Last night while driving, I noticed that the cruise control seems to outperform my own abilities on San Diego's hilly freeways. I was only able to improve on its performance by deactivating "CRUISE" as I neared each crest of the hill, so that I could coast up the final hill segment using my momentum.

Other owners, please try to notice what's the best use of your cruise control. I hate to think that I could be beaten by a smartie-car!

 

I've noticed that cruise control, when it can be safely used, returns the best mileage . I don't get better results by using my own foot to maintain highway speeds.

 

Using the CC on flat road above 42 mph is shown good mileage results known among Japanese enthusiasts.
However, we sometimes see an excess throttle going uphill on CC.

So, the following stratery is the best discussed among us...
Define your target speed, say 60mph, then set CC at that speed on flat road.
When you drive uphill, cancel the CC, then maintain your speed 56-58 mph manually.
When you drive downhill, maintain your speed 62-64 mph manually.
When you return to flat road, resume the CC for 60 mph.

Ken@Japan

 

Here is what I found on a 65 and a 75 MPH freeway. You may be surprised! I could EASILY beat the cruise control by at least 5 MPG consistently. This was mostly flat highway south of Phoenix.

With the cruise set at 75 MPH, the gauge went up and down with every undulation in the road and with every car that passed me or that I passed, etc. It varied mostly between ~20 and ~50 MPH, spending most of it's time around 37 MPG. This went on for over 20 miles before I decided to try my foot.

What I found is that you can plant the edge of your foot against the center hump and with slight "tilts" of the ankle get very precise positioning of the accelerator pedal. Above 45-50 MPH, the FE seemed to be pretty constant for any fixed pedal position. That is, I could drive at any FE I wanted! Most interesting is that I could pretty much hold 75 MPH with the FE fixed at nearly 55 MPG! The speed would vary between 72-76, but the milage held as steady as my foot.

With more playing, I found it was very easy to hold a fairly steady speed between 55 and 65 MPH, but the faster I went, the more the speed varied with the fixed foot position. The peak FE was clearly above 65 MPH (getting over 60 MPG), but less than 70 MPH. This was with just under 1000 miles on my TCH. Also, I noticed I needed about 2 MPG less to hold speed with the AC on than with it off (and with the outside temp being around 100 for this trip through the desert, it didn't stay off very long!).

At the conclusion of this 200+ mile outing, my average was 39.7 MPG, but it would have been under 35 had I kept it on cruise the whole way.

-- Alan