Spent a couple of days at my daughter's house helping take care of my three year old grandson and infant twins. Drove a couple of 1 mile round trips each day to take the three year old to pre-school. Cold start, drive a few blocks, stop, get the kid out, drive back. In the afternoon same thing again. Averaged about 12 MPG.

On a somewhat related note, I figured a couple days ago that it's time to check the tire pressure and maybe raise it a bit. Discovered to my great surprise that the dealer gave it to me at 44 PSI.

 

I've got a bad one too. I just started school, and I realized, there is NO way to get to school without going up a LARGE incline. If you map my school and map where I live, you discover there is a MOUNTAIN or two or ten, in between us. So EVERY DAY, I have to traverse this mountain with a steep incline. THAT will kill your gas mileage. And I have to do it THERE AND BACK !!!! I could go about 10 miles out of my way to get around it, but thats just plain silly.

 

It may not be silly to drive around a hill.
Test it.
Drive both and compare not just just the miles driven and the MPG, but the actual gas consumed.

Sometimes an alternate route may be longer but sill use less gas.
I mean not only lower MPG, but actually less gas.

 

I had to pick up a coworker at her car dealer yesterday. She dropped off her car to get some bodywork done. Took I-75 at 72mph for an average of 40.something mpg. Just horrible

 

ANY time my wife drives it, it dies. I don't let her drive it anymore.

Don

 

OK, so you have to go up the mountain to get to school, but that means you get to go down that same mountain on the return trip. So your MPG should even out over the long haul. Or is your school like the ones our parents told us about -- that required an uphill walk both ways?

 

I used to think that way.
I'd say whatever gravity took away on the way up it must give back on the way down.

But it depends on the hill.
The hybrid car is not 100% perfect.
It is not always able to capture ALL of the energy gravity could give back on the way down.

There are hills I have gone down that were so steep that I had to brake.
Then others that were even more steep so I had to brake so hard that all the regen LEDs light up.
If I had to brake any harder than that wouldn't some energy HAVE to be wasted in the brake pads?

 

kenny,

You hit it on the ****. This is one steep hill. One side, on the way to school, isn't so bad, so I get the less brutal incline on the way up, and I get to coast down the hill and enter the freeway from there. It presents two problems. One, like you said, I literally have to BRAKE, or I easily find myself going about 70 mph down the hill, well over the speed limit. Two, the entrance to the freeway has a turn, so I can't be going faster than say, 50 or so when I enter it. On the way BACK however, I have to CLIMB that steep incline, and then I get to coast down the other side, but its NOT that great of a decline, so I hardly even pick up speed. I have to engage the electric glide to pick up any speed. I don't think it balances out either. Had it been more of a balanced incline, it might be more feasible. I might just end up foregoing the mountain and freeway altogether, and leave earlier.

 

One suggestion for those hills with downslopes long and steep enough to waste energy in the brake pads:

Go slowly as possible at the crest.
If there were no traffic I'd even let the car creep uphill down to zero MPH at the crest.

This will gobble up less gas on the way up and delay the point at which you are just heating up the brake pads as long as possible.

I'd also not apply ANY gas pedal on the way down.

Anything to improve my MPG.

 

Another suggestion of mine for those steeper declines is that you may want to run the air-conditioner there. This may sound somewhat weird, but I actually do that all the time when leaving my house-- run the air-conditioner on the steep straights at max (assuming you're in an area where it would be appropriate to do so... if it's snowing or something, ignore this). I have to go up and partway back down a very steep hill every day on my trip home. This combined route, on the way out run cold, costs me about 6 mpg on every tank, more if I have short trips.

Running the A/C creates a significant amount of braking, which I would otherwise need to waste heating up the brake pads. Also, if it's a hot day, by the time I get to the bottom of the hill, the car gets VERY cold, I can then change the setting to a a much more warmer setting, and the AC will only have to come on intermittently to maintain the temperature, as most of the work is done on the declines rather than leeching off the engine.

The question, then, is your time worth the price of the extra gas. Let's say it takes an extra 15 minutes. If that only saves about 1/10th of a gallon, sure it will make a nicer looking MPG number at the end of a tank, but you'd onlt save about $0.88/hour from a monetary perspective. For me, if I am going to arrive early and have to sit around for that time, I'd take the longer drive, and enjoy listening to my CDs a bit longer. If it's time I could be doing something productive, I'll bite the bullet and use more gas.