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It's the end of November and the start of the last month of 2010, folks!

I had warmer temps but the wind and wet roads proved a chore to deal with.

38F (31F windchill), 11mph headwind from the SE, wet roads:


85.5mpg for 15.0mi (Home to work)

The tank is back up to 81.5mpg over 78.2mi with 20 bars on the fuel gauge.

Had a strong headwind today which pretty much made many of my glides less effective, plus there was a ton of traffic this morning. Tomorrow it will be much less. Had a decent commute back home. I really need to get my reground camshaft in.

67.5 MPG / 11.0 Miles home to work
57.5 MPG / 12.0 Miles work to home

69.5 mpg / 13.8 mi - this morning - 60 degrees and raining.

The tank is at 71.7 / 125 miles and still above F.

Sean - did you gain fuel this morning?

Hi, Andrew -- the gauge ticked back up to 20 bars and stayed. That's where it should have been all along and I don't know why it was showing 19 after the fill. Maybe the cold weather affected the fuel sender unit in some fashion?

That was an embarrassing trip home. :( The rain was just too much for me. My route is just too short for me to ratchet up up against environmental issues.

37F, 5mph crosswind from the ESE, heavy rain:


74.7mpg for 15.4mi (Work to home)

The tank is back down to 80.3mpg over 93.7mi with 20 bars left on the fuel gauge (though it was showing 19 for a part of the trip again :confused:)

Day Total: 79.6mpg over 30.5mi

Of course I got home and found that my GFI outlet was acting up again. I guess I have to call an electrician. Every time it rains hard from the right direction the fuse pops... even with nothing plugged into any of the 3 outlets on that circuit. :(

Hopefully everyone else is having a better go of it today?

We had the main power line into the house shorting out a few months back - the connector 3 feet out from the house was failing. I didn't realize that was the problem until it started smoking! :eek: I had checked just about every breaker and box and connector downstream, but failed to look at the upstream.

All that to say, I know how frustrating electrical gremlins can be.

Of course I got home and found that my GFI outlet was acting up again. I guess I have to call an electrician. Every time it rains hard from the right direction the fuse pops... even with nothing plugged into any of the 3 outlets on that circuit. :( The GFI's can have outdoor outlets loaded off of them. There are special covers to over over the out door outlets you can get at hardware stores.

Whoever wired the addition on my house had one GFI inside buy the outside wall. The outside outlets and Fridge are connected to the load side. Until I covered the outside outlets, on the right day with the right wind and rain, the fridge would go out with the GFI pop.

Nothing has to connected, only wetness has to touch between neutral and ground.

In other news, mileage is better. The Montana died a mile from work last week, needed a new fuel pump. Fresh tank with a bottle of injector cleaner / fuel treatment and things are looking up. I won't know for another week or so because of the 25 gallon tank takes a while to empty.

17MPG-1.7 Miles (School)
19MPG-1.7 Miles (School)
28MPG-6 Miles (Trumpet Lessons)
31MPG-6 Miles (Trumpet Lessons)

Hi, Paul. All of my outlets on that circuit are "indoors," but one of those is in the garage on an outside wall. I'm suspicious of that one. I replaced all three outlets a couple of months ago when this happened last but it obviously didn't fix the problem. I'm afraid there is something wrong in the wall somewhere. :(

Good to hear the Montana is behaving well again! I'm sure you are much happier with a working fuel gauge, too. :)

No driving for me just yet. I'll be heading out just a bit after noon for a dental appointment. The office is closer to my house than my workplace so I'm just working from home today.

Better commute to work today. Didn't have a full head wind, but the cross wind wasn't good either. Less traffic but still elevated in comparison to normal. Had a good commute back home today.

72.3 MPG / 11.0 Miles home to work
59.7 MPG / 12.0 Miles work to home

Tank at 62.1 MPG / 511 Miles

69.6 last night, 68 degrees
68.0 this morning, 42 degrees (that's quite a drop for one night!)

The tank is down to 71.2 / 149 miles.

Lots of snow and ice on the roads.

22F (7F windchill), 18-21mph crosswind from the WNW, light snow:


77.7mpg for 11.5mi (Home to Dentist's office)

The tank is down to 80.1mpg over 105.3mi with 20 bars on the fuel gauge.

Darned wind. The coolant temp was less than 80F by the time I finally got out of that place and the wind had picked up.

21F (6F windchill), 16-28mph cross/headwind from the WNW, light snow:


72.3mpg for 11.4mi (Dentist's office to home)

The tank is now down to 79.1mpg over 116.7mi with 20 bars on the fuel gauge.

Day Total: 74.9mpg over 22.9mi

:p

Darned wind. The coolant temp was less than 80F by the time I finally got out of that place and the wind had picked up.

21F (6F windchill), 16-28mph cross/headwind from the WNW, light snow:


72.3mpg for 11.4mi (Dentist's office to home)

The tank is now down to 79.1mpg over 116.7mi with 20 bars on the fuel gauge.

Day Total: 74.9mpg over 22.9mi

:p
Ouch! I think I may have some similar numbers tomorrow.:(

I used almost twice as much fuel as usual today, because I went home for lunch. 69.5mpg, 38mi, 0.55gal. I set off with two bars left on the gauge, and parked with zero bars. That doesn't really add up, does it? Oh well; I got more than a month of commuting out of a tank, and that's not bad. I think my tank average is in the upper sixties.

Sadly, the forecast calls for 12" of snow Wednesday night and Thursday, so I mounted the snow tires tonight. :( Bad mileage ahead!

Does anyone else here run Insight-sized Blizzak MZ-02's? The sidewall max is 35psi, but I have to believe that is preposterous. I put about 40psi in.

My daughter was sick all over her crib last night... 3x. :ccry:

I'm feeling kinda marginal myself so no work driving for me. I'm working from home and hoping for the best. Not sure how my conference calls are going to go since I sound more like a frog than anything else. :(

My daughter was sick all over her crib last night... 3x. :ccry:

I'm feeling kinda marginal myself so no work driving for me. I'm working from home and hoping for the best. Not sure how my conference calls are going to go since I sound more like a frog than anything else. :(
Sorry to hear about your daughter being sick. It's always hard to see little ones not feeling good. Hoping you get better too.

It's 22F and wind is NNW@ 5-15 mph with gusts to 25+ mph with light snow and ~1" on the ground. It seems we may have already reached our high as well.:( I have a trip to meet a cousin for coffee about 8 miles away. Southbound out, northbound back. *Note wind direction and temp above* :p

61.4 mpg / 10.4 mi / 47F - home last night. Fast/busy/low mpg route with a stop for pizza.
61.0 mpg / 14.1 mi / 31F - this morning with a stop for supplies at lowes. Light frost*.

The tank is way down to 68.3 / 182 miles and approaching F.

* You know you're a hypermiler when... you park and the only part of the car that STILL has frost on it is the back window over the high-mounted third brake light, because it hardly got used. :p

Sadly, the forecast calls for 12" of snow Wednesday night and Thursday, so I mounted the snow tires tonight. :( Bad mileage ahead!The snow arrived a little earlier than forecast. Heavy rain was turning to snow on my way in to work. I got 62.x on the way in and 65.0mpg on the way home. However, it took me 25min instead of the usual 15min to get home. I spent loads of energy on 12V electrical loads.

Sean, are you still running hyperinflated Potenzas in this weather?

My Potenzas are in good shape, but they have much more tread depth remaining near the center of the tire than at the edges, even though I've tried to keep them at sidewall max.

Not too good today. Temperature was 25F and and winds were NW@ 10-15 mph. I had 69.8 mpg for 7.7 miles to the original meeting spot. About 5 minutes after I arrived, the spot was changed to a McD's 1 mile away. The trip to the new spot was 52.7 mpg for 1.0 miles. The trip home was 72.8 mpg over 8.4 miles. Arrgh!:(

I am indeed, Robert! Into my 4th winter doing it, too. ;)

My daughter seems to be completely recovered. Must have been something she ate because she's been bouncing off the walls all day. :rolleyes:

Haven't spent a single mile on bike in the last week or so. It was snowing and sleeting, and the drive belt sprocket still has not arrived. I kinda gave up on it and ordered another one, that I can take at a shop, and I don't have to care about post and customs at all. It'll be much more expensive than ebay (it looks so far that I paid ~200USD for nothing :mad: and the second one will be 260EUR), but still better than the feeling that haunts me any time I see Teresa in the garage...

So, I came to work by bus and stay for the rest of the week...

I hope your sprocket comes in soon!!

Colder this morning and traffic was annoying. :p

7F (-2F windchill), 5mph crosswind from the WNW, partly cloudy:


74.0mpg for 15.0mi (Home to work)

The tank is down to 78.4mpg over 131.8mi.

Stinkin cold morning here in Georgia, or at least for for this time of year. Dropped down to between 29-31 F last night. When I left for work it was 37, and man it took a long time for the little Metro to warm up. My P&G activities probably didn't help that though. I still had good mileage to work.

Holy crap I had bad mileage going home. The boss (aka my dear wife) said that there was a dinner I had to go to following work, so I drove there and the only way back home from that location was the interstate. Man, highway speeds kill the mileage on this car.

73.4 MPG / 11.0 Miles home to work
57.2 MPG / 7.5 Miles work to restaurant
49.3 MPG / 8.9 Miles restaurant to home brought tank down to 61.7

The worst parts for me are frosting windows (on the inside :rolleyes:) and bumpy roads covered in ice and snow making glides all but worthless. :p

73.3 / 10.8 home last night. 60F
61.7 / 13.1 this morning, 39F

The tank is up to 68.9 / 206 miles and down to F.

well cold has made it down here now (thnx Sean!)

Sean: as long as there no sliding please buddy!!

epurvee: your doing good for the temps you are seeing there. by the time next summer comes you'll be pulling some greta numbers with that lil metro my friend

Hi, Mike -- there is always a little sliding. The trick is to plan for it and use it appropriately. Such as when rounding corners. ;)

It wasn't much warmer on the way home and traffic was not much better. Throw in a little headwind and you've got a recipe for low numbers. Oh well. I nearly matched the drive in this morning.

13F (1F windchill), 9mph cross/headwind from the WNW, sunny:


73.7mpg for 15.0mi (Work to home)

The tank is down to 78.0mpg over 146.8mi with all 20 bars on the fuel gauge.

Day Total: 73.7mpg over 30.1mi

45.0mpg on the way in and this on the way home:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/5227339661_bb971ced1f_b.jpg
This places my tank average very close to 44.9mpg!

It may be my worst mileage ever, but I'm pleased with it for the conditions (lake effect snow, and the plows couldn't / didn't keep up). A little over two feet of snow landed overnight on the town where I work, and it was a LONG drive in, and an even longer drive home. I barely needed 3rd gear, and I didn't touch 4th today.

I usually drive 9.0mi to work, but I took a ~0.2mi longer route (so I could get out of the parking lot!), and did 0.6mi of wheelspin. The roads were not adequately plowed.

I did see a curious sight: one of those six ton salt/plow trucks, firmly stuck in someone's driveway. I'm not sure whether he was trying to impress his buddy by cleaning out his driveway, but it didn't go well for him.

I assume you used MIMA to drive your SOC down like that?

I try to park with three to six bars. Get below three, and you lose EOC and you're locked into a regen. Above three, you've used less energy than you could have. Also, bar three is much "bigger" than the others, just like bar 20 of the fuel gauge.

Today, 12V loads during engine-off periods were more than enough to keep me at 3 bars. I even ran background regen for the first leg of the ride home, got up to six bars, and it was back down to three by the time I left the village a few miles later.

The forecast looks less bad for tomorrow, so it looks like I'll be going in tomorrow.

I see. Grid charge overnight, then?

I ran into the "3 bar bug" when I used the clutch mod to disallow regen and drove the SoC all the way down as far as I could get it to be sure the battery was working properly a couple of months ago. When it wouldn't allow me to cancel, I just did key FAS so that the engine starts would keep pulling it down. That 3rd bar lasted a really long time!

This morning I made up a little for the bad mileage last night, and it got my tank back to 62.0 MPG at least. I was pleased with the commute considering it was more cold today than it was yesterday.

72.8 MPG / 11.0 Miles home to work

75.3 / 10.4 mi / 65F - home last night
75.1 / 8.8 / 60F - out to music practice
69.4 / 9.4 / 55F - back home, detour for groceries
63.3 / 12.0 / 46F - home->school->work this morning *

The tank is up to 69.3 / 255 miles.

* had a teeny-tiny minor collision. Stop sign to cross a busy highway, I'm in front, we're stopped. Then the lady behind me rolled forward and bumped into me. Got out, looked, no damage. Have a nice day, goodbye.

I'm glad there was no damage and no one was hurt, Andrew!!

No driving for me today -- I've got the day off. It's fortunate in terms of weather, too... We are supposed to start getting some snow at noon with a total accumulation of between 5 and 7 inches by 6AM tomorrow.

Went to dinner with a friend of The Wife's last night. A long drive (for those of you in the Bay Area, it was Milpitas to Half Moon Bay) at night with very light rain and tons of traffic. The good news was that there wasn't a lot of traffic once I got onto the two-lane Highway 92 through the mountains (or hills). And I was able to coast in neutral for quite a long long while coming down from the summit.

Unknown what that will do to my current tank, but I've known since the beginning of the tank that this wasn't going to be a good one. (Idling so I could get the defrost working on more than one morning will do that.)

-soD

Unremarkable mileage today. High fifties on the way in, low sixties on the way home?

About two miles in to my drive home yesterday, I heard an awful racket that sounded like the plastic bumper cover came loose and I was dragging it underneath the car. I pulled over to inspect, but couldn't see anything wrong and couldn't make the noise stop. I actually almost got stuck on an unplowed side street where I pulled in to investigate the horrible noise, which would persist for the next seven miles.

It turns out the front of the passenger side underbody cover came loose, and the front half of the cover was dragging on the ground like a plow or a parachute. I did a hasty amputation with some tinsnips this morning. Those things are made of heavy-gauge ABS, the same as a bumper cover, and much thicker than the fender liners.

I set a bunch of snowy tools in the car and drove off to work. No surprise: lots of frost on the inside of the car now.

:mad:

Why did you cut it instead of just detaching it? I had a similar issue last year but it was the mid-body panel on the passenger side. I didn't even know it existed until it started dragging like that. I had torn the front attachment point off a couple of months earlier on a big hunk of ice at the end of an exit ramp and the rigidity of the panel just popped it back up in place once I pushed it forward enough to unbend it. The next time ripped off a couple of other supports and then it was a scoop. I ended up replacing one of the connectors and fabricating a metal clip to hold up the front edge.

I should order another one of those panels at some point...

One trick suggested by one of our forum members was to use a Tupperware knockoff sandwich container, put some holes in the cover, fill it with cheap cat litter, and place it in the car as a desiccant to prevent fogging/icing. I keep meaning to try it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

12MPG over 1.7 Miles to school (sadly that's not a typo)
18MPG over 1.7 Miles back home

I need to get a timer for my block heater soon. The short trips (school) is killing me.

Why did you cut it instead of just detaching it?Late for work, and I didn't have time to jack up the car and support it on jackstands. Besides, the panel was torn out at the front rivets (the rivets held on far too strongly for their own good, like a transistor that blows to protect a fuse). I'll replace it with coroplast and/or fiberglass at my leisure.

Oh. I've never jacked up the car. I just turn my head to one side or the other and slide under. <shrug>

I got a 7-Day Digital Timer for my block heater today. Hopefully with this there will be no more 20MPG trips to school.

So! Bought a "new" Volvo the other day, a 1988 740 wagon. Even without overdrive working, it mustered a 25,41mpg performance on the way home from Dallas.