Hypermiling - Part Three

I have been trying to achieve better fuel economy for about a month now. It has been going pretty well so far. You can read about my methods on my previous posts Hypermiling - Part One and Hypermiling - Part Two.

I have been practicing most of the methods from the above mentioned posts and am happy to report a new milestone. On my way home Friday night I hit 25.3 miles per gallon. This is a full 2 mpg from the time I began paying attention to my driving. It is roughly 3 mpg higher than it was when I noticed it was time to rethink my fuel efficiency. Just going by the 2 mpg from my official trial period, I am saving quite a bit of money.

2 mpg times 15 gallons that I typically put in my tank, and I get roughly 30 extra miles per tank. Multiply by four and I am up to 120 extra miles per month. 120 miles is a huge improvement.

I have learned of a few more things to try out, so I will report back once I have tested them. They involve the timing of gas fill-ups.

• Always fill up in the morning. This ensures an accurate reading of gallons pumped. Warmth causes gas to expand, and you may be losing some money by filling up in the afternoon.
• If a fuel tanker is filling the underground tanks, move on. The junk in the bottom of the tanks gets stirred up and can enter your gas tank.
• Don't use the maximum notch on the fuel pump. The faster the gas goes into the tank, the greater the chance of fuel vapors cheating you of some of your fuel. Use the medium or low setting.
• Fill up at a half tank. This is supposed to help reduce vapors as well. I need to check into this fact, but it seems the fuel tank has a flexible ceiling that lowers to reduce vapor creation. At half a tank you are better off than on empty in this regard. I will follow up on this and let you know if it is a standard gas tank feature.

I found these tips on an EntreCard member's site the other day, and will post a link as soon as I find it again. Until then, try these tips out. The less we have to fill up our tanks, the better off we will be as prices continue to skyrocket.

Hypermiling - Part Two

Some of my readers will recall my post about "Hypermiling" that I wrote a couple weeks ago. At the time of posting I had gained .5 mpg on average. I hit another milestone today. I have gained a full mpg.

The road to better gas mileage is full of ups and downs. In my case literally, as I drive a hilly route. It took longer than I had hoped to get to the 1 mpg goal, but I know why it did. I started the hypermiling on a Tuesday and haven't driven a full week to work since. Between vacations and holidays, I have at most driven four days to work until this week. Today being the fifth day I drove, I finally hit my milestone.

I wanted to see how I could get even more mileage out of my gas tank, so I hit the search engines. I found an article on MSN called Get 50 mpg In Your Own Car. I thought this would be great, as many hypermilers drive hybrid vehicles and I can't hope to achieve their numbers.

A lot of the tips were covered in my first post, but I found a couple new tips. Parking in the sun may help keep your engine block cooler, especially in winter months. I don't know how much this one will help, but I will give it a go.

Next is an idea I think should help. When you have a number of errands to run in town, drive to the furthest one first. I typically do this for time efficiency, but it is useful in fuel efficiency too. Your engine has more time to warm up on the longer trip, and you hopefully can maintain some of the engine heat for your next errand. Otherwise your engine stays cold the whole time and you get no added benefit. I have noticed a possibly unrelated benefit that my city driving the last couple of days has not diminished the gains from my distance driving as much as they previously did.

Some hypermilers are a little crazy, and they advocate things that are illegal or at least dangerous. I am only interested in posting safe techniques. Since I was a kid I had heard of people "drafting" when driving near an eighteen-wheeler. This has always been a dangerous thing. A safer technique is called "passive drafting" according to the MSN article. This involves staying at least 10 car lengths behind an eighteen-wheeler. This is by far a safer distance behind a trailer and chances are you will be going extra slow while you are at it. You gain two ways this way - both for going slower and using this passive draft.

If I hear any new ideas I will be sure to let you know. Until then, happy hypermiling.

Hypermiling - Part One

As the gas prices soar higher and higher, I am finding that I have to rethink how I drive. I am looking into carpooling options, and other ways to save some gas money. I currently can drive to work 4 times on a single tank of gas. This means at least $65 every 4 work days.I heard about something on the radio called Hypermiling. Hypermiling is a method of driving habits that is supposed to really increase your mileage. I decided I want to give it a try.

Some of the techniques are relatively easy to implement, so I am going to give them a try. The first is driving the speed limit. The statistic I read says that for every 5 miles per hour over 50 you lose 10% of your fuel efficiency. Going 70-75 means I lose 20-25% of my efficiency on the freeway. I haven't tested this on the freeway yet, but I have noticed a difference on PCH.

Another gas saver that most of us know, is to not use the A/C. Some go as far as to say that the windows should be rolled up too, but when driving along the ocean it is a shame to keep the windows up. All the same, I have been doing my best to endure the current heat wave without my A/C.

Another thing I noticed that is not in the list of Hypermiling techniques, is turning off the Traction Control on my Taurus. This seems to be having a mild beneficial effect.

Since I started this Tuesday morning, I have already gained .5 miles per gallon according to my car's Average MPG display. .5 times 16 gallons times 4 typical weeks in a month, mean I get an extra 32 miles a month just on the few changes I have made. That is roughly a one-way trip from home to work. I can't wait to see how much further I can take it. Wayne Gerdes, the godfather of hypermiling in a sense, has achieved 128 mpg. I don't think I can get that high, but every little bit helps. I will keep you all posted on my progress over the next few weeks and months.