My best tank ever too.

Well, since everyone else has been posting my best tank (okay, not everyone, but several). I guess I'll do the same.

In the spirit of theforce's "Am I out of gas?" I'll tell my tale.

I've been cheating for the last week plus (since Friday the 11th, when my wife and grandson flew out of town). I filled up after dropping them off at the airport, and squeezed as much gas into the tank as I could.

The cheating is in the kind of driving I've been doing. Nothing around Cheney, unless I intend to go out of town as well. Never over 55 mph. Taking longer trips than I actually need to, and taking routes where I can usually keep it down to 41-42 mph. This also includes taking "Sunday drives" to get as many miles on the car as I can before my wife gets back and starts driving it one and two miles at a time. I've been walking to work everyday, except this a.m. It was driving rain and the temperature back down to 35F when I came in this a.m. No pulse and glide though. However, as always I tend to coast to the stop lights or stop signs from a fair distance away.

Anyway, most of the time I manage to keep the MFD average mileage at or above 69 mpg. Much of the time it was at or above 70.5 Right now it's at about 69.5 mpg, and that's down from what it was on Saturday. The weather started cooling off and didn't get above 50F yesterday.

Anyway. I had gone 619 miles when the gauge dropped from 2 pips to 1 pip.
Last night when I parked the car and plugged in the block heater (another bit of "cheating" is I've been using the heater even during warmer weather) there was 661 miles on the "trip", and the last pip hadn't started flashing. This a.m. when I started the car, the last pip started flashing. Thus, I only got 42 miles on the last pip before it started flashing. I know my actual mileage for that next to the last pip was at lot better than 42 mpg. According to the 5 minute bars, it still should have been well over 60. I know that isn't that accurate of an indicator, but it still couldn't have dropped that much.

The question is, should I push it, just to see if I can manage a 700 mile tank? That's 38 miles away, and I'm carrying a gallon of gas in the back, just in case. I have run out before at only 525 miles, and only 10.5 gallons went into the tank.

My last fillup got over 10 gallons in (I was pushing the fill) and the last pip had just started flashing.

In any case, I may wait until tomorrow to see if it gets any warmer. It's still below 45F at 2:26 p.m.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 22 2007, 06:34 AM) [snapback]447259[/snapback]</div>

Thanks Evan (and Tideland too).

I took Evan's advice last night, even though I hadn't seen it yet. Again I cheated and did a long stint of around town driving. I didn't run out of gas. And took the following screen shot at the gas station.
I watched the energy screen continually to be certain that the engine was still running. I actually did pulse and glide on this part (although I'm never sure whether my pulsing is correct or not).

[attachmentid=8235]

As you can see, the temperature is 37F. I had the overall average up to 70.0 mpg, but a thunderstorm with a lot of rain and hail hit in the last 5 or so minutes and the mileage ended up at 69.9 mpg. The temperature had started off in the high 40s or low 50s. The gas pump shut off at 9.75 gal, but I kept pushing it. Maybe a dozen short low flow clicks, letting the pump shut off repeatedly. I've never had splash back using this approach.

I finally managed to get 10.5 gallons in it.

Darell will probably never forgive me for the wasteful trips, but overall I didn't use much more gas than I did on some trips under 500 miles. I promise never to do it again. I know I won't be able to best it, until I move to a flatter area. These trips involved at least two drops and rises in elevation of about 400-500 ft for each trip. Plus of course a lot of smaller elevation changes. Also, each trip had at least three or four stops before finally returning home. That is engine off for from 20 minutes to an hour and a half.

At least I've proven that my car can do it, and it's not something special about the other people doing it.
Overall, I'm convinced that if I lived in the (East) Valley area of Spokane and computed to Cheney on a daily basis, I could probably always get 600 mile tanks during about 4 or 5 months of the year.

And for those of you who worry about only getting 40-45 mpg, this a.m. with less than 10 miles on this tank, my mileage is about 44 mpg.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ May 22 2007, 07:25 AM) [snapback]447291[/snapback]</div>

Hey. Self reasons is why I did it. I don't have Evan's integrity.

Just the tires. :lol:

Dave M.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ May 22 2007, 07:28 AM) [snapback]447294[/snapback]</div>

I wanted to stay within a few miles of a gas station. Looping around Cheney involves rises and falls in elevation of at least 100 ft. If you look at the photo, you'll see the bar in the 30 min. range was where I was on a previous uphill stretch part of the time.

Dave M.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rick Auricchio @ May 22 2007, 08:37 AM) [snapback]447334[/snapback]</div>

I'd trust you not to rear end me. Besides, it's certainly less dangerous than driving a Pinto.

The gas is going to go into the garage for the wood chipper or snow blower. Actually, I may just put it directly into the chipper, since it's outside anyway.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rick Auricchio @ May 22 2007, 11:13 AM) [snapback]447417[/snapback]</div>

Actually, it still is in the car. I just have to remember to take it out when I get home this evening.

Thanks for the warning though.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ May 22 2007, 05:00 PM) [snapback]447658[/snapback]</div>

Thanks.
Yep. It was a bit disappointing. But, the calculated mileage was only about 66.76 mpg. That's pretty much a rock hard minimum (at least I think it is). I've never tried topping off that much before, so I'm pretty certain the number of gallons used on this tank was less than the 10.5 gallons I put in. I wish there was a way to get a certainty on the number of gallons actually used. Although, that probably isn't really possible with any car.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rick Auricchio @ May 22 2007, 07:55 PM) [snapback]447791[/snapback]</div>

Certainly, it's more accurate than any given fill-up and probably more consistent through any number of fill-ups. But it still has the possibility of being mis-calibrated. In general, I suspect that the best we can do is a comparison between tank to tank consumption with the MFD for any given car. I'm not sure whether that's going to be consistent with vehicle to vehicle comparisons though. However, I suspect what most people are interested in is tank to tank comparisons, since that tells us whether we've affected mileage by some change in our gas, tires, driving, etc.

However, I do suspect that the 69.0 mpg figure is closer than the 66.76 mpg figure. That's because I "forced" as much gas as I could into that tank. Over about 10,000 miles I've gotten a reading with the MFD that's about 1.5 to 2 higher than the calculated (I don't have the actual figure now). And the 66.76 vs 69 difference is in the same percentage range as the long term calculation.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ May 23 2007, 11:22 AM) [snapback]448352[/snapback]</div>

Thanks. And good luck.

BTW, I think I asked this before, but may have missed your answer. Where are you in Canada? How's the temperature now?

Dave M.