Hypermiling..is it worth it?
 

Just out of curiousity, I drove my last tank with NO hypermiling. No coasting, no engine off at lights etc. to see how it would compare to my hypermiling. My drive is not conducive to lot's of coasting etc. and I was wondering what my effort to savings ratio was. I compared this week with the previous week (which was actually higher than my average). With hypermiling I got 54.87 mpg, this week with NO hypermiling I averaged 52.00 mpg (pretty damn good for a Festiva !!) I divided these numbers into the 37,000 miles I have driven the car in less than two years, and figured that hypermiling is saving me less than 40 cents a day! Is it worth the effort and wear and tear on my starter and ignition switch to save less than 2 bucks a week?

Well it depends on how far you were going with the hypermiling. I don't know how extreme you are with your "hypermiling" and how much effort you have to put into it in order to get that 54mpg. Either way, 52 and 54mpg is small but judging by what I've read, if you're only getting a 2mpg increase by implementing all or most hypermiling techniques, then something is wrong or you're not doing it right. Either way, I think 52mpg is good for your vehicle, maybe when you got that 52mpg you were "hypermiling" in a sense anyhow.

I think 52mpg is super and if hypermileing is only netting you 2mpg more I wouldn't bother with it. I was under the impression that it made a much bigger difference. Sounds like it is not worth it.

Just my opinion.

The extra 2mpg wouldn't be worth it to me either. I'm guessing that most of your driving is highway? Yes, the Festiva does pretty damn good! Not much to look at, but they are great on gas.


N

In your case, I'd agree that it's probably not worth it.

However, in my case, pre hypermiling I was averaging 27mpg mixed, now I'm up to 31.xx mixed. 4+ mpg difference, I drive roughly 9k miles per year, so that saves me something like $220 per year. My "hypermiling" isn't anything other than monitoring my HAI, driving in highest gear at lowest speed possible.... 35 mph when warmed gets me into 4th gear (car is automatic) and SG reads about 75mpg at that speed w/ >15% TPS.

I did the math on P&G and it just wasn't worth it, saving me only $30 a year as calculated. Admitedly, I don't have much opportunity for efficient P&G on my daily commute anyhow.

In my Accord, I went form averaging around 25 in the summer, less in the winter to well over 35 in the summer, and a good 31 or so winter. changing my driving gave me nearly 10 mpg increase. As always, YMMV...

It's totally not worth the effort for you. It's a lot more worthwhile for me, which is good because I enjoy all the critical thinking and decision making involved, but sometimes I would like to put in less effort...

Most of my driving is rural highway/town driving. My Festiva is only rated 38 mpg combined so I'm easily beating that. I've put serious effort before into hypermiling and got a best tank of 56.67 mpg. Too much effort for me! It's hard to coast 37 miles to work in a timely manner :) I'll probably continue trying as I would like to see a 60 mpg tank but doubt I can reasonably pull it off.

I like to think of it as stealth hypermiling. My mileage has dropped off as the hot weather sets in here. 99 degrees today, and the AC is running, which costs me about 6 MPG. It's either that or get there dripping in sweat and the interior eventually smelling like a locker room.

Drafting, lower top speeds, DFCO, and a WAI are my main sources of improvement. If you get too radical with hypermiling around here you have 2 ton SUV's 3 feet from you rear end. I would rather be 65 feet behind them.


regards
gary

It's worth it to me because driving is part of my work. In the five months on the garage i have went 1100 extra miles using hypermiling compared to 30 mpg its rated(46 mpg combined). Less speed means no tickets for speeding and i arrive more relaxed.

Great point.... I have parked my Camaro Z28 as of October 2007 just for that fact alone. I need a few years for my driving record to be whiped clean, then the beast comes back out, until then, I'm gonna keep honing in my skills and improving my FE.

I agree that 2mpg is really not worth it. That 52 is a great result from just driving the car. I wish my car would do that.

It's absolutely worth it for me. I got mid-30s mpg before, and now I'm getting in the 60s.

Yea not really worth it for a small gain...since my VX bit the dust I am stuck driving my Mazdaspeed Protege till my Del Sol is road ready...I tried to use some hypermiling techniques with the MSP but I would get very minimal gains, I am still new to some of these techniques since the VX reacts a little different to some things because of the lean burn so I have to do things a little different in the MSP but it wasn't worth it...

I wouldn't do it for just 2 mpg.
On mine EOC, P&G, any using A/C only sparingly give me a good 6 - 8 mpg better and I feel that that is definatly worth it.

the 52mpg is technically hypermilling if your cars only rated at 30 something.

for me it's totally worth it, the less money I spend on gas period the better. plus the majority of hypermilling I do is instinctive. it's how I've driven normally for years; slow acceleration, not speeding up to stop at lights, watching what's going on ahead of me. I don't even EOC, drift, P&G, or anything like and still see great gains from decreasing top speed, keeping up with maintenance, tire pressure, removing uneeded stuff from the car, etc. The most extreme thing I really do is not run any accesories. which is more of a luxury then effort and decreasing top speed, which I have to leave earlier.

there's more to it then driving techniques too, like maintenance and mods. which you should be doing anyway to get the best life out of your vehicle and avoid major repairs. The way I drive hypermilling puts way less stress on my car.

IMO, the number 1 technique for hypermiling that anybody can do any time without causing additional wear on the car is to keep the rpms low. P&G and EOC'ing is more of a game to me than a serious effort to save money. I doubt either really pays back in the end from a cost perspective, but the flip side is that any reduction in emissions is not a bad thing.

I routinely shift our 5 into 5th gear at anything over 30 mph and it will cruise at 40 mph returning over 40 mpg. My wife on the other hand drove the car around today never shifting above 3rd in the 40 zones. We didn't get it above 30 mpg. It was only a 1200 rpm difference, but nearly 60% more rpm than in 5th. That's allot of extra parasitic loss.

The biggest changes I made were driving slower, and keeping my vehicle in top condition.

I drive a Mazda tribute, V-6. I got interested in hypermiling when I still in law school and not working. I saved some money by just slowing down. I tried all kinds of things like taking off the luggage rack trying to make fog light covers. It's an auto, but I still tried to cut the engine and coast to stop lights.

I found out that just slowing down did wonders. Anything after that didn't make enough of a difference on a weekly basis to justify the time spent.

M

Slowing down is almost a sure fire way to success.

In my case I'm car pooling to work, 60 miles each way. My car pool partner drives just over 70 mph when it's his turn. With that distance to cover, I really can't drag him along at 55-60.

So when riding with him I do everything else that I can. Tire pressure around 50 psi for starters. In the HX, my main effort is to get it into Lean Burn mode (as shown on ScanGauge) and keep it there. For cooler weather, that requires grill block and WAI. In any weather it requires very dedicated handling of throttle position, monitored on SG as TPS readout.

I'm thinking about doing some aero mods when the weather gets warm enough to work outside. Underbody sheathing would be likely.

bruce,

is your car pool partner paying attention to your efforts?

Definitely the best thing you can do to get your fuel economy up is car pool! I've picked up non-threatening looking hitch-hikers just to raise my mpg/person. Doesn't help me cost-wise, but I feel good about it.

Hypermiling isn't a sharply defined thing, so I'd say the answer's in the thread title: take those steps that are worth it and skip the ones that aren't. I do some hypermiling steps just for entertainment, personally.

If you only extra 2 mpg "hypermiling" in your Festiva, then you're doing it wrong. I increased my Festiva's mileage about 15 mpg with P&G and EOC and a couple of cheap aeromods. I drive only surface roads, and I never let my hypermiling interfere with other drivers or the flow of traffic. I don't coast through stop signs or anything crazy.

On the other hand, if you can maintain 52 mpg without any mods or hypermiling, you're my hero! I'd love to know how you're doing that!

If you're pulling 52mpg out of a 38mpg-rated car then you are already hypermiling to a pretty advanced degree. The only one who can answer whether squeezing an additional 2mpg out of your commute is worth it is you. I'd still hypermile and take that extra 2mpg, though.

I also disagree that hypermiling puts MORE stress on your car (higher maintainence) than the way most people drive. I'd argue hypermiling will save you maintainence money as well as gas money.

My commute is much more conducive to hypermiling (stop lights, light commute traffic that limits my speeds to 60 or below) and I push my 23MPG combined rated car to 33mpg. Well worth it to me as I do enjoy having something to do and think about while I drive.

Agreed, doing that well is considered advanced hypermiling in my book. The best part is you seem to be doing it instinctively without even thinking about it.

I think its worth doing if youre driving the right car or have a car that will give good results. In my old car it was designed to be driven in a Sporty manner, and I felt an bit of a idiot driving it slowly, and even when I did I only got 40 MPG, which isnt good in this day and age.

Now ive changed my car for a super eco diesel, the 88 MPG figure it got in the tests has now become a target, and hopefully each tank will get better and better (currently on 70 MPG for this tank 450 miles in)

I would find it very frustrating driving carefully and still only getting 30 MPG, regardless if thats better than the official figures or not, especialy knowing there are cars out there that will do almost tripple that.

It depends on the vehicle's purpose, Draigflag. I assume (maybe incorrectly) that you are reporting Miles Per (Imperial) Gallon? Still impressive.

I find getting 30-32MPG (US) on my AWD Subaru awesome as I use it for off-road trips and snow trips often. I used to have a Dodge Ram 4X4 pickup for the same purpose that only returned 14mpg and if I drove it as carefully as I could I could push it to only 16mpg! So I'm ecstatic with my measly 30mpg. :)

Yes i'm in the UK, we use the larger gallon, 4.546 litres. I recently got 95 MPG on a short trip, which works out at low 70's US MPG I think.

I guess it's all the same, you were getting 14 MPG, now you're getting 30 so you've effectively doubled your mileage. I've done the same, I was getting 30 MPG in my old car, now I get mid 60's so I too have doubled my MPG's just by changing cars.

I see you're a photographer. Some beautiful work there.
My wife and I use the Subaru to get into the backcountry for her to take her photographs. Here's a couple shots from our last trip to Southern Utah / Northern Arizona ..


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...f%2B461%29.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-w...KYGC3867-2.jpg

Oh thanks yea just a hobby of mine. Thats a pretty impressive landscape, looks like you're driving on Mars! ;)

I've gone from a 16.3 tank average (EPA is 16) to a 26.3 best tank using basic hypermiling techniques. Definitely worth it to me.

Old thread, yadda yadda, I know.

But.

I consider it worth it. My Echo was rated 34 combined on the old EPA, 30 combined on the new (don't quote me on those figures, I'm going off the top of my head here). I regularly pull 40-43mpg depending on the season, and it feels good. According to some metrics, I have saved well over $1000 in fuel in the 3ish years I have driven the car vs. getting only its official fuel economy. Let alone comparing it to the '67 Mustang I formerly drove as my DD. That kind of money adds up! Plus I think there are side benefits to the style of driving, and it has become a nice little hobby of mine.

To help with the concern with the ware on the starter, I learned one thing about hyper milling in my case (I would try it in yours) that if you are coasting to the next starting point, you can start your car by first just slightly turn the key slightly engaging the electronic info to the computer but not starting the motor. This in my case will enable the motor to start with letting the clutch out just a little , but not leaving it out as the motor comes to life. then operate the clutch as normal. This process takes some practice to get it correctly what gear to use. Took me along time to figure it out. I can usually double the distance traveled, but everybody is different. Have fun!

Also keep in mind hypermiling is more than just coasting with the engine off. After using the advanced techniques for awhile, a person likely couldn't go cold turkey to none. They would probably use the basic ones out of have habit.

For those that are worried about engine off problems, driving with load can be effective.

Yes there is more than just coasting with the motor off. Planning ahead is the greatest thing. It takes a lot of practice, but once you get good at it it becomes automatic to me. Also the engine off causes in my case for the power steering needing a lot of force. That is why I am thinking about getting a newer car with electric power steering

I agree with the OP that squeezing 2-3mpg more FE (5% less fuel) when you are already at 52mpg may not be worth it IF you damage your starter.

It seems to me however, that driving efficiently (ie conservatively) has several benefits:

- Obviously, less fuel cost for same trip distance**
- Driving posted speed --> no speeding tickets, less chance of accident and lower insurance rates.
- Less wear on the vehicle drivetrain, brakes, suspension etc. --> less maintenance and depreciation costs
- Fewer stops at gas stations --> less chance to buy junk food too
- Minimizing stops/braking --> avoid drive thru restaurants --> avoid food $ and generally poor calories

** If you are really concerned with lower total cost of using the vehicle, just drive less and consider taking the routes that consume the least fuel and distance. These may not be the ones that give the "best" mpg or l/100km numbers.

That's a good point that people overlook, its not just about fuel costs. The more strain you put on wear and tear items like oil, brakes/pads, suspension and tyres, the quicker they will wear out.