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i have lost a wallet today, which had some important cards and photos of my family. I've tried going back and forth school and work trying to retrace my steps and asking any of the stores if they had seen a lost wallet. To no success all i had was rage rage rage, so yes you named it:

a) WOT in every gear until i reached 10 plus over the speed limit
b) put the shifter into N
c) was too pissed to FAS, i wanted to cut people off and be the first moron on the red light because it felt GOOD.

i can see why people love the speed, it made me feel so awesome, although most people would go 10 to 30 over the speed limit (in km/h) but I on the other hand still had no guts. To be doing something out of rage and getting pulled over just will make me do something I regret (like bitching out at the cop or something) so I begin to coast more often once I reached 10 km/h over the speed llimit (varies at 50 and 60 km/h) .

To my surprise my scangauge was reporting 50 mpg, so I'm like, "I'm not angry enough!" and WOT even in the lowest rpms, DIE PUMPING LOSSES DIE I did everything in my power to be a speed freak like every other **** citizien on this planet. But when I knew I had to stop I still coasted towards it dispite my efforts, although much more agressively. There was one stop that I had to stop and I keyed off, just thinking about myself....


light was green, i key on and just WOT again and again and again, boy how did I ever tolerate getting up to 50 or 60 km/h in such a slow pace? (10 seconds plus) now by WOT I can get there within 3 seconds and it was awesome how fast my car really is. I still tried to shift smooth but that wasn't my concern anymore, my concern was to get up to coasting speed as fast as possible and then coast the living crap out of my car. With neutral on of course since when one is pissed, one can't bump start. As well I'm sure all the WOT is cooking the yummy oil and warrping my cylinder blocks, so I might as well idle to give it some cooler, even if I had to kill a tree or two.

it felt good to be agressive and then scangauge is reporting 50 mpg for the whole day (20 miles at least). I was not agressive on to work then school, but when school ended I realized my wallet was gone so I was clam and FASED my way towards work to retrace my steps. But then after a few events and no cigar I went nuts and went crazy on home with all that WOT and being the first guy in line at the red light.

Long story short, I was suprirsed at the score I got. Just go to show you can make up any WOT you put in as long as you coast to make up for it.

That is all, anger is something I wish I never inherted from my father. When I am angry all I do is do things I regret and frankly it feels good for that moment. After realizing what actually happened, it maybe too late to undo the mistakes one has done.

Im just blabbing hoping I can learn from my mistakes, but I doubt it. Anger is something people say you CAN CONTROL, but I believe it cannot under the right circumstances.

Anyway, at least I didn't bumper kiss someone, if I did that... boy you know something really bad has happened to me for sure. But I never cut people off like that before for a long while as well...

Ok I'm done my rant, lesson is, stay cool and don't be like me! Even though those WOT were awesome I admitted but... for the oil getting cooked like that prevented me from FASING so my score could have been in the 60's if I had just chilled for a moment there.

But when you lose your family photos in a wallet you had so long for, and then thinking about some crack addict picking up your wallet and then chucking it after getting what he wants just boils my blood inside. I even checked the local garbage near where i lost my wallet to see if that were the case and sadly... they probably took the whole **** thing and is planning to fraud the living crap out of me.

Anyway I'm done, coast a lot folks.

Phil everyone has their days- was your turn today.
Sounds like you have some phone calls & letters to do tomorrow. :(

Who knows perhaps someone honest will turn it in?
Last year I left a $1,000 compaq handheld computer in a leather wallet along with cards in a shopping cart out in the parking lot of a...well...not so well-to-do neighborhood.

We drove ~10 miles away before I realized & panicked and sped, like yourself back to the scene. The cart was gone and I checked in the store and to my lucky stars someone found and turned it in.

A few years ago I lost my cellphone, then two days later the finder called me at home about it.

6 months ago I left my Palm Pilot was stolen, and someone called to say they found it in the bushes outside. Guess they couldn't figure out past my password but kept the $10 inside.

So I'll extend my good luck to you if at all possible
-Steve

DIE PUMPING LOSSES DIE

:D

^^ lol thanks for your concern steve, i made the appointments, phone calls and such to get some of my identification back. Yeah who knows, maybe someone will reconize me from the photos and have some sort of heart? although in the area i work at... so much scum I lost count -_-;

haha lye, pumping losses sure aren't a concern with diesels ;) now only if you can make them clean :P

i need to cool down :S anger and hypermiling sure do not mix.

Phil, anger is a part of all of us. You are doing much better than alot of folks because you realize it while it is happening and try to look inside for the cause/reason/resolution. Though it would have made things worse to be caught speeding without your wallet (license inside), it is perhaps a healthier way to burn off the anger than a whole host of other options. Of all the things to regret, burning up a few drops of gasoline is preferable to most of the alternatives. I hope that wallet gets returned to you. In the meantime, try not to imagine what happened to it. That can really dredge up alot of muck that will only add "fuel" to the fire. Been there, done that, didn't help. And, darn it, you still posted 50 mpg!!!!

Hi Phil:

___Remember the Hypermiling golden rule … Personality goes into the glove box first and you drive like a single-minded machine afterwards. I hope you find your wallet and such very soon :(

___John, all these guys running WOT for fuel efficiency must be doing something right? Like burning fuel like nobodies business as they cannot touch a CleanMPG member running near a first peak at low RPM on the curve :D

___I have a reply for you after I arrive home.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Yup, at wot (peak torque technically) a gasser is only ~10-20% less efficient than a diesel. The problem is keeping the engine there. This is why there's such a huge difference between city and highway mileage in gasoline powered cars, and why gasoline hybrids are a great idea, while diesel hybrids are kind pointless. From a personal POV, taking the Rabbit into town is great on the wallet because I usually run ~10 miles round trip and get ~47mpg, with 2-5 stops each trip. So maybe a 2 mile average trip for each start? The Camry gets ~15-20mpg in the same situation even though it has the same CdA because of the pumping losses (and extra weight, but primarily pumping losses).
Back to gasser wot, with variable valve tech and variable ignition, most manufacturers usually build engines that have peak torque from 2k rpm and on, so fuel economy isn't quite as bad when cruising, but in stop/start traffic going from 750-2000rpm still hurts. I saw an article where a bmw actually got worse mileage cruising at the same speed in a lower gear, probably because torque (I.e. engine efficiency) is the same, but there are more friction losses due to everything in the engine moving faster. I should probably look into this a bit more...
This also plays havoc with the mpg ratings and the RL driving results people see because before vvt*whatever, going faster than the EPA test cycle would result in more torque since the torque curves were increasing through the entire rpm band, and increased engine efficiency with speed. E.g. going going from 55mph to 75mph in my Camry only reduces my mileage by ~20% (27/33), even though there's a ~50% increase in energy required (55^2/75^2). By operating at 3k rpm versus 2k rpm my engine is actually ~25% more efficient. Now a new vvti Corolla won't see nearly as much of a change in efficiency, so when the driver goes an average of 60mph versus 50mph, they'll really see the increase in energy required in their fuel mileage because the increase in engine efficiency isn't masking it as much.

^^ wow good info thanks for the share! really shows generic EPA numbers really limits of what the car is actually capable of.

On a happy note, some good soul found my wallet and returned it to my bank. Amazingly everything was inside, including my 5 bucks.

back to easy acceleration and shifting at 2000-2500 rpms again ~

That's some great luck, congrats! As for EPA numbers, they're crap. If they posted fuel consumption graphs in different conditions that'd be another story, but breaking efficiency up into two numbers for a whole range of conditions is nuts... It's no wonder people can get from a half to twice the same mileage in the same car.