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I've been lurking here since June but never got around to posting. I drive an automatic 2000 Civic LX. I know from watching some of the mileage logs that the manual version of this car is capable of some great numbers with aggressive P&G.

After discovering this site, I took the following steps:


Pumped my tires to higher pressures (gradually increased from 30 to 40 PSI)
Imposed a strict maximum speed of 65 MPH
Tried to DWB and time lights in the city

I've seen some modest improvement from this. My first tank after this had 35.4 MPG, which was about the best I had ever seen. My typical numbers before were 28-33 MPG depending on the city/highway mix and temperatures (pre-2008 EPA rating is 28/35, 2008 is 24/32). Throughout the summer, I got 33-36 MPG on a 20mi. mostly-highway commute (with much traffic) while carrying two carpool mates (so my PMPG looked pretty good!).

Once the summer ended, I went back to using my bike for almost everything and resorted to my car for short nighttime trips in town (and the occasional highway trip). My mileage suffered as a result. It seems like my car does best at freeway speeds, perhaps because the torque converter can lock up at those speeds. When I have a tank with a lot of city miles, I seem to end up around 30 MPG no matter how hard I try, especially if it's cold (by California standards) and there are a lot of short trips.

The good news is that my last tank was a record for this vehicle at 37.2 MPG. I know this isn't impressive at all, but it's progress for me! This was mostly highway, and I tried to go a little slower than usual and DWL over some hilly terrain. I'm surprised that it beat my summer tanks, which had less city driving. I hope to see even better numbers in the future, but it's going to be hard to refine my techniques without a Scangauge, and since I drive so infrequently right now it's hard to justify buying one.

I'm pretty well read on hypermiling by now, but I'd still appreciate any advice that's particularly applicable to this vehicle. Also, if anyone does a hypermiling clinic in the San Francisco bay area in the future, I'd really like to participate.

Welcome to the group. You are already doing very well - you are besting the EPA's expected outcome. It's hard for me to not recommend the sgii. It's amazing how much it will teach you about your particular car. I am still learning what my car likes and does not like during the first mile of my commute!

If you reframe the purchase of the sgii as a hobby cost, then it might make sense. That's my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth....

My way of looking at it is the sgII talks you through every foot of your terrain, it just depends on your ability to understand that information and use it to your advantage.

That said, I still learn new things everyday with my car and I'm sure you can get significantly better mileage with yours.

Think of the SGII purchase as a tool to get to know your car better for the rest of its useful life. Then once that car is no more, plug your SGII into the next and it'll help you learn that too.

Think about how many miles you have left in that car, or maybe your next. The sg can pay for itself within 15 000 miles.

You can probably look toward 40mpg this summer though. Congratulations on the progress!! nice work ;)

Welcome, and thanks for introducing yourself, Aaron. I live in the Concord-Martinez area, so we might be able to connect some time for a hypermiling clinic.

As you've learned, short trips on a cold engine really hurt your mileage. You're typically getting 15 mpg or less driving that first mile (this is where the ScanGauge teaches you a lot), and it may take 3 or 4 miles to average your mileage back to a decent number. On a day-long highway trip, I may be 50 miles down the road before my average mileage is finally achieved. When the engine is warm, I can top 30 mpg within my first mile of driving.

I've found the biggest factor in beating the EPA figures is to keep your maximum speed below 55 mph when the engine is doing the work. I'll pulse to 62 or 65 mph sometimes to maximize my glides, but my car gets 26 mpg at 72 mph, 30-32 mpg at 62 mph, and 36-40 mpg at 55 mph

Welcome to CleanMPG!

Doing good in the hills!

Great job cutting consumption! Don't compare to highway commuting mpg's. Just improve where you can. Your focus is sound, to me.

Where you shifted miles to your bike, I'm trying to use the Fit more than the Tacoma. As a result, the Tacoma mpg stinks, but a tank lasts 45 days or so, and consumption is way down. I still need to bike more and to sell the Tacoma, but at least I'm losing sleep over it.

And welcome.

Well, I ended up capitulating and joining the ScanGauge group buy. If I continue to own a car and use it semi-regularly, it should pay for itself within a few years, and if not I expect I'd be able to pass it on to someone else through craigslist. I also realized that I'll be able to loan mine to friends and family so they can learn about their cars and reduce their gas consumption as well.

...But mostly I'm just excited about getting in tune with my car! I have a lot of hypotheses about the fuel consumption in various scenarios, and I'm eager to see what the truth is. I'm also looking forward to playing with it in my parents' twin Prii and figuring out SHM and all that jazz.

I'm hoping for a very good result on my current tank. I have three 70-100 mile round trips planned over the next two weeks. I don't know if I'll receive my ScanGauge in time for any of them, though.

It can pay for itself very quick by reading obdII codes. With the Scangauge and the internet, it is very easy to fix problems with autos.

Well, I ended up capitulating and joining the ScanGauge group buy. If I continue to own a car and use it semi-regularly, it should pay for itself within a few years, and if not I expect I'd be able to pass it on to someone else through craigslist. I also realized that I'll be able to loan mine to friends and family so they can learn about their cars and reduce their gas consumption as well.
.

Just finished a tank which turned out to be my second best, at 36.5 MPG. It's too bad I got stuck in barely-moving traffic for about an hour; otherwise I think it would have been better. I could easily have set a distance record too, but I was afraid upcoming trips might hurt the mileage. It turns out to be convenient that I filled up at this point, because my ScanGauge just showed up, so the entire next tank will be driven with a ScanGauge.

I'm seeing a very strong correlation between long highway trips and good mileage. My best three tanks have been primarily made up of 1-3 highway round trips. Interestingly, I think most of those were relatively hilly trips. Here's an elevation plot for a segment of I-280 I've been driving often recently:

http://vitelus.com/~aaronl/280elevation.png

During this most recent tank, I descended many of the major hills in neutral. Often I was able to maintain 60MPH for 0.5 - 1.0 miles. Since this was without the ScanGauge, I'm not sure how much it helped, but I imagine it was significant.

I'm excited about the ScanGauge. I might go out and do some experiments tonight.

I've been having fun with my ScanGauge. The night I set it up, I went out to the closest reasonably flat highway to try and gather some basic data. This trip felt like a bit of a waste, since the data wasn't particularly useful. The ScanGauge seems to overestimate MPG dramatically pre-calibration. I was looking for data on MPG vs. speed, but even at 67 mph the MPG averaged over a minute or so came out in the mid-40s. This isn't very believable. I did see slight gains with slower speeds (nearly 50 MPG indicated!), and a difference of a few MPG with the windows down.

One thing that I learned with the ScanGauge, and confirmed with GPS, is that my speedometer reads about 3.5 MPH high. Radar signs had led me to suspect this, but I wasn't sure that the error persisted at highway speeds. This is actually a little disappointing, since it means that when I tried to cap my speed at 65 mph, I was really capping it around 61.5 mph. On the past few tanks I've been driving at what turns out to be 55-62 mph on the highway. There is probably less room for improvement than I thought, since I imagine there are vastly diminishing returns below about 55 mph.

Both segments of a round trip to San Francisco along the route shown above came out in the mid-40s, uncalibrated (46 and 43, I think). I used these segments to get a feel for LOD and TPS. I'd like to start learning DWL, but I'm not sure it's applicable on the terrain I described. A cruise LOD value is far too low to maintain a reasonable speed when climbing one of these hills. I've been trying a routine of cruising around 40 LOD, climbing major hills at 80 LOD, and coasting downhill in neutral when it allows a significant range, otherwise staying in gear and avoiding DFCO. It's hard to tell whether this is better than naive driving, though, since instantaneous MPG mostly reflects the terrain and my rate of acceleration/deceleration. I will have to try the same stretch of road with several techniques for comparison.

I dared to do some city driving today, and got a respectable > 40MPG (uncalibrated) result on the trip downtown. On the way back, I hit some frustrating traffic and only saw 31 MPG - on a warm engine! The elevation change also favors the trip to downtown, but I was surprised at how much more of a factor the traffic seemed to be. The average was only about 26 until I got past the traffic, when the trip average started climbing steadily despite this being the part of the segment with most of the climbing.

Actually, you'll get noticeably better mileage at 50mph. Optimal balance between efficiency and wind resistance should be somewhere around 45mph in top gear.

Just letting you know the scangauge does not get its information of speed from the Sensor.
It gets it from the ECU then interprets it.
You may have to adjust the speed setting.
What I did was I compared Odometer to Tank Traveled (On Scan Gauge) to Adjust the speed parameters.
Even then the Scan Gauge is a few miles off (Could be the FASing).

I just finished my first tank with the ScanGauge. It lasted almost a month. I've been commuting by bike nearly exclusively (see the alternative transportation thread).

38.5 MPG / 392.2 miles

The ScanGauge showed 40.0 MPG. Previous best mileage was 37.2 MPG and previous longest distance was 357.8 miles. Having instant feedback is amazing. Most of my highway trips averaged out to 43 MPG or so, but occasional city driving brought it down. I rarely have to do city driving, but when I do, it hurts a lot. I should work on that.

CleanMPG calculates the revised EPA combined rating for this vehicle at 28 MPG, so on this scale this tank is 138% of EPA. fueleconomy.gov shows the combined rating at 27 MPG, which makes it 143% of EPA. I'm no longer too embarrassed to participate in the fuel economy challenges.

I could easily have stretched this tank out to 450 miles or more. The fuel light came on just about a mile before I filled up. I have a ~40 mile segment to do in the morning, so I decided to get gas first. And I'll have a passenger that I don't want to freak out. I was shooting for 400 miles, but at least I still have that goal to look forward to. Same goes for getting a 40 MPG tank, which I was hoping for this time around. I think even something around 43 would be realistic, though I would probably have to stay strictly on highways and avoid any trips less than 20 miles at my current skill level.

Great job!! I believe you will meet those goals and exceed them soon. :)

It's been great watching/reading about your progress. You're doing a great energy conservation job, overall.

Hi Aaron,
I am also from the SF Bay area (Fremont) and I work in the South Bay. What do you have your SG set on? I use MPG, trip MPG (x guage), LOD, and either FWT or VLT.

You seem to have gotten a good start. It's good to see more drivers from the local area.
Larry

Hi Aaron,
I am also from the SF Bay area (Fremont) and I work in the South Bay. What do you have your SG set on? I use MPG, trip MPG (x guage), LOD, and either FWT or VLT.

You seem to have gotten a good start. It's good to see more drivers from the local area.
Larry

I was raised in Fremont, from when I was 2 till about 13.

Hi Aaron,
I am also from the SF Bay area (Fremont) and I work in the South Bay. What do you have your SG set on? I use MPG, trip MPG (x guage), LOD, and either FWT or VLT.

You seem to have gotten a good start. It's good to see more drivers from the local area.
Larry

You live in Fremont?? I'm shocked. The incredible numbers that you pull made me imagine that you were in a rural area of the state. Fremont has notorious traffic - I avoid 880 through there at all costs.

I live and work in the Palo Alto area, by the way.

My first three SG gauges are the same as yours, but for the fourth I alternate between FWT and TPS.

I'm eager to see more results, but I actually haven't driven at all in the past week. I'm pretty much a strict bicycle commuter now. I just inflated my car tires a bit for when I do hypothetically take a drive. Been bumping up the pressure very gradually... 30, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45... Max sidewall is in sight!

I was raised in Fremont, from when I was 2 till about 13.

Leave purgatory now! Come back to The Garden.
:)
Larry

You live in Fremont?? I'm shocked. The incredible numbers that you pull made me imagine that you were in a rural area of the state. Fremont has notorious traffic - I avoid 880 through there at all costs.

I don't actually drive 880 in Fremont, I drive it from Milpitas to the 280 junction! It's my bread a butter. Love those 30 - 40 mph slow and go's. Get my best mpg then! As for route planning, you might try http://511.org before you start out.

I live and work in the Palo Alto area, by the way.

My first three SG gauges are the same as yours, but for the fourth I alternate between FWT and TPS.
I find TPS redundant with LOD. I use VLT 'cause I do a lot of FAS P&G. At night I need to know when I am in danger of running the battery too low. In the daytime on a hot day, I don't want to overheat, hence FWT.

I'm eager to see more results, but I actually haven't driven at all in the past week. I'm pretty much a strict bicycle commuter now. I just inflated my car tires a bit for when I do hypothetically take a drive. Been bumping up the pressure very gradually... 30, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45... Max sidewall is in sight!
My tires are rated at 51. I am running them at 60. In addition... I am using Mobil 1 0-20 oil. I have a front grill block. On the large lower opening I have a 5/8 in thick foam rubber sheet cut to fit and press fit with tape to hold in the opening. On the small upper opening, I have clear packing tape artfully placed to both cover the opening and make a smooth aerodynamdic surface over it. If it gets too hot (FWT above about 217), I stop and rip off the tape. Only had to do it twice.

Larry

Time for an update. The second post-SG tank came out at 41.0 MPG over 439.1 miles. I was expecting about 39. Assuming this was a proper fill, I'm very happy to have met and exceeded my goal of 40 MPG. The ScanGauge is so useful, not just at helping me drive, but also reminding me when it's better not to drive.

I'm not sure what's next. I'll probably go to max sidewall (51 PSI), since 45 PSI has been working out fine. I think now that I've beat 40 MPG, I'm going to relax a little bit more about venturing onto city streets, which always kills my mileage. I'm certainly not going to win FE-VI, so it makes more sense to try to do the best on whatever roads I find myself driving than stress out over driving 5 miles on city streets.

I probably only have a few tanks left on this car, because I really want to switch to one with a manual transmission. Probably another Civic, but 7th gen this time. The only question is whether I'll indulge within the next few months, or wait until the rainy season when I actually drive more than once a week. I imagine it's going to be hard to pick up MT driving without somewhat consistent practice.

by the way, I really like the DarkCivic name. ;)