Week of 9/04/06 - 09/10/06

[tarabell]

It felt great getting back in my car again this morning. After a week of not thinking about FE I thought my foot would be rusty but it surprised me. The car really wanted to be in EV and stay there, so I finally broke the 80mpg barrier (81.1 to be exact), and ended up my segment to work at 75.2mpg, a new record. Average speed was maybe 51mph (and no help from any trucks).

Now that my daughter's car is parked behind the house again, husband is back to using my car in the mornings. I now have to watch the Trip-B (tank mileage) to see exactly how much impact this has. His morning drives have a clearly positive warm-up effect, because when I get in it after him, I see I am easily beating my usual numbers all through my commute. Question will be whether it's enough to compensate for his lowering my FE.

[xcel]

Hi Tarabell:

___75 without using every trick in the book is super hot!

___Sorry to hear about your husband driving as I know that is once again going to take its toll

___Good Luck

___Wayne

[rhwinger]

88.1 MPG - that's awsome! I think it'll be awhile till I see that. I have noticed that with 3500 mi, I've been suprised to see EV indications occuring where they haven't before. Things must be loosening up a bit.

Way to go.

[brick]

Nice work, tarabell!

I've been in a serious slump for the last several tanks, but I think I'm levelling off and maybe headed for an up-turn. The issue has been a mild case of burnout and a lack of willingness to touch the ignition switch. Rain and cool weather just compounded things. I can't really complain about high 30s, though, as long as I can stay there or better.

School busses are back and throwing a serious wrench into the back road route. (Do you realize how early they start school around here? There were high school kids by the road at 6:20 yesterday.) So I decided to try the highway route again this morning with results in the 40mpg+ range. That was with the cruise set at 60-65mph and some careful footwork to get through the sections on either end.

So I'm not really pushing tanks right now, but at the same time I'm pretty happy. What I now consider sloppy driving still puts me 25% over the EPA estimates. Also of note is that I have switched to looking at the ScanGauge aFCD rather than iFCD to see if there is anything to be learned from watching transients in the trip average. It gives me a much better gauge of how particular events influence the the door-to-door number.

[diamondlarry]

I have a couple of days to report. Yesterday's trip to my wife's work was 55.0, from there to my work was 64.9, from there to pick up my wife in the afternoon was 62.9, and from her shop to home was 58.6. Today, the numbers were 62.5, 61.7, and 63.5. I didn't go straight home from her shop today but did a bunch of errands and didn't get the numbers wrote down. The day's FE was at 60.* I also got another 75.1 segment on the way home from dropping my daughter off at church. This was 5.3 miles.

[brick]

Well, here's how my commute went yesterday afternoon:

http://www.wfsb.com/traffic/9797104/detail.html

Witnesses said the truck overturned after being struck by one of two cars that were weaving quickly through traffic around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. One of the cars struck the jersey barrier and slid under the truck, causing the truck to overturn between exits 34 and 33 near Jennings Road, officials said.
...
Two passengers and the driver of the car the struck the truck were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The other car involved in the incident fled the scene.

[PCK]

Completed a tank today just a hair above 60 mpg, thats an alright tank considering I had
a day of driving in Ernesto winds and we have been having our typical Florida Thunder storms daily several of which I found myself in the middle of.

What I liked is I drove 55 miles after the last fuel light disappered (avg. 60 mpg), and judging
by the fillup I should have still had a gallon of fuel left. That knowledge will help me gut it
out for an 800+ tank one day.

[tbaleno]

My mileage has been way down, as has the temperature, the last few segments. I'm close to another 700 mile tank but I have 25 miles to go and have already driven 16 on empty. My calculations say I won't make it so I'm tempted to fill today. That would put the tank at 686 miles or so.

[diamondlarry]

Today's mileage started out fairly average but ended up not-so-good. The trip to the wife's work was 62.2, from there to my work was 63.7, and from my work back to the wife's this afternoon was 63.8. It all kind of fell apart on my way home when I encountered more traffic than usual on my rural county road route. The traffic usually came at just the right time that it messed up some pretty good FAS. This was traffic in front of me that I couldn't coast around because of hills or curves. Anyway, the trip home was a dismal 50.8. I will have another shot at a new record tonight when I pick up my daughter from her V-ball game.
Edit: I didn't set a record for the trip home from picking up my daughter. The trip to the school came in at 65.3 The trip home was 68.5. This is down a bit from usual. I tried some different acceleration techniques that may not have worked so well. Usually, when I go into a pulse, I accelerate with ~1/2-2/3 throttle and accelerate up to 45-50 mph. This time, I accelerated ~ 1/4-1/3 throttle and went up to 40-45. Is the extra time the engine is running for the slower rate of acceleration the cause? What do you think Wayne?

[laurieaw]

i've had pretty good luck lately. filled up this morning with a 61.4 (i think) average for 624 miles. i feel a little like my car is sluggish. i know i need an oil change, and possibly an alignment. i hate to think winter's close, but i have been pretty happy to be so darn close to 60 all summer.........gotta work on getting that higher.