So I got sprayed with gasoline yesterday which forced me to drive with the windows down all the way home (it smelled so bad) on my 25 mile commute back home. I usually struggle to achieve 60 mpg going home (I struggle to get 50 going to work same 25 mile distance) However without any conscious effort to increase my MPG I got 67 on the way back home with windows down. This morning was too chilly to test it out again but I will try to drive this whole tank with windows down to see if it improves my MPG considerably. I track all my MPG on fuelly and use the same gas station and octane every fill-up. So I will know if i Maybe the abundance of fresh air is keeping the HV battery cool and improving MPG? I will follow up in about a week with the results. I have a 2013 Prius C with 57k miles
IIRC, someone a few years back was postulating that driving with the rear seat flipped down improved his mpg. In your experiment, with the windows down I assume you also had the AC off?
Yes the AC was off and oddly enough the back seat was also flipped down I flipped them back up today and my commute home gave me 62 mpg
How did you get sprayed with gas? It happened to me about 30 years ago, when I was filling my VW rabbit with gas, and the hose burst. I was really pissed off.
Maybe he/she was in Oregon? On a serious note however. In the summer, as long as it's not too hot I leave my windows down/AC off and also got better mpg's.
The pump hose was new and stiffer than usual, and the nozzle was having a hard time staying in the filler hole/it was moving down and clicking as if it had just filled all the way up. I moved the hose a bit, bringing the entire nozzle out of the hole and splashing a full stream of gasoline into the filling area which sprayed it back unto me. thank god I was wearing sunglasses for some protection...
Update... whilst I failed to keep my windows down for every single mile driven, I'd calculate I had them down for about 65-70% of the time. It rained for a few days here in San Diego, so windows had to go up, rain also put a damper on traffic patterns My MPGs this last tank were 49.5 about 2.5 mpg higher than my average... but only 1 mpg higher than the previous fill-up. Although mpgs did improve, I would not call the improvement substantial. I will continue to drive with my windows down sporadically and only when driving under 55 mph, it's too noisy above that speed. Further notes to come next week.
Interesting. I get better MPGs with windows up... but then, I do more hwy at around 55-60 mph. So maybe I'm at the wind resistance point.
