I finally broke an "honest" 60 mpg for a fillup. It took almost a year to achieve, and it demands a considerable amount of driver involvement. However, 55-57 mpg is not terribly difficult if you stick close to the 55 mph speed limit which predominates on my daily commute. When there is no traffic behind me I will often let the speed drop to 45-50. It really doesn't add that much time to my 40 mile (1 way) commute. The roads are mainly rolling hills, with reasonably light traffic. Here in Minnesota, the winter weather raises havoc with mileage, often dropping mileage into the low 40's. Even so, I recently achieved an overall average of 50.0 mpg over the 23,000 miles that the car has traveled since I bought it last September. I haven't had a fillup below 50 mpg since April 27. I have tire pressures of 40 psi, front/ 38 psi, rear The exact numbers for the last fillup are: Indicated mileage on HSI; 64.7 mpg Actual mileage at fillup; 60.76 mpg Miles traveled: 579 miles Gallons pumped: 9.53 gal
just how slow for how long do you have to drive to average 25 mph. Ridiculous! Glad I am not behind you.
Average speed includes stops at traffic signals and signs. So he could be driving at 35-45mph throughout the city but with frequent stops that would drop average speed to 25mph or so. If I travel for a total of 50miles but 45 of those miles are highway (speed 65mph) and 5miles of city driving (speeds 35mph) then my average speed drops into the low 50s. I've tested this with scangauge. Your overall average speed for a tank is not what you typical cruise at since it includes all stops you make and the slowing down period before those stops. Does that make sense? I.e. he is not driving at 25mph everywhere.
Guess you've never been in big city traffic? I do the speed limit and sometimes a bit above when there is little traffic. On the interstates I'm doing around 60 mph, but that's not too often since most of my driving is during rush hour. There is a lot of stop and go as well as slow and go traffic I'm stuck in. Also many traffic lights (which I try my best to time) and stop signs. So if you were behind me, you'd see that there are many vehicles in front of me as well and I'm not able to go any faster.
First of all, congrats on your great MPG results; I'm very pleased that YOU'RE pleased and wish continued success / improvement in that regard! On page two of this thread, you said: I don't use ANY "percentage factor" to calculate "actual" mileage based on "indicated" mileage ... I use Miles driven since last fill-up divided by Gallons pumped (by dividing total cost paid for fuel by the cost per gallon). There's simply too much variance / fluctuation in the "error" of the indicated mileage from tank-to-tank; especially in GenII's ... but after nearly 100 fill-ups, that variance in indicated MPG averages out to just over 2% above the calculated MPG. One last item: I always post calculated MPG in similar threads / similar posts because it's usually the LOWER number AND I personally think of it as the more accurate one ...
