I have continued to monitor my gas mileage and have been consistently seeing around 30mpg without using some of the more extreme hypermiling measures. This has still left me a bit puzzled. I have two possible conclusions—one or both of which must be correct based on my results:
I have discontinued using some of my hypermiling techniques to test their effectiveness. I have been watching my tachometer closely, and, rather than using cruise control, I have been manually keeping the RPMs under 2000 at all times which usually results in an interstate cruising speed of 60mph. I have also been practicing engine-off-coasting. I am still driving conservatively, but I have resumed using my cruise control and started driving up to 70mph. I have also started shifting to neutral rather than turning the engine off for coasting. After one day of this, I have some surprising results.
What looked like a success may not be (or at least not so much as it seemed). I previously claimed a modest mileage gain of 3.5mpg over a measurement taken before I started hypermiling. In two more recent measurements, I calculated 27.5mpg and 28.9mpg. This is really much less than the gains I was hoping for as many people who are doing this (granted I’m sure they are much more skilled than I) are really achieving dramatic increases in fuel economy.
I previously posted about hypermiling and started employing some of the techniques in my own driving. I can now claim minor success! On the last two gallons of gas purchased, my mileage was 31.5—a gain of 3.5mpg on my measurement when I purchased the car! It’s pretty exciting to me considering there are still a number of other things I can do to improve my mileage like replacing the air filter, having an oil change (I’m overdue.), and correcting the tire pressure. I’ll keep you posted