Even as much as I am truly a "truck guy", I do get a certain perverse pleasure out of NOT having to fill up the gas tank three times a week. And, I've always had a problem with huge, gas guzzling bug out vehicles. Lately, I've been playing around with hypermiling in my new vehicle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy-maximizing_behaviors Maybe it's because I have a display that shows instantaneous and average MPG...but I'm starting to become acutely aware of my mileage. It's become sort of a game I play to see just how high I can keep it. I actually catch myself wishing I had bought a new vehicle that got even better mileage sometimes. Not often...but once in a while.
In my case, hypermiling is simply using a VERY light foot on the gas pedal and the occasional dropping the transmission into Neutral and coasting when ever possible. I've been doing this for about a week now. Mostly on my way into work. The drive home is usually pretty busy on the roads and the additional traffic makes it difficult to do.
I've been able to add 3 or 4 miles per gallon to my fuel economy by simply keeping my the rev's down on the motor. I end up driving with the tach more than the speedo to do this. Normally I can keep the motor under 1500 rpm for the entire drive. Even when starting up from a complete stop. It takes patience and a VERY light touch on the gas pedal. But it can certainly be done.
This weekend I stepped up my hypermiling game a little bit and swapped out the paper air filter for a K&N filter. http://www.knfilters.com/ I've always been a fan of these. But more for the additional horsepower than increased fuel economy. It's still pretty early to tell just how much of an improvement it will make. But, I did manage to hold 40MPG for a longer trip on Sunday and for the entire drive into work this morning. I've normally been around 34 MPG. I'm sure the highway miles are kicking my average MPG up a bit even though most of that trip was on back country roads.
This really does make me giggle when I think about the Jeep getting 16MPG on a really good day. And all I'm really doing is paying attention to just how much I am pressing the gas pedal and and how fast the engine is revving. The next step would be to pump up the tires to a higher air pressure to make the car roll easier. I'm going to wait on that for a little bit though until I see what the K &N filter is doing.
The point to all of this? Honestly, I'm just doing it for the challenge of it all. No, I'm not overly concerned with my carbon footprint. Not even a little. I just REALLY like NOT spending money on fuel for the vehicle. I'd rather spend that money on...oh...I don't know...KNIVES!!!!!
I can see where it might come in handy if you were trying to stretch out your gasoline reserves during a bug out though. Practicing this on a daily basis could help if you ever got into that situation. I'm hypermiling in a small, economy car, but it can be done in a much larger vehicle. I'd be curious to see if anyone has tried it to see just how much they can improve their fuel economy.
That's all I got!!
PJ
1 comments:
Once you get in the habit, your wallet will notice a difference. I coast in neutral down every hill, and moderate my speed to avoid too much stopping and going, and I plan my routes to minimize gas pedal time. It's made a huge difference in my costs.
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