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Whoa, over the last couple of weeks things have suddenly come together on my new Elantra Touring. Based on the EPA ratings and on what I got in my former Jetta wagon (usually 31-ish in local driving, low to mid 30s on the highway), I expected to do about 2mpg better in the new Hyundai, maybe 32-33 around town.

Unfortunately things were initially a bit shy of my expectations, at least in local driving. In late may and early June I had two back-to-back tanks of 100% local driving, both at 31.5mpg, at least 1mpg less than I was hoping for. Remembering counsel from RLC and Nevyn that mpg usually gets better after the first couple thousand miles, I kept my hopes up and kept trying.

Then it all suddenly clicked. Over the last couple weeks I have put together a 36.4mpg tank in nearly ALL LOCAL DRIVING. Time for some dancing bananas:
:Banane10: :Banane44:
What changed?

Finding the sweet spot for accelerating. Initially I'd been accelerating the Elantra as I'd been accelerating the Jetta: quite briskly, just a bit shy of engaging open loop. This worked well with the Jetta's torque-heavy 2.0, but was pushing the LOD values well into the 90s on the Hyundai's peakier 2.0. I've been backing off a bit and trying to keep the LOD values closer to 70, and WOW what a difference that has made. Even early on in this tank, I could see from the gas gauge that this tank was going to be a good one as a result.
More FASing. OK, now that I realize FASing is only illegal here on downgrades, I'll publicly state that I've been doing a LOT of it lately, and I'm sure that's helping too. I'd gotten to where I wasn't doing it much on the Jetta because (1) it had a marginal battery for much of the time I owned it, and (2) that car's ECM problems often seemed to show themselves just after I'd done a FAS. Those things combined to make me much more gunshy about FASing than would be optimal. But now with the Hyundai I've got a lot more confidence in my battery's ability to hold a charge (I still watch voltage like a hawk), and electric power steering makes the FAS experience a whole lot better. I love how the car handles EXACTLY the same regardless of whether the ICE is on or off. Awesome! It also helps that the Elantra's engine is a bit easier to kill and to bump start.
Useful readings on the ScanGauge. Because my Jetta's bus updates were so slow I couldn't get meaningful MPG readings on it in local driving; all I could do was monitor the engine parameters, and even that was less than ideal because of the odd way that car reported LOD (as % of total power available at any RPM, rather than at the current RPM). In the Elantra I get meaningful LOD values, and mpg values that appear to reflect reality, ultimately giving me much better feedback than I was getting before.

I feel like I'm still climbing the learning curve on my new findings, and should be able to do even better over the next few tanks.

Also had a great highway tank over the holiday weekend. Two daytrips out of town, including a 200mi round trip yesterday on 60+mph freeway with a significant head/crosswind and AC on most of the time. On the Jetta I would have gotten about 33mpg in this driving. On the new car I'm really starting to get a feel for the LOD values that work for DWL on the highway, and the result was 37.1mpg despite suboptimal driving conditions.
:Banane03:

As with local driving, with practice I should be able to do even better! Actual MPG feedback from the ScanGauge is going to help a lot, and especially will allow me to dial in the P&G routine better. I'm planning an 800 mile trip later this month where I should be able to really dial in the highway techniques.

:Banane05:

Great! I hope this is just the start of something special.

Any news from the LEAF watch today?

Most Excellent! :D

:D Great news, Dan!!! :woot:

I suggest accelerating closer to 75% LOD on the ScanGauge and also that you set the rate to FAST. You are doing an excellent job and it will only get better as you continue to hone your technique!

Thanks guys. I do already have the updates set to Fast, and will aim for 75 LOD.

LEAF watch: saw a silver one last Thursday, and another dark red one over the weekend.

I've seen at least two on my daily commute. Not on the same day, though. They were different colors (I think one was black and one was dark red?) so they weren't the same Leaf.

-soD

Your getting fantastic fuel mileage with the Elantra. Once the word gets out of what is possible with this car, it should help boost sales even more.

LEAF watch: saw a silver one last Thursday, and another dark red one over the weekend.Followed a black one across the bridge this morning.

Filled up yesterday, posting another GREAT tank! 37.2mpg, mostly local driving. For some reason the graphic in my sig has updated, but I'm up to 34.4mpg overall, and 36.9mpg over the last 3 tanks. This car is kicking butt!

Now I'm leaving tonight on a 6-day, 800 mile roadtrip, first big trip in this car. The local mpg has been so good, I'm not sure hwy mpg will be that much better. But we'll see.

Not too shabby! :) Have a great trip, Dan!

Way to work it, Dan!! You know where the big numbers will be (lower 50's for speed) but at 135mi (roughly) per day you should be able to use P&G without killing yourself. Even with NICE-ON the car should get you up into the 50's with reasonable speeds and attention to terrain. My first 50+mpg tank was done almost entirely on the highway with P&G at an average speed of... 67mph. :o

I'm not proud of that speed but it shows what is possible at higher speeds without turning the engine off -- 51.3mpg, 92% highway, 756mi on one tank. (Since you know the area, the route was from Coon Rapids to Golden Valley for work, then to Pewaukee after work. Pewaukee to Milwaukee and back the next day for the Milwaukee Hybrid Meet, then back to Coon Rapids the following day.)

I just have to say I SO CALLED IT! I told you that LOD 67-70 was best! :P I find that my calibration is around +6% to give me good numbers on the SGII. It's a *little* low, so that the pump is always a wee bit higher than the SGII reading to prevent any type of "unexpected DTE incident."

It's VERY tough in my automatic to prevent a downshift at LOD of 70 - so I stick with 67-68. Some days when everything is perfect and it's one of those "don't drive the car, BE the car" kind of perfect drives, I can hold LOD 70 without a shift.

Congrats on finally getting what you were after out of it!

For some reason the graphic in my sig has updated...

If you mean that it had not updated, that was likely due to the image being cached on your computer. A "shift-reload" (shift-control-R in Firefox and some other browsers; shift-propeller-R on a Mac) will tell the browser to fetch all of the images from the server again, which would bring up the updated figures.

-soD

You guys did SO call it!! You too Sean, because you are the one that said "Remember Dan, P&G is your friend." I only had my son with me in the car most of the time, so I was free to HS-P&G to my heart's content. For much of the trip I was able to do +/-15mph pulses/glides (anywhere between 30-45 mph and 50-65 depending on conditions), and I tried to keep the LOD between 70 and 75 most of the time. And the result ...

45.2mpg over 780 miles! :Banane54:

And this was with conditions that weren't always favorable, including several mountain passes and mild to moderate headwinds for much of the first tank, and heavy rain for quite a ways this morning ... though I did catch a pretty good tailwind for the last 100 miles or so. I think with practice even more should be possible.

Last night, with virtually no wind, I managed a 50mpg segment over 17 miles on rolling terrain at 30-50mph speeds. And after that I managed to hit 38.5mpg on a segment that climbed a net 3000 feet! Even on 50-60mph runs I was able to achieve segments in the mid 40s quite a bit of the time. This car is now blowing me away with its capabilities. Far more than I imagined, and I feel that with what I've just learned on this roadtrip I should be able to improve my in-town techniques as well.
:Banane10:

:D:thumbs_up: That's what I like to see!! :woot:

Congrats on a real winner, WriConsult!

Yes! Awesome... :D

BTW, I think so far I'm finding 70-75 to be the sweet spot. I notice a substantial increase in acceleration (and thus shorter pulse times) being in that range vs. upper 60s. Could be my imagination, but it does "feel" like a sweet spot once i crest over 70 or so.

I also got very good results in the upper 70s when i had to keep it up in that range to avoid losing too much speed on several mountain grades, but at least for now I'm sticking with 70-75 whenever conditions permit.

Also, I've found that the SG correction factor in the 5-6% range seems to be about right.

I like to keep the SG a little low. 6.5 to 6.8% in the winter, and 5.8 to 6.1 in the summer. "Dead on" would probably be about 0.4% lower.

If I go over 68ish LOD / 35 TPS in my automatic, it downshifts.

Hi, Dan -- I've got my correction factor set at 6.4% but I EO P&G like a madman and it doesn't seem to vary between summer and winter.

If you are interested, the SG can't be matched exactly to what the odometer reads but does read right on GPS, map, etc verified distances with a 2% offset. The multiplier for the odometer miles comes out to 1.0219 (Yeah, I actually used thousands of miles for the ratio so I'm pretty sure of the significant digits. ;))

The numbers may be different for your vehicle but that's what I use in 'Lantrific.

OK, I'm disappointed to say the trip's mpg wasn't quite as good as I thought. Looks like on the last fill, the pump shut off early. The fuel gauge never got all the way up to F. My best estimate is that the last fill was about 1 1/4 gallons shy of full. That still puts me at 42.3mpg for the trip. Not too shabby.

My most recent tank was less impressive, at just 34mpg. That included 100 miles of driving straight into a raging 20-30mph headwind, and also 50 miles where my wife drove the car at just 25mpg.

But the current tank is looking really good. Started off with a 240 mile round trip with lots of HSP&G. Even though it was entirely freeway with an average speed near 60mph (and a noticeable headwind on the first half), this one appears to be well above 40mpg so far. The rest of the tank will probably be local driving, mid to upper 30s, but it should still end up pretty good.

By the way, this is the first time I've done significant HSP&G with my wife as a passenger, and I'm pleased to report that (1) she doesn't mind too much, and (2) she's blown away by the numbers this car can pull while I'm doing it.

I'm pleased to report that (1) she doesn't mind too much, and (2) she's blown away by the numbers this car can pull while I'm doing it.

BAM! right there. maybe another convert?