Using the fan, heater

[1stToyota]

Originally Posted by BailOut

You completely missed out on the first tenet of engineering by failing to focus on the original problem. The original question was whether using these things uses more fuel, which it indeed does. The question was not whether it was worth worrying about or not.

So when you use that turn signal the alternator instructs the fuel pump to give the engine some more fuel, because of the electrical load?

Some people may not care but hypermilers strive to stretch every gallon of gasoline for all it is worth. 0.1% is a totally arbitrary number and may not sound like much but when you add it up over the course of your lifetime it becomes an easily trackable amount. For example, if you average 32 MPG then you use 0.03125 gallons per mile. If you drive 15,000 miles per year it requires 469 gallons of fuel. If you maintain this pattern from age 16 to age 75 it requires 27,656 gallons of fuel. 0.1% of that is 28 gallons, or 3 fill ups.

Really? I don't know how many drops of fuel this will save per tank full, but what if I always remember to go to the bathroom before I get into the car...carrying that extra *payload* around has to give some kind of hit on the MPGs. Let's figure that I always remember to go before I go, for the next 30 years...