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Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm 31 and live in a small village in the green rolling hills of Leicestershire in the UK. I work in Nottingham (as in Robin Hood, yes lol) and commute about 44 miles each way, every weekday.

Recently, I've been having trouble keeping my budget under control so got out my spreadsheet and online banking statements to try and work out where it was all going... and discovered I'm currently spending about £350 ($507) per month on petrol!
I drive a hot hatch at the moment - a Seat Leon FR 2.0 TFSI DSG - which you might not know in the US but it's basically very similar to a Golf GTI 2.0 DSG (Seat and VW are both part of VAG). I also paid £235 recently for annual VED (road tax) - for this car. And it will need its DSG gearbox service over the next year (another several hundred pounds).
It's great fun on the little country roads, but most of my driving is cruising on dual carriageways or queueing in heavy traffic in/out of Nottingham.

So a few months ago I started trying to eek out a bit extra in fuel economy by adjusting my driving habits. This was before I'd ever even Googled the word 'hypermiling' and just based on what I remembered reading in various articles on saving fuel over the years.

I've managed to improve my average fuel consumption from about 30mpgUK to about 35mpgUK so far by slowing down, using cruise control more often, using the brakes less, coasting more and trying to anticipate traffic lights and queue behaviour so I can avoid stopping where safe/practical. I also got some LRR summer tyres when my fronts needed replacing (Goodyear EfficientGrip, which are great!). My best miles-per-tank is 410 miles until I chickened out when I'd been driving on '0 miles range' for 25 miles or so. ;)
I'm told that 35mpgUK for a sporty 2.0 petrol TFSI is actually pretty good going, but no doubt you guys can help me improve my driving further!

However, even with these worthwhile improvements to my fuel economy figures, I've decided to swap cars... I can't really afford to run my current car and it doesn't feel like it fits with my driving style anymore.

So, I've ordered a new model of the same car: a Seat Leon Ecomotive 1.6 (CR diesel) SE with all the trimmings. :)
I'm finding it hard to be patient as there's an estimated 12 week wait until it arrives... ;)

The new car should really reward my hypermiling efforts as I learn more, I hope. The Leon Ecomotive has VW's new 1.6 common rail diesel engine, which is apparently very efficient, hooked up to a 5 speed manual gearbox with special long ratios. (The 1.6CR is essentially a 4 cylinder version of the 1.2CR from the Polo Bluemotion or Ibiza Ecomotive.)
When I took one out for a test drive, it cruised at 70mph at less than 2,000 rpm in 5th. The long ratio gearbox will take some getting used to, as will the drop in power compared to my 2.0 TFSI, but the savings over 3-4 years will be well worth it I think.
Apart from the engine and gearbox, they've made tweaks to the aerodynamics such as a closed front grille, a special underbody panel and wind deflectors around the front wheels, and added Auto Start/Stop, Regenerative Braking and a gearshift indicator. It's essentially very similar to the new version of the Golf Bluemotion, but it's cheaper, comes with more equipment and gets equal or better mileage figures (and looks nicer too, imho).

At 99g CO2/km, it sneaks into the lowest emissions band for tax purposes in the UK, so I won't have to pay road tax on it at all. The official mileage figures for urban, extra-urban and combined are 60.1, 83.1 and 74.3 mpgUK respectively... which is fantastic for a family sized 5 door hatchback with all the mod cons.
For comparison, my current FR model of the same car has 25.7, 45.6 and 35.8 for those official figures. This gives me hope that 74.3mpgUK is actually achievable, because I've managed to get the 'combined' figure for my FR with some careful driving.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling intro. You can probably tell I'm looking forward to getting my new car and swapping some occasionally spirited driving for a more relaxed (hypermiling) driving style, cheaper fuel bills, more gadgets and a free tax disc. :D

Welcome to the site and thank you for choosing to improve your efficiency! That Seat sounds like a fantastic car and I surely hope you post pictures once you have the vehicle keys in hand. :)

I assume you've driven a manual transmission before (since you live in the UK)? I think that with just a bit of effort that 74mpg (IMP) is going to be a lower limit for your driving. :D

Thanks for the warm welcome Sean. :)

Although I welcome the environmental benefits of improving FE, for me it's mostly about the money.
The government has started to make stronger hints to new car purchasers via the 'showroom tax' system... basically you pay a different rate of road tax for the first year. The normal banded rates (based on CO2 emissions) are exaggerated for this first time rate, to reward buyers of efficient cars and penalise those who opt for thirsty ones.
For instance, if you buy a car with pretty good emissions of say, 115g CO2/km, you would normally pay a modest £30/year road tax, but you pay nothing for a first year to reward your purchase of an efficient car.
If you buy a car that puts out >255g CO2/km, you'll pay a hefty £435 every year but you'll need to pay a whopping £950 in tax to drive it off the forecourt, emphasising your (arguably) irresponsible choice.

I've always driven MT cars until this latest one and my wife's company car (that I often borrow as it's frugal despite its size) is a diesel Honda Accord Estate iCTDI (MT). I only got an automatic this time as I fell in love with the idea of the DSG's "best of both worlds" hype (and having flappy paddles on the steering wheel appealed to the boy racer in me). I've found it relaxing to drive but rarely used the flappy paddles in practice - it tends to stay in D mode 99% of the time. The gearbox seems to have got used to me now, but when I first got it it would change down when there really wasn't any need to.
AT cars are still quite a rarity over here, relative to MT cars anyway.

If 74mpgUK eventually becomes a lower limit for my driving, I will be a very happy man indeed. :D

Welcome to the site.

I wish we had that sort of tax on gas gusler here to deture people from buying them just so they can sit higher on the road or get their bling on.

Just keep up the good work, you may get to try some of the more advanced techniques when you get your MT to squeze some more out of every gal, oops I mean Liter. :)

Welcome, GainfulShrimp!

While I'm sorry your paying 3x-4x more for gas, I envy your choice of diesel cars.

Hi GainfulShrimp, nice car choice! Too bad it's such a long wait, though. I wish I could have a chance to drive the 1.6 TDI someday, I really like my 2.0 but sometimes it just seems thirstier than I need.

Thanks guys. I can't wait to get the new car. :)

Re: the gallon vs litre, km vs miles thing... it's frankly embarrassing how the UK still hasn't "made its mind up" about whether to go metric or not.
We've been in a muddled transition state for about 40 years now. For instance, kids in school are taught in metres and kilometres, grams and kgs... but all the road signs and car speedos etc are in miles. And most food is still sold in imperial measures even though there has to also be a metric equivalent on the packaging as well, due to EU law. So I buy a "4 pint" bottle of semi-skimmed milk and it says 2.27 litres on it.
Petrol and diesel are priced and sold by the litre, but everyone talks about "miles per gallon" rather than the metric "litres per 100km" measures.
Everything is similarly muddled up... just last night I was talking with my other half about my weight and I only knew it in kgs (from the scales and machines at my gym, where I weighed myself), but she needed it converting into stones on my iphone before the number meant anything to her. It's infuriating sometimes being neither one thing or the other.

Typically British then, really... keep 'em guessing! (Even if "'em" is yourself, lol) :)

Well, until the new car gets here, I've been trying to practice my DWL technique and generally putting some more effort into improving my average figures.

I made 39mpgUK (32.5mpgUS) on my journey home the other day - a bit of a personal record and I was especially chuffed as the first 10 minutes were stop-start traffic and that's usually a recipe for a bad journey average. :)

One thing I've noticed is that when driving through hilly country lanes, there's a fine balance between going slow to keep the revs and drag down and going fast enough so that when losing speed on an uphill stretch, the AT doesn't kick down. If I try to keep to 45 - 55mph, the DSG shifts itself down to 5th on the final bit of the uphill and my consumption figure takes a beating... I get better results trying to stick between 53 - 63mph in such circumstances.
The gearbox seems to have a mind of its own. On the flat, the car will happily stay in 6th at only 37mph, but doing 45mph going uphill, even with hardly any throttle and deliberately slowing down, the car will kickdown just when I don't want it to. :(

The way I do my DWL, the important part using Toyota Camry V6 AT is to adjust to the right speed on level road (balancing FE and comfort speed zone), lock the feet on pedal and allow the engine to recover after downhills or any slight inclines. Find the minimum/maximum speed, if your speed went down to the minimum speed, then speed up to the maximum (use cruise control to reach up to max then kill it to avoid losing foot hold) and return feet back to the same position.

Don't worry about trying to recover back to the same mpg/mph where you originally set to, when the car go back to level or downhill area, it will slowly resume back to your targeted mpg. With patience, you will be rewarded. (Alton Brown, Good Eats).

If you reach to the steep uphill and slow down to intolerable speed, slowly accelerate to about -2 to -10 mpg of your targeted mpg until you crest on the hill, accelerate briefly until you reach downhill then keep mpg ABOVE the current mpg (if you got mpguino or Scangague II - HIGHLY recommended) until you reach level road to return your foot hold back to the original position.

Thanks for the advice LinuxGold. :)

I don't have a Scanguage or similar but my car includes a MPG indicator (both current and average, for both current journey (including last journey if car wasn't stopped for longer than 2hrs) and 10,000 mile average).

I've noticed my Leon's cruise control is quite aggressive: if you 'resume' to target speed from a lower speed, it'll get there via some relatively strong acceleration. I still think cruise is useful for steady speeds on the level, but to regain target speed or for DWL obviously, feet are the best option, I've found.