Sold my Yaris. Bought a decidedly NON-economy car in Cincinnati, flew out and drove it home. Did a little half-tank hypermiling experiment along the way. (was going to do a full tank, but it's really hard to drive 5-10 mph under the speed limit on the interstate in a fast sports car, so I cut it short)

So, this was along I-65 from Glendale, KY to Falkville, AL. Speeds were mostly 60-65, sometimes up to 70, occasionally dipping into the 50's on coasts if there was no one behind me. (which was the case here and there toward the end) Hit some afternoon rush hour traffic in Nashville that knocked off a little MPG. The on-board display read 36.1 when I filled up, so it was just a little optimistic.

Car Type: 2006 BMW Z4 3.0si Coupe (manual)
Miles on Car: 53000
Gallons: 7.161
Miles: 252.6
MPG: 35.27
EPA: 28
% Improved: 25.98%

Pretty impressive for a sports car that will do 0-60 in under 6 seconds, eh? And it'll return 30-31 mpg in "normal" highway cruising at 75-80 mph.

Looks like I need to hit 39% to beat my best in the Yaris. That would be about 39 mpg. I know the car has more in it if I keep it under 60, keep my foot out of it on acceleration, and avoid traffic. It will surely to 36, and probably 37-38. Don't know if I can stretch it to 39. I'll have to make a back roads hypermiling trip one of these days and find out!

Hmmm... roads are usually pretty quiet on Thanksgiving day...

 

Car Type: 1994 Nissan Maxima GXE (intake, exhaust ~400-500lbs weight reduced)
Miles on Car: 154,000
Gallons: 1.569
Miles: 58.1
MPG: 37.02
EPA: 24mpg highway
% Improved: +51.4%

 

I'm gonna go ahead and let the Maxima stand because it's both impressive and believable. But, I'm going to implement a new rule: 4 gallons minimum. Why? Couple reasons. Because it's too easy to find a place where you can burn a gallon or two with very favorable (and unrealistic) conditions. Also because the margin for error is much greater as the amount of fuel goes down. We can measure miles fairly accurately with the odometer (as long as you haven't changed your tire size or gearing), but we're at the mercy of the fuel pump auto-shutoff for our fuel fill readings.

For example, if we put an extra .1 gallons in the Nissan above, the mpg goes from 37.02 to 34.8, a very significant difference. If we were talking 5 gallons @ 37 mpg, that would be 185 miles. Adding .1 gallons of fuel brings it to 36.2. Still fairly significant, but it's less than 1 mpg, and .1 gallons is probably a worst-case error.

 

Thinking about wiping the slate and re-starting the contest. Thoughts?

 

I'm not worried about a reset one bit, I've been getting in the 30s for the past year, 26-29mpg in the city. The 37 number definitely isn't the most my car is capable of. That was driving from Polk to Manatee in lockup at 58mph+ because my TPS isn't set right and so I couldn't keep it in lockup for long at lower speeds.

I will have a little bit of a hard time with the 4 gallon minimum but I understand your reasoning. I am not hardcore into hypermiling really, I floor my car at least a couple times a week so my normal driving habits mixed in a 4 gallon tank will kill my next set of numbers quite a bit. Now if I made some laps between Polk and Manatee I could get better than the 37mpg with the new ruling and that's probably what I'll end up doing.

 

Yeah, I'm just thinking that the "contest" has been going for about a year and a half, and a lot of the leader board is old news at this point. More interesting to keep it fresh.

Anybody else got any thoughts on that? I'm thinking a New Year's reset, perhaps including anything new over the past two months just so there's something there to start.

To preclude having to do a future reset (yeah, I'm lazy), I could add dates to the chart and drop entries as they reach the 1-year mark.

 

Little update no solid numbers but I'd estimate that this tank is missing 8-10 gallons right now @ around 260miles (haven't checked the trip thing since about noon). This is including a fair bit of 4000rpm+ driving, my alternator going bad and spending time idling in multiple parking lots trying to figure why the car doesn't like to start, sitting at stop lights on busy roads, etc. Basically, when I post numbers for this tank I'm expecting 26-29mpg like I usually do in pure city driving, I'm hoping for 32 just to make myself happy.

Just figured everyone should know that I don't always get 37mpg lol, I'd hate to get a reputation for posting nothing but sunshine when that ain't how it is.

 

That sounds good, as long as we keep my high entry

 

Let the games begin again!

The New Challenge