Hi All, I was reading thi article on CNN.com about techniques known as hypermilling. These guys say they can almost double the mileage of a car. From what i've read, this is mostly being done with hybrids, but they say you can do some of the techniques with conventional cars.

I wish I could post a specific site that has the answers, but there's quite a few. Has anyone heard of this or tried it on their cars? I get pretty good mileage now, but always looking to get more.

 

I do my best with my xD, but I will not slow down traffic or accell so slow that it ____es people off. But with effort I am averaging 38.9mpg now over 3 tanks. New best for me! Will be REALLY happy if I can brake 40mpg someday.

 

just up the psi on your tires and that should help ya get some better mileage.. i upped mine to 32f/32r and gained 40-50mile a tank on my last 2 tanks... stock pressure is 28f/32r

also if your going down a hill slip it in to neutral and glide and last but not least if your at a red light and you know its gonna be a while shut the car off... it only takes a second to turn the car back on.

just a few simple things can go a long way

 

Coasting in neutral is all great until someone is about to run into you... you have zero control of the car that way.. just like shutting it off at a light. The latter isnt as bad I guess, but coasting in neutral is unsafe. And yes, I have had to floor it to get out of the way of some moron coming to a light before.. as well as having to floor it and drive up beside the person in front of me to avoid some idiot rear-ending me. I would have been hit in both cases had I been in neutral or with the engine off.

And honestly, I find "hypermiling" in a regular car to be a bit insane. You wont find significant savings in it and it will just make you the a-hole who cant drive a constant speed in traffic It is mainly for people who buy hybrids and realize they HAVE to drive that way to realize what the MPG sticker says :D When they could have just bought a volkswagon diesel and got that mileage to start with consistently


I always hear people talk about the insane things they do to get better mileage in a tC.. and they get about 2-3 mpg better than I do on the highway tops.... for all that trouble. And that isnt always consistent. I have driven my tC to OK multiple times. I set the cruise on just over 80 most of the way there, windows open or AC on in the summer, and see 30 mpg... and I enjoy my trip

Not to mention, steady state is the best mileage you can get on a gasoline engine. Hypermiling takes advantage of the engine off/electric on for a hybrid.

 

you all need to visit ecomodder.com - it is one of the better resources Ive found for techniques and aerodynamics as applies to cars

also autospeed.com - they did a really good technical series on old-school wool yarn aero testing of a variety of cars back in issues 435-440 - http://autospeed.com/cms/A_108656/article.html

I really need to do that with my tc and see just what the air is doing and mod accordingly.. after all, improved aero doesnt just give you better economy - it lets you go faster using less power too ^^

 

Well I take my foot off the pedal on downhills, and apply light pressure when at highway speeds or I have been using the cruise control. My tire pressiure is 32f 32r and I use all synhetics in my engine. On a long trip I get about 35 mpg

When I had a Mustang 5 Liter years ago, I used Splitfire Spark Plugs, and avereaged 28MPG on a four hour trip upstat NY. I did this almost twice a month when I was going to school and it was consistant. I went in for some work and the service dept took my plugs without me knowing, and after that I got 20MPG so I definately think the sparkplugs were a big factor.

 

Split fires would not have had anything to do with it, they are actually one of the worst plugs made test wise, no offense but your oem iridium are 10x better plugs.

Only possibiliy a plug could cause a swing even 1/2 of what you describe, is if the plug was horrible mis-gapped or was physically damaged in some way.

 

I actually find myself driving more aggressively. I used to shift around 2-2500 but I'm on a kick where I need to hear my exhaust and don't shift until at least 3500 lol I also started new job that's only 7 miles away w/o any highway driving so I think that has something to do with my recent poor driving habits as well.

 

A lot of hyper-miling ideas are a tad retarded. Especially the one I see frequently about turning the engine off while coasting on the highway...turning the engine on/off all the time can't be good.

 

^^ it is horribly unsafe to turn the engine off while coasting. For one, you are under much less control of the car. For another, there are people who will accidentally turn the key too far and lock the steering .. .trust me, it has happened. I agree, most of these ideas are garbage. And when you look at the $100 - $200 per year or less most of them will save you in gas, they arent worth the trouble.

I really think people are shifting to low most times trying to save gas. Shifting at ridiculously low rpm levels just means you are low in the power band and most likely will over compensate by opening up the throttle to accelerate at a normal speed.

I shift at approximately 3000 - 3500 most times.. sometimes higher if I am in a happy mood (upwards of 4500 or more) I take highway trips at 80 - 85 mph the whole way, etc. I always see about 30 mpg on the highway and average 24 - 25 overall. Thats good mileage for this car and I do nothing special to try to save gas. I really think some people try way too hard and practice unsafe habits to save peanuts on gas. If you were that concerned about fuel economy, you wouldnt have bought the tC.. or should not have. You could have bought a lot of similar cars in the class that got better mileage.

 

true alot of those techniques such as coasting in neutral etc are quite retarded.

I think wiser gains are to be made thru optimizing the aerodynamics more - manufacturers make many retarded descisions during vehicle design to satisfy the percieved marketability of cars, for instance the new beetle is absloutely horrible - it generates so much lift at the tail end that not only is it's fuel economy nowhere near what it could be, but the car can become dangerously unstable at speed, and I am not talking about triple digit speeds either...

 

Are people really that bored when they're driving? I usually just sing to the music if I find myself needing something extra to do while I'm driving.

Seriously though, the comment about just buying a TDI is spot on. Who needs all this hypermiling crap when you can just buy a diesel that gets just as good gas mileage to start with, and then turn it into a grease-burner for an epic win. Never did understand why all these hippies with their Prius' (Prii? I love English language rules.) don't just opt for a diesel beater with a converted vegetable oil engine.

 

Nothing wrong with coasting in neutral especially down hill, just do not turn your car off hahaha.

 

I have to respectfully disagree there Jeremy. You have no control of the car in neutral and no way to make a sudden stab at the gas to avoid something, regain control, etc if anything happens. If the car is moving, it should be in gear. I dont even take my car out of gear at stop lights most of the time for the same reason.

Not to mention, while coasting downhill in gear, you are using very, very little fuel anyway.

 

??? Hmm cannot see your point of view, I have never had an instance in my life were I have needed to accelerate quickly to avoid somthing while on a freeway. And at the rate my xD picks up speed at 65mph in 5th, if there was an emergency, I cannot see gaining but mabey 1/2-1mph in that split second to avoid somthing. Now coasting with the engine off, yes that is very dangerous as your brakes are vacume assisted & after a few pumps, your not going to slow down worth a crap at all.

All good man, you have your opinion and I have mine

Also to think of it, yes if somone was to coast in nuertral on say a 6-7% grade, oh yeah I can see tons of reasons on why not to do so. But on the little 2-3 mile gradual hills we have in Az, I can coast and maintain vehicle speed the whole way.

As I said, without ____ing off other drivers from super slow starts or anything else, & generally just paying attention to how I am driving overall I was able to go from 33mpg to just a tick under 39mpg in the XD. Still working on refining my habits. I can say the MPG gauge has been a godsend, not that it is perfectly accurate, but that it gives you a better idea of when fuel is being used in excess. Heck even going down long city streets at 35mph I have learned to use cruise & stay in 5th gear. Amazing how much fuel can be saved.

A lot of people think that just 6mpg is nothing. Over the next 3 years I will put over 100K miles on my xd. Going from 33mpg to 39mpg for example will save me $1864 in gas or $621 a year @ $4 per gallon. The stuff adds up quick

I am working on some other experiments on the xd to try to net 45mpg, going to be hard but that is the goal. If I can do that, I will save over $1200 this year in fuel alone. Crazy how all my life I spent trying to increase performance which sucks more fuel, now I am doing all I can to save fuel & have a car that can get out of it's own way haha. Heck I am at the point now I wish they would lower our freeway speeds in Az to 65mph instead of 75mph. I have noticed on a massive scale that almost no one is speeding here anymore. This morning on my 45 mile commute into work, I set the cruise at 74mph & was not passed by anyone. First time ever.

 

just think how much more you would save by refining the aerodynamics of the xd some more... a friend of mine has a pontiac vibe that is now getting well over 40mpg from some judicious mods including plugging up most of the excess grille space on the front bumper (which are severely oversized on most cars), doing a full belly pan using aluminum screen mesh etc.

 

and better fuel economy and improved performance are not necessarily mutually exclusive - improved aero like i said earlier lets you accelerate and maneuver *better* on less power at speed (of course it isnt going to help you off the line, but being able to accelerate easily once at speed is just as good).

if only the automakers would build cars more along aviation principles we wouldnt be having this problem.

 

Good stuff. Yeah simply LOWERING my car made a HUGE differnece. I could not pass 35 mpg average until I dropped the crap out of the car on tanabe df springs, that let me jump straight to 38+ & have been at that level ever since. Will keep working on it

I also have done a few other small things like take out the spare tire & jack, Instead I keep a tire repair kit & small air pump in the car to help save weight. Jack and spare saved over 40lbs, added back in 3.5lbs. I also have AAA in case a repair kit does not cut it "no I did not buy AAA just for this purpose, have always been a member".

 

you still have 100% of control while coasting in neutral.. its not like your car is off. your brakes still work, your steering still works and if you cant shift fast enough to put it in gear if acceleration is needed then you really shouldn't be driving a stick.
in most cases your cruising in a gear where you don't have much pep anyways so in a lot of cases you would have to downshift anyways ...

it takes what? a whole half a second if that to put it in gear. its not like you just forget that your driving a stick while your in the middle of doing this ether .. you should always have your hand on the shifter and foot ready on or near the clutch. not only that but if your actually doing this your probably gonna be aware of the road around you and not taking driving for granted like if you where to just drive around normally so if a situation does comes up you should be aware of it and be able to react in time.. if you don't pay more attention coasting then when your normal driving, don't coast!

as for coasting down a hill with it in gear... yeah that don't work to well. it will usually slow you down making you end up using even more gas in the long run. by coasting in neutral your freeing up any drive train restrictions to the wheels and you will ether gain speed or atleast maintain it in a lot of cases..


btw im not saying to use this on every little hill you come across ether just the long and steep ones. this also isn't a good idea for autos

 

It might take a half a second to shift into gear but if you let off the clutch immediately you're going to slow down so it'll take another half second to get everything up to speed. And then you gotta accelerate more. Once you factor in human response time there's really no telling how long it's going to take for you to get out of the way of danger.

But I usually coast in neutral or with the clutch in, before a stop. I've only once been in a situation where accelerating would have saved me some damage but that was because it was a yellow light that the guy behind me wanted to run. I don't do nearly as much driving though so I usually drive in low traffic giving people plenty of time to react.

Plus midwest drivers are mostly pretty bad.