Week of November 26th - December 2nd, 2007

Stopped by the old station to drop off a CD and then on to the parents to take car of the dogs. Heres a nice picture for you all... now that I got this thing figured out, its quite easy to duplicate when the situations are right



That just makes me smile Granted its not a long segment... but most of my drives are super short.... if I had a long commute daily I'm sure I'd be doing much better than my tank averages have been... Oh well, can't complain about only having to fillup once a month

 

I still think you had considerable skill to mantain this for six miles! :woot:

 

Filled up today - 13.51 gallons over 575.9 miles yields 42.6 MPG. Trip computer said 43.3 MPG. 70/30 city/highway. Great tank!

 

nice job, blake!!!

i am not sure if i can pull this one out. i had to go into town, ironically enough to renew my driver's license. it meant lots of stop and go, driving around looking for a parking space and waiting at lights, in a cold car.

my average dropped to 56. i usually use a few MPG on the way to the barn, and that's going to be a head wind on the way there. wish me luck.

weather guessers are predicting 4-8 inches of snow

 

Blake, WOW! It sure is nice when everything comes together isn't it?

It was cold here this morning but not nearly as cold as it was in MN. You guys are getting pounded. I had 29F this morning and by the time I was going home tonight it only recovered to 33F. I also had a 10-20 mph wind from the NW that would gust to ~35 mph.
1. 70.9-5.8
2. 70.5-9.6
3. 62.8-9.6
4. 92.6-6.3
Average for today was 71.3 and the tank is at 71.4 after 469.5 miles with 5 pips showing. My son may be driving the Prius into his work to change the oil in it tomorrow morning(it's much easier to change when it's on a lift) so I may have to take him out tonight and give a training session. It will be interesting to see how he copes with using the EV switch for glides during the warm up period.

 

There you go with those silly high numbers again, Laurie!!! Hasn't someone told you yet that it is winter???

A canon, Tim?? Nice one!!

You go, Blake! :woot:

John, that is indeed a great tank! Congrats!! :bananapartyhat:

Larry, the traffic has been worse than the weather -- at least in the afternoons. Let us know how the Prius training goes, okay?

I don't think I've had such a bad run of luck in a very long time. I got stopped at most of the lights on my way home, and I had drivers doing really stupid things around me. Such as someone stopped in the middle of my lane because some woman hung her Buick out in the road in front of him. At first I thought it was an accident, but no, she just had everything forward of the front wheels out in the road. Taking up 1/3 of the lane. I got stopped time after time, had so many tailgaters I lost count.... AUGH!!!! :angry:

Then oddly enough I got up to Anoka and breezed through it only losing 1/10th on the way through?? I almost added some but didn't quite get my driveway approach right and had to fire up again to ensure I got up the drive...

This is really embarrassing to post but then again I was still under 40 for just over half the trip because of the traffic...

18F (6F windchill), 9mph wind from the WSW, clear:

1. 46.3mph for 22.1mi (Work to home )

The tank continues to drop and is now at 47.7mpg over 336.4mi with 8.9g left and the guess gauge is showing 3/4.

Oh yeah... Here comes the snow!!!!!!!

 

Pretty good run to downtown Chicago, followed by having to drive around the block 4 or 5 times before I could get into the lot to park. Trip back to office was complete Ike-Mare - 1:20 to go 18 miles, couldn't get any better than 25.1 Trip home was heavy traffic too, only a 33.6 AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

 

Sean, I think he did quite well considering the conditions he had to work with. The temp was 24F but the winds did pretty much go away. We had two of his friends in the car so he had some extra mass to deal with. Also, it was dark so we were running lights. When we first started out he ended up losing a battery bar(down to 5) but he ended up recovering back to 6 bars. The trip was 9.2 miles to the local mall with a stop of ~45 minutes and the coolant temp had dropped to 130F. He got 72.5 on the way there and 70.4 for the return trip. He ended up increasing my daily average a tick up to 71.4 and the tank is still at 71.4.

I wanted to do a little more bragging on my son. He gets to drive customer's cars back to where they work when the service work is done. He drove a Buick Regal(6cyl) yesterday and said he noticed it had a trip computer. The trip was ~2.5 miles and he managed to get it up to the 50 mpg range by the time he dropped it off.:woot:

 

LOL thats awesome... I bet the customer got in the car and saw the MPG and thought WOW, they really fixed my car!! Lets hope he/she doesn't bring the car back after they can't match that

 

That's a euphemism I hadn't heard before. I hope she didn't get too cold.

The cold is hurting me like everybody else. 20's F today--25.1 mi to work in sidewind yielded 33.8. 28.1 mi to meat locker to pick up 1/4 of Beef in headwind yielded 27.8.
34 mi home in side/tailwind yielded 38.3.

Yesterday's fillup, 10.44 gal over 365.9 mi, yielded a scant 35 mpg. I don't like where these numbers are headed.

 

i couldn't save it, i think the cold start after riding was too much. when i left the barn i was down to 52.9, i think. it was late and no traffic so i could pretty much slow way down. i managed to pull it up to 57.5 for the day, so i guess that can be called successful.

still waiting on the snow.

 

thanks a bunch, wayne... i'm not quite ready to give up, though it remains to be seen what i can do using these new techniques on the snow. i think i could have held it higher today if i hadn't had to mess about in downtown.....all for a lousy new license, with another crappy photo.

 

Wayne,

What's funny is that when I first came here I still had the modder mentality, and while I still do, its more on a for fun basis than an assumption that its a requirement to get high mileage. In all honesty when I sold my STi and I was driving my V-8 fiero around, I was looking for a nice 1993 mazda RX-7 to rip the motor and transmission out of to put in a chevy V-8. I still love fast cars, but I've seen the light as to its not realistic nor responsible to drive such a vehicle on a daily basis. Now after 6 months of insight ownership, I can honestly say that my desire to own such a performance car has waned to the point where I can't see myself in one anymore.

I saw the insight when it first came out. I wanted one as a commuter car, but since I don't drive very much ~8k miles a year, it didn't make sense to have two car payments. When I started shifting my lifestyle towards a more sustainable type and being what my coworkers affectionally call a treehugger, I found this website. I've always loved hybrids but never thought I could deal with one on a daily basis (the need for speed you could say). After lurking around for a month or two I finally signed up right after I got the Insight, and I will say my choice in vehicles came down to sheer dumb luck, but it was either this car or a prius. I'm completely happy with my decision, although I do feel the prius is more of a mainstream car. The real reason why getting the insight was 100% attributed to the average you were seeing in your Insight... I saw what you were getting and I set my sights on that. Maybe one day I'll pass your average, but it will be sometime I believe

The amount of knowledge I've gained for the few short months here has truely been remarkable, I've got a long way to go but I can't say thank you enough to all the people that have helped me. I'm truly happy that I'm achieving my goals, but I'm still working on the main one... that being having an average of 100 mpg's. Honestly I don't care what it takes, but I will have that average before I'm done.

The latest commutes I've been seeing (while they are all not like that) have been extremely motivating and rewarding and it lets me know that I don't need to mod to see over 100 IF all of my commutes would allow such an average. I know I can get them higher than I'm seeing, but sadly I just don't see me keeping that average up seeing how most of my drives are ~10 miles or less. This is where MIMA and hopefully V-boost (if/when it becomes available) comes in. I think this might be what pushes me over that edge and allow me to maintain high mileage. Central NC is far from mountainous, but its definitely hilly enough to screw me up at times.

I've got a trip to Colombia, SC coming up in two weeks. My MIMA should be here middle to late next week, that gives me a week to practice with it and hopefully I can average better than my trip to VA early last tank (before I got on I-95 that is). This time around I'm going to plan my routes around completely avoiding 65 mph speed limit highways. If I don't average at least 100 there and back, I will be disappointed but it will just motivate me to try harder


I know this is completely off topic (I have a bad habit of that ) but I just wanted to send a thanks to everyone here... you all are truly an inspiration.

 

Keep trying, Ken! Fight the good fight, man. :flag:

Son of a gun, Larry! He's a chip off the old block indeed!

ILAveo -- me either, man. Me either.

Laurie, still mighty impressive! I'll bet you were able to make your way through the city better with the practice you had, huh?

Wayne, thanks for the encouragement! Let's see if I can trim that percentage a bit. I want it closer to what I just did for my last tank!!!

Yes, I'm hopeless.

Blake, you are making quite an impact around here in the inspiration category yourself! It is always great to see someone plowing through FE obstacles and making the strides we've seen you making in the last few weeks. Keep it up -- it's a great show! :Banane44:

 

My son's unit deployed on Thurs., 2 mos training at Ft. Bragg, then on to Iraq for 10 mos. Thanks to everyone here for being part of the solution.

I, on the other hand, was part of the problem. Another round in a straight truck to Chicago last nite. It was a "we need it here (Loyola U) by 4 pm" load that I didn't get until 11:30 am, and still had to load in Green Bay. I kept that little truck right up against the speed governor at 65-67 mph, except thru Milwaukee and Illinois. Chicao traffic was its usual disaster, and I arrived at 4:20 pm. I was then informed that the forklift driver didn't start until 5 pm. *sigh*. I reloaded, and tried my best for FE redemption on my return trip. 52 mph from Chicago to Milwaukee, 45-48 mph thru Milwaukee. Then I sensed fatigue around the corner. Realizing that I would be in pretty tough shape by the time I got to Marinette I bumped my speed up to 62 mph. 530 miles/55.67 gals= 9.52 mpg.

Even more depressing- filled the tank on our Highlander V6- 18.88 mpg. Way off from the scanguage number. I think I saw the fix (for the scangauge) in another thread here though. The other fix, well...I like marriage better than fuel economy. I'll just keep working to get the scangauge dialed in so I can accurately measure my ability.
Keith

 

blake and keith, i salute you both! :woot::woot:

 

i am going NOWHERE today. the snow has just begun, there are strong east winds and about 19 degrees. the weather guessers right now are giving us estimates of 9-12 inches before it's done, and 25MPH gusts. not fit weather for (wo)man nor beast. i look out my upstairs window and my geese are all sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings. wish i had their warming system - after a long winter night, they have melted little depressions into the snow or ice where their bodies have been. must be the down coats

 

Cold this morning, but catching 2 lights I usually don't helped a bit, 34.1 into the parking spot.
ILAveo, I'm glad/sad that the cold temps have finally hit you too... it gives me a 1/2 chance to catch back up...
Blake, awesome simply awesome. I understand your rodder/modder mentality, my deep deep desire for a Mustang GT has diminished somewhat over the last few months, but believe me when I hear the one down the block come through the neighborhood my head swivels around pretty darn quick for a good droolin' look and listen