Most days I only drive 5 or 6 miles. I still manage to get fuel at least every 2 weeks, sometimes longer. Most often when I fuel up I only need 1/2 tank, but I do so anyway because I usually am passing a really cheap fuel station. I also go out for a pleasure drive of ~ 100 miles through the mountains every 2 weeks or so. If it wasn't for the Sunday drives I'd have hardly any fillups on my Buick.

-Jay

Here are a few differences between you and a commuter in the effects on FE. Your short trips:

- reduce your vehicle's efficiency, because it never warms up fully, and because you probably aren't cruising at efficient speeds.

- allow you to be significantly more patient; you can drive slower, wait when someone else would go, etc because you don't stand to save any significant time.

- allow you to put far more energy into hypermiling driving techniques than someone who has to make it last for a longer drive.

- make it easier to do uglier FE mods and try attention-grabbing (or possibly vehicle-damaging) techniques because you don't have to worry nearly as much about attracting attention or damaging your vehicle. Those who drive a lot of miles stand to lose more if they can't drive or get a ticket, and are exposed to a lot more chances to get ticketed.

As such, it's not really a fair comparison; your short-trip lowered mechanical efficiency doesn't make up for the advantages.

No, but I don't think its bad to be hitting the EPA highway rating driving in stop & go city traffic :D On a side note, I'm moving this week. I'm moving a little further out, and there is a sweeet hill that I DFCO'ed about 1/2 mile down on my way to work this morning. I also don't feel that I do any vehicle damaging mods, but I am seriously considering a kammback right now with my longer drive, and a stretch of road I can actually get up to 55 MPH. Probably won't happen till next year though. I have a full plate the rest of this year. Between work, the upcoming holiday season, I have to finish moving next week, I've been trying to go down to Florida and visit my uncle for the past few months, and now my best friend has just informed me that he & his wife are expecting their first child so I will travel up to Long Island sometime very soon to help him get the house ready for the child. We figured that blood red walls were not suitable for a baby's nursery, so its painting and childproofing time.

On a side note that's a lot of highway driving I have planned for the next 2 months, so the full effect of all of my mods should be seen soon. By a quick estimate with my GPS it appears that I'm looking at about 2,500 miles of straight highway driving. My 90 day average should really climb between now and the end of the year.

-Jay

Well, if you've got to do a lot more driving than usual, now's a less-bad time, with fuel prices declining and such. :)

Yeah, prices have fallen like a rock this week. I bought gas this weekend in West Virginia for $3.15 and I thought that was a killer deal. (gas @ home was in the $3.30 - $3.40 range.) Now just a mile from my business I can fillup for $2.69. With cheaper prices I still plan on hypermiling because its fun.

-Jay

I think the wakeup call for me is when I worked out how much I was spending in gas in a months time.

it was around the $400 mark. that is when gas was $3.50 the good thing is even with the rising prices, my per month cost of gas didn't increase and actually went down.

I am definitely keeping on with the gassaving tricks that I have learned. if I can get my per month bill down to $200 or so, that would be awesome.

that is for both me and my wife though.

my worry is that with lower prices, the folks that got rid of the SUVs or drove less will say "now I can get the SUV that I really wanted" or that people will start to use fuel for frivolous purposes again causing the price to climb again. my hope is to see gas below $3 per gallon in MY area. the lowest so far has been $3.28 and we still don't have premium at the pumps. North Carolina is strange.

Your worry is valid, and it will happen. I will be part of making it happen. I'm not going to buy an SUV or anything, but my truck has been pretty much rotting in my driveway for a couple months while I've been putting too many miles on my car. If gas gets down to 2.50, I'm parking the car even if there's still no ice/snow on the roads and giving the truck some exercise.

It's a shame...I let the truck sit unused, and its battery died and could not be resurrected. That wouldn't be so bad, but because I'm so short on funds, I decided I just had to steal the battery from the Buick, whose condition I would now downgrade from asleep to comatose. Oh cruel fate! Why do you mock my Buick?

Poor Buick... :( Mine has been parked for a bit as well. With me having to move I've not been driving her much, and since I started the move last week she hasn't moved at all. I need to get her moved to the parking lot @ work so I can use it for my daily errands and just use the truck for commuting.

-Jay

cow,

to drive something you already have is one thing. it is a completely different situation when people trade in their sole source of transportation for something getting around 10-15 mpg. those are the ones that will be complaining when prices go back up. be it a month, a year, a few years.

I have always had a small car. I usually have some sort of play vehicle too though. I like the concept of the spare vehicle. this is one of the few times in my life when I don't have a spare. sold the truck a few months ago and for as much as I drove it, it was getting expensive.

Wow that sucks, I don't know if I could ever sell my truck. Sure it didn't make sense as a commuter, but it's so convenient. It definately needs to be around for winters. If I do end up driving the Festiva most of the time though I may consider something different just because the insurance to keep the truck on the road (and the expensive commercial registration) is a bit annoying annually.

It was the same for me, $400/month gasoline usage sucks. Thank goodness for a free Festiva. I mean my driving helped as much as it could with the truck I'm sure and we're not taking as many spur of the moment trips to the parents house 60 miles a way now. But the Festiva will easily drop almost $150/month off my fuel budget. Right now it's almost broken even for my $150 put in to it so far in 3 weeks (1000 miles).

As for the topic at hand, I thought the top 10 was always based on the 90 day running average, not the lifetime MPG, but the #1 gasoline use right now is a Ruckus that only had 3 tanks, the last of which was May. That's crazy. And the #2 is another Ruckus with a one-shot wonder tank, granted still within the 90 days but clearly not being driven or used.

So first off, how are the Top 10 calculated now? If it's using Lifetime that kind of stinks because it'll take a lot of work to work off the 'sins of the past' if you accurately keep your old, pre hypermiling fuel logs. And I definately acknowledge that we don't want to weed out people that only fill up once every 6 months or so, but really they're not trying for the Top 10 anyway if you think about it.

Too me the biggest issue with the motorcycles, I wouldn't mind fairly loose settings on the other requirements. Maybe these:
You have to have had at least one tank in the last 60 days (or 90, whichever)
You have to have had at least 1000 miles in the past 6 months (or 1 year)
and your MPG and % over EPA will be calculated based on your last 1 year's worth of gas logs. Lifetime sucks, but you can't do 6 months because you'll see seasonal variance. I think 1 year is perfect.

As for issue of short fill tanks, I remember that being corrected over a year ago, it now properly adds up all milage in the last year and divides by all gallons used in the same time frame, not looking at calculated MPG/tank.