gas mileage

It's just a quibble, but my math shows the average at 45, assuming you drove about the same amount every year.

Short trips are very hard on the mileage numbers. When driving around shopping try to do your longest trip first to get the engine warm, then your shorter trips as you get closer to your house. Tire pressure is good.

The battery is there for backup and to allow the stop/start behavior. Don't try to drive the car in electric mode, it's more efficient to pulse and glide - uses the gas engine to accelerate moderately, then glide with no arrows (no electric or gas propulsion). You can usually tie this in with stop lights and hills, so it isn't so noticeable to the cars around you.

Not an expert, but it sounds reasonable. If the dealer didn't try to sell you a new battery it can't be all that bad. But it is starting to get up there in age (I haven't replaced my 2006 battery yet, I should check its voltage levels).

That's not too bad for your average trip length. You could buy a Scangauge and learn the 4 stages of engine warmup, and/or buy an engine block heater so the car starts off warmer in the cold weather, but I'm not really sure you'd be money ahead on that (you'd have to keep the car for several years to break even). Learning pulse and glide with the energy screen is probably the best thing, and that's free. Over-inflating the tires gets into the law of diminishing returns, if MythBusters is to be believed, so your tires should be fine where they are.

 

Reading all over the place in this forum has been something of an education and I appreciate all the insight and experience people have put into it. I just went through a brief period of poor mileage in my 2009 model after three years of getting about 51 mpg. The great majority of this has been on the highway. Then, for the first time, I spent nearly a week doing strictly local driving where over a six-day span it has been just 32 mpg. The terrain where I live is generally level and I don’t have a heavy foot. I must say I was very surprised, but I also understand that short trips in the winter are major contributing factors. This morning I drove my usual 48 miles to work and in doing so the mileage grew to 38 mpg. It will undoubtedly be in the mid-40s by the time I get home tonight. I’ll probably sell it when I retire in a couple of years when mileage will no longer be so important to me (this may be blasphemy, but I love the look of the Nissan Soul!!)

Love the forum,

Tom