rider toyota paseo driver, suggestions for better mpg.
 

Hi Everyone, due to a acl injury im forced to leave my 77mpg ninja 250 and start commuting in a car. I have a toyota paseo from 1995, and i get about 32 mpg.

I was hoping to get better mpg, i usually take city streets that are low speed to work. the car is automatic, stock. i have been reading on hyper miling techniques and am going to start using that.

is the paseo a good car for getting high mpg. What would be the highest expected from this car if it is rated at 28mpg and 36 highway?

Thank you very much, look forward to seeing how i can improve.

unfortunatly i dont have a scan gauge, car is too old to use it.

Hello scorch.

The Paseo is a decent car for mileage if you are willing to try with it. Unfortunately, the automatic transmission is going to significantly hinder your attempts at getting some great mileage out of it.

I was able to achieve the mileage I did in my Paseo primarily by the use of pulse and glide which you can't really do with an automatic transmission.

If I were you, I'd focus on avoiding brake use primarily. Then, I'd look into modifying the trans so that you can lock up the torque converter on command. If you were able to do that, you could pulse and glide in neutral (not engine off) which would give you some pretty good mileage.

BTW, your car is rated for 25 city, 30 highway.

My second tank on the paseo. and i got 37 mpg. Actually 36.99, but i rounded up.

Too bad i have a automatic transmission.

This is up from 32 mpg, i think id be super happy with 40mpg since that is the mpg my bmw r1100rs gets.


I heard using acetone in the gas helps alot? is this true?

im riding pretty gently, but not holding up people. i take mostly small city streets to work. Alot of is city driving.

I got my tires inflated high, the max on the tire sidewall.

The car is in good mechnical condition, and i think id like to know if there are things i could do more. I have regular oil, i might switch to low weight oil in the next oil change.

I don't think there is much support for acetone as a strategy. But an airdam under the front bumper will help. So will blocking off the front grills prudently. If you are doing a lot of stop/go, then reduce weight.

i might do an airdam. Probably an easy way is to use duct tape. My car is silver so it should blend pretty well. ugh

Actually that wont work. What materials would you suggest to use for the front bumper building?

Currently i have 185 tires, would going down to a thinner tire size improve the mpg as well?

there are lots of factors in tire changes. Wait until you must have new tires, then do the research. Otherwise, the cost of new tires purchased prematurely will eat-up any fuel savings.

Cheap and easy and quite stealthy: black lawn edging attached under the bumper cover with screws. Done well it looks pretty much OEM, noticed only by the trained eyes as a funky add-on.

Hey Scorch,

Going from high 70s to middle 30s must be quite a jolt. Then again, Maryland in January isn't a bad time to be riding inside a cage, so I call that a wash.

As you've already seen you can make a big difference to the car's yield just with how you drive. And you've already noted that the automatic hampers the car's flexibility and potential quite a bit.

Spending a lot of time in stop-and-go traffic means aero improvements don't help you much. The time spent idling at lights and pushing harder on the gas to get back up to speed add a lot, too.

Examine your usual route and see if there's a different one, one that keeps your car motoring along just above the torque convertor lockup threshold. Modest speeds in top gear with the TC locked up are the butter zone, and if you have to add distance to spend more time there, it still may be enough of an improvement to reduce your overall fuel consumption. It also means your average speed will go up, further into the range where aero improvements can make an improvement and reduce your consumption even further.

Welcome from south Baltimore!

In my most recent fill up i got 37.11 mpg on my toyota paseo. Im pretty pleased with this number, but wish i could get past the 40's..

Considering the climate in winter. I'd say your mileage is very good and it will probably get to 40+ in warmer weather.

regards
mech

Have you done any aeromods yet? A grill block, air dam, belly pan, and/or kammback/boattail would be really helpful for you.

You could also do some engine mods like a WAI or increasing EGR flow.

If you do a lot of city driving, you could consider turning the engine off at street lights, however, that will take a toll on your starter.

You can't use a ScanGauge, but you can use an MPGuino that way you can accurately see what works well and what doesn't, especially when fine tuning your driving style.

I agree, you are doing quite well considering how cold it has been in the area, especially with an automatic.

Ive looked into the mpgguino but I have no idea how to hook it up.

Ive thought about the air dam thing, but havent thought how to build it. I just don't want the car ro look significantly different.

I'm not holding traffic up either. In DC and in my route there us alot of slow traffic.

Piased off today with traffic so much stop and go. Its going to ruin my average for the week ;)

Does turning the car at lights ruin that much the starter? Ive heard if people doing that for 100k miles without harm.

Don't really see any glaring starter issues mentioned on the Toyota Nation site. One poster with a 2005 Corolla still has the original starter with 270,000 miles. Hope mine lasts that long!! I do turn off the engine at fresh red lights if I know it will be a long wait.

i have 200k on this car.

I filled up today and got a lousy 32.11 mpg, its because of getting stuck in heavy bumper to bumper traffic early in the week.

id like to install a kill switch, but im not good enough to know how to. Ill just continue with technique..

so in my last commutes i have been riding carefully and not taking off fast etc. I decided to try and see what i could get if i got on the gas more and rode over 60mph more on the highways and i pulled into the gas station with 112 miles on the trip to see how my mpg would do. I thought it would be around 25mpg or so. But it ended up being 40.14 mpg! Which is the best ever done on the paseo. So when i drove it harder i got better mpg, how is that possible. Im guessing because i did alot of highway, but seriously. lol