mrpositraction

I was waiting for this post, really shows your maturity.

acadianbob

While I understand your sentiment (there is incredible immaturity on this site), I do feel that the target of your comment made a couple of valid points. In Minnesota, it is illegal to take your vehicle out of gear when moving; there are reasons for this; like evasive action. And think about loss of power steering, signal lights, power brake if your engine is off. This IS dangerous. I would also say hypermilers can be a source of road rage by holding up traffic and creating bottlenecks. Additionally, hypermilers often used other illegal techniques like not fully stopping for stop signs to keep their momentum.

There are common sense things you can do without creating a hazard or holding up people. But full-on hypermiling is often a bad idea on public roads.

p38fln

If i drive at exactly 55 MPH I can get AWESOME fuel economy out of my Ecoboost - 25+ MPG. If I've got all the time in the world, I'll get off the interstate, get on the state highway, and set the cruise at 55.

usually though - i've got things to do, so i'll stay on the interstate at 65-70 MPH and get 17-22 MPG.

DieselDawg

Did a little "hypermiling" coming home from the office this morning. This was all "in town" driving at speed limits from 35-45. I did not go over 42mph (just to get the tranny to shift into 6th). I tried to keep my speed at 40mph (~1050-1100 rpm in 6th). I did not get the rpm over 1400 under acceleration. I timed traffic and lights and did not use any "unsafe hypermiling techniques" such as EOC (Engine Off Coasting). I also did not trun off the engine at lights but I did slip it into Neutral when stopped. I know this isn't a long enuff timeline to "prove anything"...but I have repeated this many times with the same results. It is just nice to know that 28-30MPG would be posible if I HAD TO DO IT.

engineermike

I've reached as high as 27.X mpg on my 25 mile commute to work by incorporating some techniques into normal driving. If you rode with me, you wouldn't even have noticed. This was running 65-70 on the Interstate, so I can see where 30+ is easily doable.

One of my pet peeves is when people say that they keep the rpm's down, drive like there's an egg on the throttle, drive like a grandma, etc. . . when they're all concentrating on the wrong pedal. Acceleration isn't where you stand to gain or lose a whole lot of mpg's. It's the braking that makes the big difference. Maximizing coasting nets the biggest gains for me, followed by drafting, followed by not unnecessarily accelerating (accelerating up to a red light, for instance), followed by driving slower (I don't drive under the speed limit).

Also, as a side note, we rented a Mercedes B Class in Belgium a couple years ago. It had a standard transmission and it actually killed the engine any time you had it in neutral with the clutch engaged and throttle at idle. The instant you touch the clutch pedal, it started the engine. I tried my hardest to exploit the obvious potential flaw (not starting fast enough) and couldn't manage to push in the clutch, put it in 1st, and let go of the clutch before it got the engine started.

engineermike

I posted this a while back:

Driving:
I use some hypermiling techniques, but not enough so that people even notice. Just today, I drove 80 miles and averaged 24.0 mpg going 65-75 mph (supercrew EB with 3.15 gears). You can easily gain 3-5 mpg by tweaking your driving habits slightly.
- Draft when you can. If you can get into a string of cars running 75 mph, you'll get metter mileage than running 70 mph alone. Drafting an 18-wheeler helps the most, but you'll spend more money repairing windshields than you will save on gas. Also, I was testing mpg's one day at 70 mph and a civic came up behind me pretty close. At first I didn't think it would help that much since he was behind me not in front, but on that 5 mile stretch I averaged 26 mpg versus my usual of 21-23 at 70 mph.
- Drive slower. As others have mentioned, slowing from 75 to 70 helps more than you would think. I haven't tested it, but I think the sweet spot is around 50 mph. I've pegged the green bars at 30 mpg when running slow speeds for a few miles.
- Brake as little as possible. Most say to use the gas as little as possible, which helps a little, but not nearly as much as using the brake as little as possible. Consider that using the gas converts chemical energy into kinetic energy. The energy isn't actually wasted until you apply the brakes and turn it into heat, which is lost to atmosphere. If you floor it to 60 mph, then coast to a stop, you'll use far less fuel than if you gradually accelerate to 60 then slam on the brakes. When you're coasting, you're getting infinite mpg's - no exageration. When driving, look out for red lights and cars stopping ahead and coast as soon as you realize you'll need to stop. Coast as far as you can down interstate off ramps too. If you know you're going to have to stop shortly after accelerating, then just go slow for that stretch. THE BRAKE PEDAL IS YOUR ENEMY!

RES4CUE

I cannot believe this thread exisits! lol hypermiling and 6000# truck just don't belong together.

Just proves that Ford marketing has worked and the F150 is being sold as a mall crawler/soccer mom/dad SUV now!

Thanks for the laugh.

engineermike

You're right. What was I thinking? There should never have been efforts to improve 1/2 ton truck mileage past the 10 mpg they were getting 20-30 years ago. That's just silly.

RES4CUE

There have been major improvments in truck MPG but you get what you get. If you wanted crazy amounts of MPG then buy the right tool for the job.

That is all that I am saying. Seems too many people bought into Dennis Leary and the MPG hype of the EB. All the motors are getting great milage for what they are.

engineermike

You get what you get, unless you adjust your driving - then you get more. If you're willing to spend an extra $1000 over a 5.0 for an EB to get 1-2 mpg extra, then why wouldn't you be interested in adjusting your driving habits for free for an extra 4 mpg?

...just like the guys saying we shouldn't be interested in fast quarter mile times from our trucks. I want a vehicle that will haul 6 people and a bed full of stuff, tow 9000 lb, run a 13 second quarter mile, and get 25 mpg. Yes, I want it all. That would be silly. . . if it weren't possible. I don't want to buy a 1/2 ton truck, an SUV, a Camaro, and a Corolla to fulfill my wants.