Hello everyone!

I've been lurking these forums since I put myself on a waiting list for an un-LTD HH. I got tired of waiting and stumbled onto an available 2WD LTD w/nav, and now it's mine! I've been driving it for a few weeks now.

I couldn't be happier with the vehicle. I used to drive a 98 RAV4. Wow! So much room now! The gadget geek in me really digs the NAV system.

I reset the avg mpg counter when I drove it off the dealer's lot. Looky, just before my first fill up:

 

Hi Zentropy:

___Nice job on the 29.5 mpg overall and I see a future hypermiler in our midst

___Looking at your last 25 minutes of 5-minute bars, you may want to back your regen off just a bit and do a little more Gliding if possible? Your FE will improve even more as you begin to anticipate and glide rather then relying on regen braking to slow/stop.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

Thanks for the tip, Wayne. The graph seems a bit misleading because it would suggest that I did a lot of braking to get so much regen, but most of that regen actually was from coasting. It was from my morning commute to work, and the speed of the traffic was below speed limit, but not too slow. My route to work is mostly highway with mild hilly ups and downs. I am able to coast down the hills with a little pulse at the top to pick up some speed, then coast down the rest of the stretch where the HH regens too. I try to keep my braking as light as traffic will allow, if at all.

 

Looks good, zentropy! We have a 2WD LTD too and just love it. I coast down hills by feathering the gas pedal until I reach the "black zone," or by just throwing the HiHy into Neutral for my descent. My fiancee prefers feathering the pedal to Neutral, but sometimes that's hard to get so I go for the quick and dirty Neutral shift. Either way no regen happens at all.

Rick

 

Hey Ender21

I don't use neutral, and I haven't tried much to get into the "dead band" when coasting. That's **** hard to do, and takes too much of my attention away from driving. I just pulse when needed. I try to coast up as far up hills as I can, until my speed falls to about -5 to -10 below speed limit. Then, I pulse gradually up to about +5 over SL, and coast again. Seems like my best mpg results come from traffic that is about 50 mph avg. (heavy traffic on a highway with a 70 mph SL). On the neighborhood streets before and after the highway part of my commute, I try to maximize all electric.

On my second tank (about 40 miles into it), with a little bit of practice now, I'm averaging over 35 mpg. Granted, there is some grampa slow driving in there (especially when I'm on neighborhood streets trying to drive on all elec. ONly have 2wd, so only one elec motor).