96mpg's?

[hrsp]

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/1549976237.html


seems impossible....

[TheRX7Project]

It's very possible. Check out some of the hypermiling websites... 100+ is commonplace.

[Al]

Ask Valliant. He knows how to hypermile.

[VroomPshhTsi]

Very possible, just have to change your driving habits. My best tank in the Fit was 45 mpg (EPA rated at something like 27 city, 34 hwy).

[Cryptic]

Prince Valiant has one... I'm sure he can speak to this.

[Exitspeed]

The thing was rated at like 70 mpg. So with the right driving techniques 96 wouldn't be out of the question.

[lordairgtar]

The Insight should have no trouble reaching that figure. I got the HHR up to 47 mpg once.

[Prince Valiant]

Here's some pics from before...same day/commute.

First pic is the full commute from g/f (now wife's) house to work.
From start-up at her driveway to coasting into my parking spot. (85.7mpg over 22.4 miles)


http://brewcitymuscle.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5300&stc=1&d=1211308993


Second is highest number I hit. during the commute. (89.3 at mile 12.5)

http://brewcitymuscle.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5301&stc=1&d=1211308993


I've gotten as high as 96mpg going from my parking spot, up 84th street to Tosa, 92nd/91st home...this was ~17.5miles or so via this route.

There are guys who compete, and get upwards of 115-125mpg.
Iirc, the longest an insight has gone on a tank of gas was some
2,000+ miles (which I don't know how they did...works to be 200+mpg,
so some other tricks had to have been used. Not sure.


Typical, heavy footed driving nets ~53 in the summer.
If I take it even a little easy, it's usually 65mpg combined.
47-48 is the norm in the winter (combined) due to tires and lower temps changing lean burn mode.
Lots of driving in snow storms/etc brings me down to ~43mpg usually.

Does best with mixed, but slow city/hwy driving. Road trips knock me into the 58mpg range (70-80mph driving)

Basically, it's like a motorcycle that I can drive year round and in rain.

[hrsp]

well whats involved in this "hypermiling"?

its crazy that a normal car is happy to get a 1-3mpg gain and those are seeing 20+...WOW

[TheRX7Project]

Turning off the engine when going downhill, extreme drafting off semi's, filling the tires to exreme PSI's... those are just a few of the ones I know. Some guys will accelerate slowly to 20mph over the speed limit then turn the engine off and let it coast...

[Exitspeed]

There are guys who compete, and get upwards of 115-125mpg.
Iirc, the longest an insight has gone on a tank of gas was some
2,000+ miles (which I don't know how they did...works to be 200+mpg,
so some other tricks had to have been used. Not sure.


Which makes the mid size sedan Fusion Hybrids 1445 miles on a single tank that much more impressive.

[Prince Valiant]

well whats involved in this "hypermiling"?
A variety of things...the short list is:

1. Driving slow...like generally b/w 35-50mph. As you can see, I'll bump it up to 55mph though under certain conditions.

2. Drafting...and one of those conditions I'll drive faster with is drafting. I'll stay about two car lengths behind a semi.

these first two things keep me in lean-burn mode...the insight is designed to excel in this mode with low compression due to the atkinson-style engine and an aggressive egr system. The insight will run into the 20-24:1 air/fuel ratios under light loads for long periods...but bump up the speed, it goes away. If driving, you'll see it jump into this mode, as it'll jump from 50-70mpg up to 90-120mpg on the instantaneous fuel computer...and I can tell when I need to clean the egr valve as it'll also buck under light loads.

3. Anticipation. A lot of people I see drive up fast to lights, even though there is every indication it'll change before they get there...I'll look for it and see that and just slow way down so I maintain a constant speed. Likewise, knowing where hills are, I'll slowly bring the speed up a few mph so I can scrub that speed off as I head up the hill...or use a hill prior to the uphill to gain a little speed without depressing the throttle more than what's needed to maintain my normal road speed. This keeps the car in lean burn mode/doesn't go rich. Anticipation allows you to coast much much more, and spend less time stopped.

4. Carry speed through corners...the more speed you carry, the less you need to accelerate on the other side...and if your good, you don't need to accelerate at all, thus burn less gas.

5. Reduce rolling resistance. Many will buy tires rated for low rolling resistance...and all will run higher than normal tire pressures. I generally keep my insights tire pressure up to around 50-52psi, and the larger vibes tires up to 42-45psi. The larger the tire, the lower the pressure should be. The hardcore hypermilers will run 70-80psi, which I personally think is begging for a problem, especially on our pothole filled streets.

That's the basics...you can make even inefficient cars get much better mileage by these means. I've made my brother's sebring sedan that usually gets 24-28mpg get as high as 35mpg. The most amazing example of hypermileing for me though was making 2009 Dodge durango with the 310hp 4.7 v8 get 28mpg from the airport to my house (~32 miles)!!! I actually think I could have done better with a hemi since the low loads/speeds I used would have put me in cylinder deactivation mode more which the 4.7 does not have.

Now there are other things hypermilers do...such as pulsing (constantly on and off the gas to coast...they'll accelerate to 15, slow to 10, accelerate to 25, slow to 20, so on and so forth), pulse and glide on the hwy. They'll know they've got a long coast to get off a hwy, so they'll shut their car down and coast, braking with the vacuum boost reserve. My car automatically shuts down at under 20 when I'm braking, so I can trick my car to shut down and then coast...and wait at lights not running, but others even without this feature will shut their car down (I wouldn't recommend this since my car both has a 12hp electric motor as it's starter while most starters aren't meant for that kind of use/abuse; and my car actually has provisions to keep oil in the galleys so as to provide oil instantly on start-up...most cars the oil just drops to the pan, and while hot oil/warm engine gets oil pretty quickly, it's still pushing the limits of what's good for the engine....shut down only if you're going to be there for more than two minutes).

If anyone is interested, my car will probably be for sale this summer.

[Prince Valiant]

Which makes the mid size sedan Fusion Hybrids 1445 miles on a single tank that much more impressive.Well, with a 17.5 gallon tank as the fusion has, that's a very good 82.xmpg, which is very impressive....looking it up, the insight went 2254.4 miles (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&ved=0CB4QFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHypermi ling&ei=bTRPS7K9MMu3lAefrcS3Cg&usg=AFQjCNF56LL0cYsh1D-nEQPpFkcX5UW0Bg&sig2=CVgtonlhyGqbmEyiqt3ViA) on only 10.6 gallons, that'll translate to 212.6 mpg! :wow

(the wiki article says it's a 13.6 gallon...which I don't believe insights ever had).

I did try (and suceeded) to outlast my tank of gas on a road-trip once...I averaged 74mpg on this tank too, so I went some 700+ miles before stopping for gas...and more importantly to piss. I couldn't even stand up straight it hurt so bad getting out of the car...keep in mind, I was averaging only around 60 mph too, so this was nearly 12 hrs of non-stop driving, while having a few soda's to help keep me awake.

[Exitspeed]

There is a guy who throws on Azenis that does Auto-X with an Insight. He's is pretty fast.

[GTSLOW]

Hypermiling sounds like a hell of alot of work!!