel to maintain the same speed on a flat stretch of road (but DID have to floor it on the uphills, heh) and yet the Tercel was 78 HP and this thing is claimed to put out 110 HP.
Also, my front bumper is damaged. It has its shape, but I had to Gorilla Tape over a crack caused by someone driving into it. I didn't notice any real increase in air resistance but that's not even the point I'm driving. Point is, the front bumper is expendable. I'm thinking engineering a new front bumper is a great place to start - but like, how do I not screw things up?
I know less than jack about aerodynamics, and even less than that about fabrication - I'm also an underpaid retail worker, so I can't just hire out tons of help. Where do I go from here? My old Yaris that was totaled out would easily get 40 MPG under similar RPM/speed combinations and yet this little Korean with just an extra 100cc of displacement and 80 additional pounds struggles to hit 30 under normal Jersey driving, and has yet to ace 35 while DWL!
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