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I have a family reunion coming up in Cleveland in about 2 weeks. It is 688 miles there and back. The question is can I make it on a single tank (16.5 gal). I would have to get at least 41.69 MPG to just make it. If I wanted to have a margin of safety I would need to get 43 MPG. That would put me at using 16 gallons.

I am going to have things going for me and against me:

Going for me:
LRR tires
New air filter
Fresh oil change
Personal record for a tank was 693 miles (ran completely out of gas going for 700 miles)

Going against me:
New LRR tires (expect to have less than 200 miles on them)
Fully loaded car (Wife, myself, and 3 kids plus luggage for 4 days/3 nights.)
(And the big one: )
My wife wants to drive (I swear I say that with love.:o)

I have had some long driving experiences where I have seen mid-40s on the SG, but that is over 60 MPH and I don't have the ability to experiment with it on my daily commute. (Max speed limit for my drive: 55 MPH)

Will your wife drive our way, or just set the cruise?
Leaning against success here...

Long trips also tend to produce slightly lower mpg than everyday driving. :(

Will your wife drive our way, or just set the cruise?
Leaning against success here...

My wife drives efficient, but does not hypermile. We don't have cruise control in the car either.

Andrew- Most of my commute is highway/highway type driving. Meaning few stop signs and mostly steady driving.

I'm thinking that you are putting more stress on wife (unless she is used to doin those kind of things) trying to make it with very little margin for error... or whatever could happen.

It's not like we would be stuck if I didn't make it. It is more of a personal challenge than anything. If I don't make it I am not worried about it. Just wanting to see if I can. She has been driving efficiently since about the time I started hypermiling. She knows I wouldn't let it get to the point of being stranded.

You could mention it as something to help pass the time on the journey.

Even better, tell her you'll buy her something from the savings if you make it. :D

Damion, you love your wife like I love mine too, eh? :) Although, mine doesn't even drive efficiently... :( You'd be cutting it very close.

Longer trips for me have always yielded lower FE, unless I was by myself, or at least without a screaming bored baby in the backseat. :p My wife can put up with it a little better than he can ;)

But the real question is, can your wife put up with HIM? ;) I'd guess not.

My brother got the tires ordered and they will be put on on Wednesday.:woot:

ETA: I forgot to mention I am also getting an alignment done that day too. While the alignment is off, it's not by much. The steering wheel is just a few degrees off center, but drives straight. The tires I have on do have a little bit of uneven wear on the front, rear tires were fine.

There's no harm in seeing how far it'll go, as long as you stop to fill in time. You've already explored the limit so you know when to call it done.

You can always carry a full gallon container of fuel with you and empty it into the tank at the first sign of fuel starvation from the engine. That's one way to get around the "Can I make it to the next station" anxiety when pushing the lower limits of your gas tank. Its a do-it-yourself version of the reserve tank found on motorcycles and the older VW Beetles.

Personally I wouldn't push the tank. Family harmony takes precedent over hypermiling, and a nice fuel economy number will stand whether you did it on one tank or two. I would let the one-tank thing go.

I can tell you from experience that hitting 43mpg in an accord at highway speeds will require advanced techniques. She should get it done in a HS-P&G cycle, especially if you have some rolling hills to work with. I don't see PSL speeds and DWL getting it done.

Only problem my car has with P&G is that at anything below about 50 the TC will start slipping if I try to pulse. Most of the drive will be 60 MPH limit or higher so P&G may be a possibility, I just don't have much experience with it due to my daily commute having a max limit of 55 MPH.

I am going to push the tank, but if I'm not getting numbers high enough I will let it go. 2 gallons left will be my deciding point. I don't want it to get to the point that I am out of gas as I get home or anything like that. The whole drive will be played by ear.

If you're going to raise your speeds to 60 mph+, you'll likely be tossing your chance of making a top tank out the window.

Yeah, I know. But like I said in an earlier post; I have seen some mid-40s at 60+, but my daily commute doesn't allow me to experiment. DWL at 47-55 MPH will get me 38-40 iMPG.

If I had a choice between P&G at 65 or DWL at 55, I think I would take the lower speed. The result will likely be similar without the risk of wear and tear on the automatic transmission. If higher speeds are necessary then I would still DWL and take a good glide opportunity if the terrain offers one up. Above about 60mph level-ground glides become inelegant, to put it mildly. Just my two cents worth.

Well we will be leaving in a few hours and I thought I would throw out a few more things.

Darrell- It seems my car has some sort of SHM, but like I said I don't get to experiment above 60 MPH on my daily commute. I've made a few long trips that I have cruised over 60 and seen some good iMPG numbers, but I was running behind and not paying much attention.

Here is the terrain profile for the trip. At least part of it, don't want anyone to have my real address.;)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/500/Reunion_terrian_map.png

I see a lot of opportunities for neutral coasting. :D

If that is going through Cincinnati like it appears to be, I know you will get a little bump in mpg on the outskirts. Getting back out of town looks like a challenge and that climb from 700' up to nearly 1400' in 50 miles is going to hurt bad.

Nope, it isn't Larry. We are going through Columbus. We live near Indy and Cincy is southern Ohio. It would take us way out of our way.

I just don't see stretching tanks. When you're at your destination it'll be: "Sorry, can't drive over to so-and-so's, this tank has got to last me back to home...".

We recently went on a road trip of about 600 km each direction: got there, tooled around for the next day, putting a bit more mileage on. The next morning we were leaving, with tank a little below half: pulled into Chevron on the way out of town and topped up. ;)

Well I didn't make it. We ended up stopping after about 550 miles to fill up. Put in about 14 gallons. Tank came out to just under 38 MPG. Those big climbs were killer.

About 110 miles into the trip my wife was moving the GPS charger and blew a fuse. For a min I thought nothing of it as i thought it was just the radio. Until I looked down at the SG to see how I was doing and saw a blank screen. Turns out the radio, cig. lighter, and OBDII port are all wired to the same fuse.

Now, I've had to go without my SG when it got stolen, but it's nothing compared to having it sit on your dash blank. I kept looking down at it and getting frustrated because I had no idea how I was doing.

:ccry: That's terrible!

Yeah, not cool at all. Sorry to hear! :(

I forgot to add that it was only out for about 10 miles. We needed to stop for food anyways. It took me a few min to figure out because the fuse in the cabin was fine. Little did I know that there is a 2nd fuse for that circuit under the hood. Replaced it with one of the spares and everything came back on. Never known a car to have 2 fuses for a single circuit.