How do you get worse MPG's than the EPA estimates

Short trips, lots of stop lights, cold weather.

 

Drive to any state north of I-40 or any place with significant hills, or take a job with a short commute -- and then wait for winter. You'll see how easy it is to get sub-EPA numbers!

Of course, you may only have to wait for a summer in Houston! Unless you can live without A/C, you'll see your numbers drop!

 

Agreed. Hills will also contribute to bad milage in some cases. Staying on the gas when you could be coasting to a stop makes a huge difference in my milage. Never discount the effect fuel formulas may have on milage.

Changing your wheels and/or tires can as well. Can you tell I'm rather bitter about my commute today with the 17's on? lol

 

Short trips.

I live and work in a small city, so most of my driving is short trips. I would have to drive from one side of the city to the other or out of town in order to get upper 40's. Maybe if I did a huge number of errands at once.

 

Yeah, warn him he'll only get double his current milage. Unless he now drives a truck or a big SUV, then he'll get triple.

 

And low tire pressure.

 

If you really want to see just how bad your fuel milage can be, you need to push the pedal a bit harder. Hard (full throttle), sustained acceleration and high speeds with stop signs every 5 miles will do it. I had to trim 10 miuntes off my 1:10 commute two days ago and for traffic and enforcement reasons only had about 1/2 of the trip to do it. I reset the MPG counter when I left work and over the next 60 miles averaged 33 MPG. The first 1/2 was maniacal driving (speed limit + 30-40) and the second 1/2 was spirited (speed limit + 10-15). I usually get 48 - 50 MPG over this route at speed limt + 5 with 1/3 throttle acceleration. I never hit triple digit speeds, but I wasn't far from it. Still, for what I was doing, 33 is a respectable number. To pull the same route at the same speed in my 4Runner that the prius replaced meant 10 - 12 MPG.

As a side note, by driving like this, you can really feel the CVT work. It feels like a slipping clutch until you realize it is doing what it is supposed to. The engine revs out and then holds a constant high RPM and the ground speed just keeps on increasing. I'm guessing that it finds peak HP and then keeps the engine sitting at the sweet spot during full throttle acceleration. It is an odd feeling to not feel the rise and fall of the torque / HP curves.

 

Clearly not the case. If by "decent MPGs" you mean exceeding the EPA numbers, then you may be close with this statement. You can see my numbers below (signature). I've done just fine, even though I live in northern Illinois and have a short commute. The land (generally) is quite flat. Locally, I have some hills to deal with, but the good thing is that the return trip is always a nice coast. I went from a nice MPG car (4cyl Altima) that gave me a lifetime 23.5 MPG. (Because the mileage estimates were 20/27 MPG using EPA's updated method, I think I was right on the mark.) I can hardly complain about now being at 50.3 -- and we haven't even gotten to summer yet! I'm doing better than the EPA numbers (using the updated method).

Talk to him about his driving habits and what he wants out of a car. If he wants the highest MPGs possible, then he can't do better than the Prius. If he wants the lowest cost automobile, then have him buy a used Geo Metro.

If he lives and works around Sioux Falls, and he drives at least 20 minutes each way to work (and can park his car in a garage during the winter), I expect he has the chance to see MPGs in the 50+ range. Summers in the high 50s and low 60s and winters in the low or mid 40s. If he drives the car with abandon, then his MPGs will suffer. The best gauge is to see whether he meets or exceeds EPA MPGs on his current car.

500

 

If you want to see the low 30's mpg, try this. Winter, temps below freezing, wind blowing, headlights, wipers on, my yellow blinking light on the roof (LED of course), ice covered roads, and then open the window half the time to put mail in mailboxes.

That will kill mileage in a hurry. Jerry

 

The majority of my miles are on the freeway, so I was getting 48-49 MPG, which is pretty good. OEM tires were wearing out at 40K miles, so I replaced them with with softer Pirelli tires. Grippier tires improved handling, but made for a BIG drop in MPG, down to 41. Increased tire pressure brought it back up to 44-45 MPG, which I can live with. Now I just need a job closer than 30 miles away from home, so I can post more city miles!

 

In New York City, we have those Alternate Side of the Street Parking Rules where you have to move your car one to four times a week to the other side of the street in order to let the street sweeping trucks through (famously and recurringly depicted by Tony Randall in one of the opening scenes of The Odd Couple TV show).

Because of these frequent cold, short trips looking for a parking space (plus the fact that I drive only about 3000 miles a year), my average MPG's is in the 30's during the winter and in the 40's the rest of the year.

 

Yeah, but do those little dorky mail trucks get? 15 mpg?

 

Welcome to my world. OK, add hills to the above mix and that's my world.

 

Don't forget stoplights/stopsigns on the bottom of hills right before a long uphill climb with a speedlimit of 65.

also, sub-zero temps will destroy your mileage, no matter how good you are.

My record is 86.4 at 74F, but at 32F or below, it plummets to 55mpg or below on the same trip.

I'm using a garage + EBH, full grillblock, and I don't use the heater.

Take away the Garage + EBH, grillblock, and add in the heater and you'll quickly find your mileage in the 30's at low temps.

 

My excuse is that I live in hilly urban area, I rarely employ hypermiling techniques, and my commute home looks like this:

 

driving on HWY at "high" speeds

 

Yup, driving at speeds of over 100 mph will quickly destroy your MPG.