Re: What are the hypermile "sleepers"
 

Uh, they're different cars?? Did you happen to miss the part about the Mazda has a 1.5L while the Fiesta has a 1.6L? Transmission is different, engine is different, size is different, it's a different car! Similar styling and same platform, but they're really different cars.. This isn't a total rebadge like the Corolla/Prizm, these are substantially different cars.. I guess since they share the same platform, having similar fuel economy isn't a surprise but they're definitely different vehicles.

Re: What are the hypermile "sleepers"
 

I have currently: 1995 Honda CB250 (16Kmiles)- 75mpg, sometimes more. 2007 Honda VT750C2(8k miles) - 50mpg on the nose
2002 Saturn SL (208K miles) - 40's, highest 49mpg did it twice.
2011 Dodge Challenger SE(2K miles) - new, sticker says 27 highway, can get 31.x on the highway @ 60 with cruise on.

Driver controls alot of the mpg, get a scangauge and slow down on the hwy!!

I used to get 30-32 mpg out of my 1995 Firebird Formula at 70 MPH.

I came back to this thread because somehow I missed this post.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. I've owned most of the various powertrain combos available in the A-body. 2.2/3T40, 2.5/3T40, 2.8/4T60, 3.1/4T60, 3.3/3T40 for sure. Let's stick to those. I haven't had the 3.3/4T60 or the 2.8/3T40 or anything 3.0/3.8 gas or 4.3 diesel powered.

The 2.2/3-speed Century I had was EPA rated 25 city 32 highway when new on the window sticker. From 224K to 270K that's what I got, then the TCC solenoid started sticking. So I had to unplug that and I got 25, no better, city or highway until I traded it in. Had I known it was such a simple, don't have to remove the transmission fix, I would have had it done and kept that car.

The 2.5/3-speed Celebrities (three of them), Century, and Ciera I owned all got low 20s in town and 30 on the highway. Not one of these cars cost me more than $300.

The 2.8/4-speed Celebrity I had suffered from severe electrical gremlins and averaged about 18mpg in mixed driving, and one highway trip when I taped some ECU wires together to make the AC work and speedo work and stay in closed loop I got 26mpg on a 600 mile round trip. That's about equal to the original EPA ratings of 20/27 when you think about it. And it was a $400 POS.

The 3.1/4-speed Ciera I have now hasn't been driven enough to test mileage. I expect it to meet the original 19/29 EPA ratings and I hope to better them by 20-40% based on my driving habits.

The 3.3/3-speed Century I owned could not meet the EPA highway ratings of 27 (I got 24 on the trip home from PA to TX) but I did manage to get 20 mixed out of it once it was here. It was a $250 beater so I didn't expect much.

I can say it is easier, FOR ME, to get the EPA ratings or better out of a 4-cylinder A-body than a V6 one. I'll be testing that theory thoroughly with this 1995 Ciera, though, and once the 3.1L is worn out I'm putting a four in it, be that a pushrod 2.2 like it could have had new (and was in my Century that did so well) or an Ecotec if I can work out the wiring and computers.

That shouldn't take too long, in my experience. Of all the great engines GM has made, why did I end up with that awful 3.1? That was a lot of years ago and that car is long gone but I keep being reminded of it, like last year when the 3.1 in my friend's Malibu needed intake and head gaskets and the fuel injectors/fuel rail were a huge pain.

I suspect my new 420hp 5.0 Mustang has the potential to break 30 MPG or more. I will get a tuner and start tweaking the map.

The 60 degree GM V6 did have some faults to it, but once adressed then it was a pretty good engine. GREAT low end torque, which as long as you kept your foot out of the gas, would yield pretty good fuel economy.

Used to have a 2.2D 2012 civic, used to get 70+mpg on a tank pretty regular, though every other tank had to drive a bit heavier to clear DPF. borrowed a 1.6D 2013 civic to see what that would do (at request of Honda dealer) averaged 78mpg on a tank and 101.2 over a 190mile run.

Currently have a Subaru XV 2.0D manual, on good runs regularly getting high 60s mpg, averaging around 58mpg per tank. peak so far was 76mpg, not bad for a permanent 4x4 weighing 1.4t

I saw an XV the other day, quite a nice looking car. Those MPG's you're getting in yours are better than the official figures, that doesn't happen often!

So, how's your Mustang doing?

I am elated over my high altitude figures for my Honda NC700x, 2012 model. It's getting a consistent 80 plus mpg every tank this summer. I expect it to decrease this fall but still be no lower that 70mpg. My old Hyundai Accent, 2003 was getting 40+ mpg on my commute to Santa Fe, IF I kept the speed at 65mph. That takes nerve on a two lane northbound interstate commute. Idiots just don't get the message that moderation means higher mileage.

Did anyone see my Golf TDI topic? 97 MPG over almost 1000 miles, doubt many cars could beat that.

I personally think my little Peugeot 206 1.4 HDI is a bit of a sleeper.

I'm regularly getting 80mpg per tank, current lifetime average is 73mpg, but I definitely see that going up over time.

This is in general driving as well. So no special conditions etc.

P.S. The same engine is used in the Citreon C3 and Ford Fiesta I believe.

Oliver.

I recommend a Toyota Echo. Mine is saddled with an auto trans and with mild hypermiling ( no EOC, DWL or P+G) and it nets me a solid 40.5-41 on my commute, closer to 42 or 43 in the summer. Highway driving is a guaranteed 45+, usually closer to 47. One 170mi stretch netted 50.75mpg for me. Its ultimate potential falls short of newer offerings when more extreme techniques are applied but it offers easily accessible fuel economy on the lower end of the totem pole. Aside from that, it's remarkably handy for a 4-door sedan, a body style is normally despise, and stupid reliable.

Here's another good one: Mitsubishi Mirage. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But secondhand they come cheap and with the remainder of the rather generous factory warrantee. It's a Prius-beater too.

I assume you mean the old one. Had the sedan for a day while my car was in the shop. Seemed like a solid little car for daily use.

The new one looks like it has potential if you need a new, frugal car for a daily commute.

The Mirage is another test manipulater, it's rated at 76 MPG here, looks good on paper like most small engined gas powered cars do, but in reality, it probably does 50 MPG on a good day.

Nah I meant the new one. Resale prices on the new Mirages should be in bargain territory, and were coming up on the time when they will be hitting the market in some numbers. Pretty much every car is a test manipulator over there. I thought our FE testing had some big holes in it (and that is still no lie) until I saw what's happening over in Europe.

Yea apparently they are to change to test cycle in 2017 for more realistic everyday results. The figures they publish are very high, not unobtainable, I have exceeded the 85 MPG "Highway" figure for my car by 10 MPG on occasion, but it was tough and takes a lot of concentration, wouldn't have the patience to keep it up for an entire tank!

Here's one I forgot about: the first-gen Dodge/Plymouth Neon. Light and handy, with a 5-speed it would be a promising budget buy.

Neons have very bad reliability records. My personal opinion is a hyper miler on the cheap is any of the 80's Toyotas, super reliable and awesome mileage.

A really good hyper miler right now is still the number one, the first gen Honda Insights. The factory 10 yr replacement warranty batteries on many of them are going bad now, when this happens all the dash lights go on and eventually the cars stop running. When owners take them to the dealer, they get outrageous quotes to replace the battery packs, and end up selling the gen 1's super cheap. What most don't know is it is very easy to bypass the batteries completely and still get very high mpg out of them, they just accelerate slower. Or you can get a better than factory aftermarket hybrid battery pack for $2k new. My Honda has dead battery packs and still gets ~65 mpg, and I am not a hyper miler, I do know if I just drive 45mph my car maintains a consistent 120mpg on flat land. It is just a 1 liter gas engine car much like the Geo Metro, but with better aerodynamics and better freeway gearing.

BTW most Hybrids must have working hybrid batteries to operate, like the Prius.


https://badges.fuelly.com/images/smallsig-us/319192.png

Hmm I hadn't thought they were particularly unreliable...

Insight battery packs can sometimes be at least partly repaired through a good grid charge.

Here are some more as they pop into my head. The Hyundai Sonata/Kia Opta twins are good, at least for longer-distance cars. Camry and Avalon hybrids are kind of forgotten gems as well. I have also heard fairly good things about Duratec 20-equipped Foci and Mazda3s. Escort ZX2s have the dated Zetec, but are fairly light and aerodynamic. And the myriad Escprts and Foci with Ford SPI are decent too.

I'd be curious how some of the older 90s Sentras do in this regard.

I have a 1999 S10 4 with a man trans. In the right location it can get 50 mpg if you count all the coasting when in the hills otherwise it gets 27 mpg.. Shut down the motor in the down hills and use the force of the pickup to start it at about 15 mph. This only works when the terrain is very hilly and only on back roads with no traffic. Would like to find out if anybody has been doing this with a Toyota Prius or a Chev Volt ?

Priuses and Volts do this pretty much automatically. One thing to consider though, leaving the vehicle in gear going downhill usually does not use any gas if you're not touching the accelerator as the computer turns off the fuel injectors.

By no means is this universal, it was well into the 2000s before this became that common.

I hang out with hypermilers. Volts aren't popular in the community due to cost and reliability, but the techniques mentioned are the bread and butter for them of driving a Prius.

But remember a car in neutral will travel much much further than when in gear, and pick up more speed too. Personally I always go in neutral down hills, you will see the trip MPG on your dash start going up instantly, and on some hills I can gain 3-6 MPG accordingly :)

Volts just use grid electric and no gas 35+ miles.

What reliability issues have they had?

Man, this thread has really drifted. OP started it to discuss cars that you would not expect to get good fuel economy but do, not the Volt, Prius, Mirage, Escort, Accent, Golf, Echo, Neon, Insight, Camry/Avalon hybrid, Mazda3, Focus, etc. These are all cars that are expected to get good fuel economy and hypermile well. I suppose in markets that are different than I'm used to, perhaps they are expected to get relatively bad fuel economy and that's why we're talking about them, but I'm not sure about that.

For reference, here was the OP:

I was trying to approach the sleeper in a different manner. I was thinking that if a person looks at the market at the older Chev Volts and the Toyota Prius (after they get close to 100k miles) they have no warranty and have a low price because the batteries are too expensive to replace. Can they be made to literally remove the extra weight of the hybrid system and use the basic car and use it as a hypermiller . the bad thing is the automatic transmission. Can this be a practical cheep try at it?

I dont think that would be any good. The engines that hybrids are mated to are not usualy especialy effecient to begin with, its only the hybrid system that helps them burn less fuel. Remove the electric motor and its just another regular car, slightly lighter but no more than a regular car of its size.

You can't drive a Volt without the hybrid system. The Volt is pretty much an electric car with an on board generator to charge the batteries. The motor output is not physically connected to the wheels.

As there become more and more old hybrids around, there will be more companies building replacement packs, and with that competition, the prices will come down.

Did you forget? https://www.fuelly.com/forums/f18/bre...ine-12983.html

..surely you still can't drive it without the hybrid system though.

Used hybrids have been holding their value well. Honda is the exception in that they pushed the NiMH too far in their early Civic hybrids. Also with the first Insight, but that car has an all aluminum frame, low cd, and the first North American hybrid, so it may hold its value for other reasons.

Honda's with IMA could be driven without the batteries. Some of the first ones even have a manual transmission. They will just lose performance and become slower off the line and lose their top fuel efficiency limits. I don't see the point of doing so with the Civic, because you could just get a regular Civic, and get close to what is possible from the efficient hybrid engine. The original Insight be worthwhile to do because it is lightweight and has a very low air drag. It has a 0 to 60 in excess of 13secs with the battery to help though, but someone has stuck a turbo(from a Chevy Sprint IIRC) on its 3 cylinder.

The Toyota and Ford systems are intergrated with the transmissions. If you could remove the motors, you would be left with what is essentially a one speed manual. So any change to pure ICE would mean a new transmission. More Prii have been converted to pure EVs.

The Volt is pretty much like the Toyotas. Just getting a Cruze would likely be cheaper.

Battery prices have dropped since these cars came out, and if you have any skill with a multi-meter, finding the problem cells on a bad pack is no more difficult than hauling the 100lbs pack out of the car. One guy recently fixed a 'dead' pack in a Camry hybrid by just cleaning the bus bars.

The batteries will last the life of the car. Barring a defective part, expect them to last at least to 150k miles. There are plenty of Prii with 300k on the original pack. There also third parties already offering reconditioned packs, or to fix the one in the car for way less than what a dealer will charge to replace the pack. Which itself may be reconditioned.

The engines are efficient. In non-plugins, gasoline is still the sole source of energy. ICE cars have oversized engines to provide power for passing and hill climbing. Most of the time that engine is under light load, where it is less efficient, though. Hybrids, and to a lesser extent turbos, get better fuel economy by down sizing the ICE to a size which will be running efficiently for the majority of its time. Many go a little further by using a Atkinson cycle. It is more efficient than the Otto one, but produces less power.

The motors and battery provide power for the rarer times when it is needed for heavy acceleration and loads. The battery gets recharged when less power is needed to move the car than produced by the engine in its 'sweet' spot. Recapturing energy from braking is just icing on the cake.

In short hybrids hold their value too well for this to likely be worthwhile economically. Those where the money balance is better will most likely just end up with a slower version of the non-hybrid. In the others, just putting a smaller engine into a regular car will net the same results for less money.

Now, if you have the skills for the repair, finding a hybrid with a dead pack may be a deal.

Hypermile sleepers...GM pushrod engines in general.

Ford Panthers.

If we are really seeking super-sleepers. Neither are hypermilers, but either one will do better than you'd expect.

Any V8 Ford/Lincoln/Mercury sedan with fuel injection and an overdrive transmission. (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Town Car)

So, basically, the Ford Panthers?

:D

Gas powered V8? You're not going to get 103 MPG in that like you would hypermiling a small diesel. Have we gone off topic again? ;)

Nope, OP asked for cars which are true sleepers, which one wouldn't think get decent mileage but do. So, we provide some!

OK its just me then. Call me sceptical, but I would not immediately think of a V8 as being good on juice, unless it was a modern German diesel V8 perhaps! ;)