5 Bars Left and 300 miles!

[Woody_Woodchuck]

Yes, terrain does make a difference but not as much as I originally thought. I live in central NC, we have rolling small hills with some being fairly steep and short. Lots of ups and downs on the smaller roads and loooong gradual uphill and down hill sections on the highways. No, they aren’t Colorado Rockies but they are all we have. Remember, you might drive all uphill to get somewhere but it is all downhill back to where you started!

Using the SG2 gauges, the average uphill highway sections take 35 impg (30 to 40 impg - current miles per gallon) to climb. On the back roads it will read 25 impg to get up and over them. Not exactly horrible numbers but when you maintain them for a mile or more it really eats into the trip mpg. You can up them a little by doing the roller coaster thing. Gain momentum on the down hills and lose it going up. I was averaging tanks in the lower 40’s for mpg until I mastered this.

Being as light as possible on the gas really comes into play while using this technique. Try driving along on the flats and sloooowly let up on the gas, a fraction at a time. You will find a small ‘sweet spot’ where you can maintain speed using very little pressure and therefore gas. Accelerating has the same sweet spot. If you want to accelerate don’t just mash down on the skinny pedal, gently press a little at a time. It takes a second or two after each increment to tell if it will accelerate enough for you or not, it is not an instant burst of power. After a while your foot will automatically know how much pressure to give the gas to accelerate for the given situation.

Better mileage isn’t really just one thing, it is combining many little things that all add up to big savings.