So disappointed in my 1st hypermiled tank
 

After my Dashdyno got calibrated, I did 2 weeks nonhypermiled and got 43 and 44 mpg. Then I decided to do a week of aggressive hypermiling. By this I'd do lots of FAS P & G in the city, shutting off at stoplights to prevent idle, and P & G on the hwy from 70 to 60 mph. I had a 53 and 57 mpg drive from work. I avoided a major accident traffic jam to work by going to a side road and then past the jam. Then on Saturday, bad luck - got caught in another traffic jam from a major accident - did 10:20 minutes of idling / slowly moving the car bumper to bumper. This killed my trip mpg down to 39 mpg but with aggressive FAS P & G my total 34 mile 95% city trip went to 46.7 mpg. Then Sunday's shopping - aggressive FAS P & G netted 52 mpg 95% city driving on 35 miles. Driving to work Monday morning, no hypermiling and got only 44.6 mpg.

But my biggest disappointment was I didn't break a 50 mpg tank! After filllup I computed a 45.177 mpg tank! Only 1.177 mpg better than my best nonhypermiled tank! I am so pissed and if my future hypermiling attempts don't break 50 mpg I'm not gonna do aggressive hypermiling!

Has this ever happened to you? - A bad hypermiling tank? Was it the traffic jam that killed me?

If I can break 50+ hypermiled tanks, I'll upgrade either my battery or get a 5 farad capacitor to prevent low electrical surges whenever I crank the starter, - as this usually resets my Dash Dyno trip meter for my hypermiled mpgs. Anyone do this to prevent resets on a Scanguage ? - Or this doesn't happen to a Scanguage?

I drive a 99 Civic HX MT.

well don't give up... FE goes up and down, and some factors you just don't controle... tank to tank results can varry drasticly... the wind, traffic temperature. the way you fueled up, it all affects tank to tank results. what i do is look at my monthly and even yearly results and write down things like temperature and traffic conditions next to every tank. temperature and seasons have a big impact. but when plotted out over a longer period you'll definately see an improvement. i've had disapointing tanks... i've had a few tanks that where unexpected good...but in the end fe was slowly creaping up, and thats what matters!

All it takes is 1 gallon diff in the way you fill up to make it seem "bad". You have to do 5-6 fillups to get true results.

EPA on your car is 30-38 new 35-43 old. Your beating the old highway mileage figure without hypermiling, which indicates your driving style is fairly efficient either way. My 94 VX also doesn't respond very well to hypermiling, so I just stay in the right lane and find a truck to break the wind for me. P&G at 70-60 causes your drag factor to increase from 36 to 49, which probably offsets any advantage. My VX got 65 the last trip when I just went 65 in the right lane a stayed about 100-125 feet behind a truck, on I95 south of DC on Friday night in heavy traffic. My average speed was about the same as yours.

regards
Gary

I found my scangauge mileage to be off by about 1mpg in either direction from the calculated mileage from fill-ups and dash trip meter.I log by the fill-up calculation.
I had good mileage early last November and went down hill from there until the weather started warming up. It's going back up again now.I'm assuming everything I've done to get better mileage was offset by the cold weather and some holiday traffic.I'm expecting the warmer weather to come will increase a couple more mpg. I'm running low on new ideas to improve,but not giving up.

Don't shut off your engine at a stoplight! That wastes gas. You know that cars run between 1:1 and 3:1 air to fuel when cranking, right?

You're not coasting in neutral I hope! Be careful what you assume to be beneficial to mpg.

It took me years to perfect the technique, that is, for each and every car different little tricks apply... So every time I get into another car it's the same old learning experience all over again.

But I still see 10-20% improvement after about a year...

btw don't forget DWB

P&G from 70 to 60 is going to kill your mileage anyway - better off going 65 nice and steady than to get up to 70 then slow down all the time. When P&G is really useful is at 25-30mph.

Yeah I'd think P&G would be a bit useless on anything less slippery than an insight or prius at 60-70. or maybe heavy and moderately slippery cars do better at that, like a lot of buicks.

F'rinstance, bit of an outside example, but take my foot off the gas in my voyager at 60 and it's down to 50 in a few seconds... but coast at 30mph and it just rolls and rolls and rolls. Go down an off ramp and lifting off as I cross the line, it's down to 40mph at half the distance, and the other half will only drop 5mph...

on 65 and 70 mph zones,the P&G I do is to give the car a steady amount of gas so that it gains speed going down hill and slowly loses speed going up hill (down to 55 or 60,depending on traffic). On rural roads I just lightly press the gas and let the car decide how fast or slow it wants to go.