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OK. The results from my first tank of gas while mildmiling.

I've been driving a whole lot less than I used to, and my car was in the shop for a week, so it took almost a month for me to burn 9.003 gallons.

Usually my Swedish Brick (1992 Volvo 240 wagon) got 22 - 26 mpg.

This month I noticed a definite change between the gas gauge and the odometer. I got nearly 31 mpg for 278 miles.

The ONLY things I did was coast down hills and some pump-n-glide and keep my tires at 44 lbs. On several long hills I turned off the engine on my 5-speed manual. I also turned it off at long traffic lights and other places of waiting. Otherwise my driving was the same.

I haven't even emptied out all the garbage! (reduce weight) I just can't lose some things, like the kid's car seats and the ham radio, but I can empty out the 5 lbs of trash that are on the floor...

And I did a high-speed burn up the highway and back today, keeping up with traffic at 80 mph today because I was late for an appointment.

But dang. From 25 to 30 by simply coasting down a few hills...

Now I need to get better at gauging speed and distance. Starting at my own house, I am figuring out that if I turn off the pavement at 35 mph, I come to a stop right uphill from my driveway and can use gravity to back into it.

This is fun!

That is a nice improvement on a car that is 17 yrs old and is not very aerodynamic ( u said ur brick). Having a manual trans does help with some of the tricks. What is the brick rated at by the EPA? my guess is in mid 20s for highway. Congrats and good luck

The Fed says the 240 wagon 5-speed manual should get:

19 city
26 highway

And I was getting that 26 the way I normally drove, 50 - 60 on Vermont's hilly roads and maintaining a constant speed at all terrains.

So by merely coasting on hills, and turning off the engine on longer hills, I got it up to 30.

Volvos are affectionately referred to as Swedish Bricks. Starting in the early 1970s they went to a very box-like design and only in the last 10 years have they started to soften up the lines. It has a 2.3l engine and is the best Volvo ever made. They went downhill after the 240 model.

One thing I have noticed is that having windows rolled down does on my Volvo not make a huge impact on FE, unlike most cars. The door pillars are quite thin.

For example, I flew to FL for a client and had to rent a car. They gave me a Chrysler 300 (when I had asked for a compact). You could NOT drive over 30 MPH with the windows down. It seemed to be designed to blow wind right into your ear with these gigantic door pillars, just to force you to use the AC, whether you wanted to or not.

And while the general rule is to have the windows up and AC on over 45 MPH, my wife's Dodgy mini-van gets way worse mileage when the AC is on. It's still more FE to have the windows down at highways speeds.