As of today I started to be as scientific as possible in tracking my day to day Mpg. I now have a paper ledger with the following: Trip: these are usual and consistently used routes I take all the time, ie. to and from work, trips to the grocery store for my weekly shopping, etc. Miles driven: used along with "trip" to make sure things are consistent. AC/Heat: on or off and approx. what percentage of the time for each trip. Mpg: per the computer readout from each trip. Tire pressure: currently I use 42/40 but find it very difficult to "glide" as every bump in the road translates to my foot. Mode: Eco, Normal, or power Since my daily drive is boringly routine I'm going to keep it in one mode per week at 42/40 in the tires then after 3 weeks go down to 40/38 in each mode for a week as it seems my ability to glide, anecdotally, is giving me my biggest bang for the buck on my mpg according to my computer when I power down. Basically, I'm looking for my own personal sweet spot for both mpg, easy of driving the thing, and ride comfort. I'm going "old school" with a paper written ledger because I can leave it open and very much out in the open so as not to forget to write it down. As some who is a tech specialist I have found that paper beats keyboard any day. You don't have to boot it up, it NEVER crashes and if you spill your morning coffee on it it doesn't go down for repairs.
even if you drive the same route day in and day out - daily changes in traffic levels, and weather conditions will impact your fuel efficiency. I have been recording my efforts to hypermile the Prius in a personal driver's log book since I bought my 2010 Prius - I have recorded fill ups, maintenance, accidents, modifications, and repairs. My Prius' mileage log is available for public viewing under "Hyperdrive one" at mileage log webpage of cleanmpg (first 100) and at fuelly (2010 Prius). in a nutshell - the Prius gets better fuel efficiency in warm (65F to 85F degrees) but not hot weather, lower speeds( 15 mph to 40 mph), longer trips (>=8miles/30minutes), and a route with very few dead stops. Route/trip planning with those factor favored help improve the Prius' overall fuel efficiency. Walter Lee 2010 Toyota Prius III HyperDrive 1
Not sure how much difference it makes but when the ICE kicks on first thing in the morning during inclement weather I let it warm up for a minute or so.
Drive. I treat cold ICE's all the same. I always let every vehicle I have ever owned warm up a bit especially in the winter. Lubrication is worst on a cold engine so no need to ask anything of it till the parts have a chance to fit together and things are flowing. I don't think a minute or so of idling ICE at its first power up cycle is unreasonable.
Not extremely. Atlanta GA but it gets down into the teens and lower 20's a few times in the winter. It's certainly enough to see a sharp decline to the upper 30's/lower 40's on the MPG it was about 45, windy and rainy at lunch today and I got the worst ever at 37mpg. I'm blaming it on the weather because I have no problem hitting well into the 50's most of the time. We had a brutal winter with temps in the single digits and low teens for a couple weeks at a time. The rest was probably a good 10+ degrees than normal. You guys probably saw the city come to a literal grinding halt. From snow to melt to a highway of a solid sheet of ice in 30 minutes. I work with a lady from Buffalo who said she never saw conditions like that. One of the owners is from Chicago and he wrecked his Beamer within a mile of leaving our shop. There were no jokes of southerners driving in snow from either.
yeah, you guys got a good taste of it this winter. i would definitely record air temp as part of my daily routine.
Column titles in our Fuel-Log notebook: [ DATE ] [ Odo.o ] [ MILES ] [ GALS ] [ CO$T ] [ mpg* ] [ gals* ] * = values from dashboard display.
How? It can change drastically, each time I drive during the day. Other things, like speed & distance, have a big influence too.