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View Full Version : Week of 9/04/06 - 09/10/06


tarabell
09-06-2006, 11:52 AM
It felt great getting back in my car again this morning. After a week of not thinking about FE I thought my foot would be rusty but it surprised me. The car really wanted to be in EV and stay there, so I finally broke the 80mpg barrier (81.1 to be exact), and ended up my segment to work at 75.2mpg, a new record. :woot: Average speed was maybe 51mph (and no help from any trucks).

Now that my daughter's car is parked behind the house again, husband is back to using my car in the mornings. I now have to watch the Trip-B (tank mileage) to see exactly how much impact this has. His morning drives have a clearly positive warm-up effect, because when I get in it after him, I see I am easily beating my usual numbers all through my commute. Question will be whether it's enough to compensate for his lowering my FE.

xcel
09-06-2006, 11:59 AM
Hi Tarabell:

___75 without using every trick in the book is super hot!

___Sorry to hear about your husband driving as I know that is once again going to take its toll :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

rhwinger
09-06-2006, 12:00 PM
88.1 MPG - that's awsome! I think it'll be awhile till I see that. I have noticed that with 3500 mi, I've been suprised to see EV indications occuring where they haven't before. Things must be loosening up a bit.

Way to go.

brick
09-06-2006, 12:44 PM
Nice work, tarabell!

I've been in a serious slump for the last several tanks, but I think I'm levelling off and maybe headed for an up-turn. The issue has been a mild case of burnout and a lack of willingness to touch the ignition switch. Rain and cool weather just compounded things. I can't really complain about high 30s, though, as long as I can stay there or better.

School busses are back and throwing a serious wrench into the back road route. (Do you realize how early they start school around here? There were high school kids by the road at 6:20 yesterday.) So I decided to try the highway route again this morning with results in the 40mpg+ range. That was with the cruise set at 60-65mph and some careful footwork to get through the sections on either end.

So I'm not really pushing tanks right now, but at the same time I'm pretty happy. What I now consider sloppy driving still puts me 25% over the EPA estimates. Also of note is that I have switched to looking at the ScanGauge aFCD rather than iFCD to see if there is anything to be learned from watching transients in the trip average. It gives me a much better gauge of how particular events influence the the door-to-door number.

diamondlarry
09-06-2006, 08:00 PM
I have a couple of days to report. Yesterday's trip to my wife's work was 55.0, from there to my work was 64.9, from there to pick up my wife in the afternoon was 62.9, and from her shop to home was 58.6. Today, the numbers were 62.5, 61.7, and 63.5. I didn't go straight home from her shop today but did a bunch of errands and didn't get the numbers wrote down.:( The day's FE was at 60.* I also got another 75.1 segment on the way home from dropping my daughter off at church. This was 5.3 miles.

brick
09-07-2006, 06:22 AM
Well, here's how my commute went yesterday afternoon:

http://www.wfsb.com/traffic/9797104/detail.html


Witnesses said the truck overturned after being struck by one of two cars that were weaving quickly through traffic around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. One of the cars struck the jersey barrier and slid under the truck, causing the truck to overturn between exits 34 and 33 near Jennings Road, officials said.
...
Two passengers and the driver of the car the struck the truck were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The other car involved in the incident fled the scene.

PCK
09-07-2006, 07:14 AM
Completed a tank today just a hair above 60 mpg, thats an alright tank considering I had
a day of driving in Ernesto winds and we have been having our typical Florida Thunder storms daily several of which I found myself in the middle of.

What I liked is I drove 55 miles after the last fuel light disappered (avg. 60 mpg), and judging
by the fillup I should have still had a gallon of fuel left. That knowledge will help me gut it
out for an 800+ tank one day.

tbaleno
09-07-2006, 10:56 AM
My mileage has been way down, as has the temperature, the last few segments. I'm close to another 700 mile tank but I have 25 miles to go and have already driven 16 on empty. My calculations say I won't make it so I'm tempted to fill today. That would put the tank at 686 miles or so.

diamondlarry
09-07-2006, 04:34 PM
Today's mileage started out fairly average but ended up not-so-good. The trip to the wife's work was 62.2, from there to my work was 63.7, and from my work back to the wife's this afternoon was 63.8. It all kind of fell apart on my way home when I encountered more traffic than usual on my rural county road route. The traffic usually came at just the right time that it messed up some pretty good FAS. This was traffic in front of me that I couldn't coast around because of hills or curves.:mad: Anyway, the trip home was a dismal 50.8. I will have another shot at a new record tonight when I pick up my daughter from her V-ball game.
Edit: I didn't set a record for the trip home from picking up my daughter. The trip to the school came in at 65.3 The trip home was 68.5. This is down a bit from usual. I tried some different acceleration techniques that may not have worked so well. Usually, when I go into a pulse, I accelerate with ~1/2-2/3 throttle and accelerate up to 45-50 mph. This time, I accelerated ~ 1/4-1/3 throttle and went up to 40-45. Is the extra time the engine is running for the slower rate of acceleration the cause? What do you think Wayne?

laurieaw
09-07-2006, 09:58 PM
i've had pretty good luck lately. filled up this morning with a 61.4 (i think) average for 624 miles. i feel a little like my car is sluggish. i know i need an oil change, and possibly an alignment. i hate to think winter's close, but i have been pretty happy to be so darn close to 60 all summer.........gotta work on getting that higher.

Chuck
09-07-2006, 10:03 PM
The new Bridgestone RE92s have taken my FE from around 75 to 67mpg - last I checked they are NOT winter tires. Besides this is TEXAS. Seriously, I need to check the air pressure and drive ahead ahead of rush hour better. This morning there were a bunch of wrecks.

psyshack
09-08-2006, 05:25 AM
I posted a 609 mile tank yesterday at 53.4 mpg. Was a record mpg tank. :woot:

highwater
09-08-2006, 05:37 AM
I think the phrase is something like......GO OKIE GO :D .

Looking forward to you coming over for the marathon attempt.

Randall

PCK
09-08-2006, 07:04 AM
It's been several tanks since the last time I had a 70mpg segment on my work commute.
I must thank the unknown driver of a beat up van who was driving slower than I even care
too on the hway. Just followed along behind him and I ended up with 70.3mpg.

wburke8302
09-08-2006, 07:55 AM
I'm actually working on my best tank ever. I've got 330 miles on the tank, the gauge is just below 1/2, and my FE for the tank is sitting at 49.3 mpg. I'm hoping for my first 500 mile/50 mpg tank with this one. I should turn 5000 miles on the way home today, so I think the break in jump is getting warmed up.

tbaleno
09-08-2006, 10:04 AM
Just started my new tank. Got a decent (almost normal) segment today. I pumped up my tires a bit to compensate for the colder temperatures.

tarabell
09-08-2006, 10:07 AM
While leaving the parking lot yesterday I looked down and noticed that somehow, a very LARGE bug happened to be in my cupholder. I leave my windows cracked while at work so I guess it got in that way. Anyway the sight elicited a loud but brief AAAHHH and caused me to lose autostop at the signal. It was on its back and motionless, so I assumed it was dead, but I wasn't going to take its pulse. Did I say it was HUGE? Any bigger and I think Laurie could have saddled and ridden it. Thank heavens Honda puts a sliding cover over the cupholders, so I slammed it shut thereby containing the enemy, and headed home.

Once at the castle I immediately notified my resident knight in shining armor (who happened to be watching the evening news) that he had a little job to do. In rather un-knightly manner he rolled his eyes but got up and grabbed a sword (well in this case, paper towel) and marched reluctantly to my car. Turns out the thing was alive after all, and according to my champion, put up a fierce battle and wouldn’t give up easily to death by paper towel. I’m safely inside the house during the melee of course (do I look like a dummy) but I properly lavished my brave warrior with tributes and praise as soon as it was over and the disgusting thing was in the trash.

diamondlarry
09-08-2006, 06:02 PM
I just capped off a relatively average day with a 74.0 segment on the way home from some errands. This was a 5.3 mile trip on county roads. For the work commute, I got 61.0 taking the wife to work, 64.7 from there to my work, 65.7 from my work to the wife's this afternoon, and 54.3 from her work to home. I'm at 372 miles and I'm just a speck above the 1/2 mark. SG says I've used 5.9 gallons and is showing 60.9 mpg at an average of 32 mph.

tbaleno
09-08-2006, 06:37 PM
I capped off the week with a paultry 51mpg. Seems there is some "3 day walk" thing going on I didn't know about. Messed up all the driving patterns.

Oh well. I will consider my low FE as a donation to their cause. ;)

xcel
09-08-2006, 09:31 PM
Hi Tarabell:

___Yours was the best story yet :D

___Good Luck

___Wayne

tigerhonaker
09-08-2006, 11:01 PM
While leaving the parking lot yesterday I looked down and noticed that somehow, a very LARGE bug happened to be in my cupholder. I leave my windows cracked while at work so I guess it got in that way. Anyway the sight elicited a loud but brief AAAHHH and caused me to lose autostop at the signal. It was on its back and motionless, so I assumed it was dead, but I wasn't going to take its pulse. Did I say it was HUGE? Any bigger and I think Laurie could have saddled and ridden it. Thank heavens Honda puts a sliding cover over the cupholders, so I slammed it shut thereby containing the enemy, and headed home.

Once at the castle I immediately notified my resident knight in shining armor (who happened to be watching the evening news) that he had a little job to do. In rather un-knightly manner he rolled his eyes but got up and grabbed a sword (well in this case, paper towel) and marched reluctantly to my car. Turns out the thing was alive after all, and according to my champion, put up a fierce battle and wouldn’t give up easily to death by paper towel. I’m safely inside the house during the melee of course (do I look like a dummy) but I properly lavished my brave warrior with tributes and praise as soon as it was over and the disgusting thing was in the trash.

Poor Little defenseless bug. :Banane29:

Terry (tiger)

diamondlarry
09-09-2006, 07:26 PM
I just managed another 74.0 segment this evening on my way home from the ATM.:D

xcel
09-09-2006, 10:38 PM
Hi All:

___My Friday morning started out ok … About an hour out w/ the Ranger I turned around and came back home … Lower back acting up. 50.1 mpg’s. Saturday the wife and I drove to a huge grocery store in the MDX. 34.3 out and 33.5 back in 72 - 76 degree temps. Found one of those once in a lifetime - surf drafts of (4) 18-wheeler’s in formation and she was holding 40 mpg at 65 mph. In the MDX and not a straight draft no less! To bad our Interstate drive was just 3.5 miles :( This evening I took the Ranger out to stay fresh for this month’s Marathon. 53.4 mpg’s out and 54.0 mpg’s back in 62 - 63 degree temps. Also drove my nephews 3.5 L GMC Canyon (EPA 18/22) w/ the SSG-II attached. Those things are absolute pigs :( Maybe 5 FAS’s over 10 miles and she ended up at just 26.4. Simply pathetic.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

psyshack
09-09-2006, 11:06 PM
The Civic will end its week with 51 mpg for the tank on the SG. Its a fresh tank with 90 miles on it or so.

I will see what next week has in store for it. :)

diamondlarry
09-10-2006, 10:35 AM
I recently moved but my mobile home is still setting empty so I had to take a check for the lot rent today and it's 5.0 miles from home. On the trip there, I managed a 70.6. On the home though, I pulled off an 80.4 at an average speed of 24 mph.:woot:

CitrusInsighter
09-10-2006, 03:26 PM
Now that I'm back in school, I'm struggling to hold onto an 80 mpg tank currently at 600 miles and counting. This year I have even more obstacles to keeping decent FE on my drive into school. Warm up P&G has helped immensely on the 5 mile drive, but there is now even more stop and go traffic once you get within a mile of the campus with 2400 students and faculty crowding into 3 entrances in less than 20 minutes time. The entire trip is P&G thanks to either low traffic or low speed roads. Parking, however, can kill any decent segment. Potential parking and face-out are all gone since I'm lucky now just to get a spot within the main lot.

Alot of P&G practice >100 mpg has helped this tank, but I'm just waiting to see what happens with winter blend gas, freezing temps, i c e and snow on the road, as well as Continuing to have non-LRR dunlops on the Insight.

tbaleno
09-10-2006, 03:59 PM
Justin, How much earlier would you have to arrive to be able to get a decent spot and to avoid the rush?



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