Hypermiling - Anyone tried it?

[brickie501]

I bought a car with an 'econogauge' once.

Was it a Volvo 360? Mines got one!

The higher you can keep the vacuum the better your mileage should be

Except the Swedes make me keep the needle down.

Does that mean its showing vacuum on a reverse scale or reading boost?

It does seem to work though. I've tried copying the 'successful' techniques on my other car but they're hard to replicate on a Land Rover 90

[DavidVizard]

We have talked about 'hypermileing' but has anyone got any numbers to brag about. I have been told of 100 mpg by some US guys but i have yet to see it demoed -----sooooooo ----
DV

[Renrut]

Only numbers I've got so far is my daily commute of 12 miles across town is up from 22mpg to 26mpg. This is just by playing with driving techniques. I appreciate that isn't in the typical hypermiling leagues of 60+mpg but it is a big improvement.

It does seem to respond well to the pulsing and then letting the speed fall gradually (say 60-50 over a few minutes), I'm guessing this is because its no longer stressing the drivetrain as much while its slowing so friction is minimised. This is what they do for those solar challenge cars and works well for them. Obviously this isn't good for traffic so I only do it when the roads are clear.

I think I need a target - 40mpg on mostly motorway driving seems like a good one, realistic but still a stretch. I'll go motorway route home tonight. I've found that the cars mpg gauge is reasonably accurate so if I get good results on that I'll try a proper one with a tank to tank measurement.

[Renrut]

Managed 37mpg door to door according to the trip computer keeping between 60 and 70 on the motorway. Would have to do it for a couple of weeks though to get a decent average but its promising as there was no tail gaiting or anything dodgy like that. Next step is to go over the car and see what sensible modifications I can make.

[mjslonergan]

If you want to get a bit more Anal use the cruise control on the motorway to fine tune the rev counter to a more economical band...

[Renrut]

The cruise control doesn't work. Still haven't found anyone in the area who can enable it in the ecu. Besides that the cruise control maintains constant speed which isn't ideal in terms of hypermiling, from my reading you should let the car slow a bit going up hills and build up a bit more speed going down them.

And yes it is getting a bit anal

[VitesseEFI]

Depends what you mean by hyper-miling....

A6 2.5 TDI (5cyl 140 horse). I find that pumping the tyres up to the "laden" settings and driving a bit slower (ie staying legal) has a decent effect. Slowing down a bit more (65 ish) helps a bit more but less than that means it drops off boost in 6th so is actually a bit worse. Treating it nicely, as above won me an average of 56 mpg over a 1400 mile holiday trip from Somerset to Scottish highlands with some driving round the highlands thrown in. But for the highlands part would probably have cracked 60 mpg. Which is pretty damn good for a 1.6 tonne barge with a 2.5L engine and 240k on the clock I thought. Better than my colleagues new Bluemotion Passat in the real world anyway!

Another example - '67 Vitesse 2L mk 2. Has electronic engine management courtesy of Megasquirt, but the engine itself is pretty much standard internally. "Spirited" driving around Europe on a club event, including a fair bit of Alpine pass action netted an average of 35 mpg over 2600 miles. Worst tank - 21 mpg - yes, there were multiple Alps involved in that one, taken in attacking style, best tank 39 mpg on Austrian motorways (lots of traffic cops and tunnels with low speed limits). A similar trip with the family (yes, driving much slower but still keeping up with the traffic) gave 39 mpg over 1600 miles, worst tank 29 mpg (Alps involved but driven more sedately), best tank 43 mpg on French motorways in no hurry. Surprisingly little difference overall I thought.....

Nick

[Renrut]

I mean getting the best that is sensible and safely possible. I tried pumping the tyres up more to 36psi (normally 32F and 34R) but that just made it feel rather unsettled, either end felt happy to break away in anything but slow speed corners.

I've managed to get my commute up to about 29mpg from 22mpg but its now getting depressingly dull, this is effectively driving the car everywhere below 2000rpm and letting the torque pull me up to speed which it manages without struggling but it is so boring. I'm due to refill the tank this week, I'll see what I've achieved real world and that will conclude this thought experiment. Bottom line is I'll go back to enjoying having 240bhp under my right foot, if I wanted to drive like Morgan Freeman I'd have bought a bloody 1.0 NA diesel!

In other news I finally got round to fitting the filler cap for my LPG

[owelly]

I did 45 miles on the Turd at the weekend and averaged 10mpg. Am I on the wrong thread?

[Renrut]

Depends. Do you normally get 6mpg? If so then you too are a hypermiler

[owelly]

Hmmm. I used 7.5 gallons at Santa Pod.......

[Renrut]

Well then welcome to the club!

The experiment has gone out the window now, over the tank I managed 28mpg. Which is unsurprisingly around what Jaguar quote as the 'combined consumption' as it was mixed motorway and town commuting.

I did get better than their extra urban figure of 34 though. I'm back to driving normally as it means I enjoy the car rather than feel like I'm sitting a driving test every time I get into it.

[gary5687]

I used to have a Yaris d4d and I used to do 100miles a day to and from work, some motorway and some A road.

I found that dropping to a narrower tyre and stretching them slightly to fit the rim and keeping the tyres pumped up to 36psi, never going over 60mph and free wheeling down every incline and approx 100yards before going up a hill slightly put the power back on I was achieving around 80mpg on a regular basis, I never revved the car over 2100rmp, all excess weight was removed, and if you look ahead as far as you can (to the next bend) then you are more prepared for what is coming,you can still see the car in front of you and you automatically position yourself better on the road......

[Renrut]

I found that dropping to a narrower tyre and stretching them slightly to fit the rim and keeping the tyres pumped up to 36psi,

woah 36psi in a yaris? The jag was a handful with 36psi and that weighs probably twice a yaris. Wasn't it a bit slippery with them that high?

[mjslonergan]

I found that dropping to a narrower tyre and stretching them slightly to fit the rim and keeping the tyres pumped up to 36psi,

woah 36psi in a yaris? The jag was a handful with 36psi and that weighs probably twice a yaris. Wasn't it a bit slippery with them that high?

In fairness being a Yaris, tyre pressures are hardly going to make a difference to its 'handling'...