ARTICLE: How to get the maximum Fuel Efficiency

[arjyamaj]

so really, it still boils down to maintainence and driving style?

[revvedup]

What has the world come to ! Even Jeremy Clarskon the man whose first words as a baby were POWERRRRRRRR ! is giving us tips on how to conserve fuel.

There you go, JC's top tips to save fuel

The simple fact of the matter is this; To save fuel, all you need to do is think ahead. Way, way ahead.

- If you see the lights ahead are red, take your foot off the throttle immediately. If you wait and then use your brakes you are simply wasting the fuel you used to achieve a speed you didn't need. Remember, a modern engine uses no fuel at all when it’s coasting in gear.

- If your car has cruise control, ignore it. Cruise control is a blunt instrument for Americans. Rely on something more sensitive: your foot. Speaking of which, don't drive in big shoes. They take away the sensitivity you need.

- Think carefully about what electrical appliances you need. Even Terry Wogan takes a dibble of power from the engine. And that's power which is costing you £1.18 a litre.

- Never use your heated rear window unless you can't see a thing. It's the same story with your headlights. And don't use the air conditioning either. Switch it off and in a normal family saloon, your fuel consumption will drop by as much as 12 per cent. That’s a big, big saving.

- Next. Speed. Wind it down. You don't need to do 25 mph, but instead of doing 80 on the motorway, try 75. Or if you normally do 120, try 110.

- 56 mph, by the way, really is the optimum speed for good fuel consumption in most cars. Don't try this in villages though or you will have to spend some time in a prison.

- When going downhill, ease your throttle down and work with gravity to build up speed. Then, use that momentum to get you up the other side. Using the throttle going up hill is bad.

- When leaving the lights, accelerate smartly. Not like a bat out of hell. But don't dawdle. Get the car into top gear as quickly as is reasonable. Fifth gear, remember, is no good at all.

- Don't buy a Toyota Prius.

Clarkson's top fuel saving tips - Top Gear

[appuchan]

Hi guyz,

After driving "horn-less" for two years in Bangalore, now I am trying out some of the hypermiling techniques since March. It did help me quite a lot in saving fuel and also added an interesting angle to the the overall driving experience in the city. I have been trying the following techniques so far.

Car: 2001 Santro.
Route: Usually between Sarjapur road and MG road (approx 24 kms up and down in busy city roads). At times, I go to Electronics city (about 26 kms up and down with about a half in busy traffic and another half in suburban traffic)
Started: From March 08 with P&G technique along with no A/c usage and rolled up windows. Also tried techniques such as FAS (in neutral) and over-inflating tyres later, though they did not prove much useful yet.
Fuel: Petrol filled always from the same pump (Bowring service station)

1. Pulse and Glide (P&G) technique: This is the easiest thing to practice in the city as there is hardly 100 metres between two consecutive signals in most of the roads. I did this for the whole of March and my average mileage increased to about 15.3 kmph. A good improvement over 13 kmph earlier.

2. Forced Auto Stop (FAS): This is generally not adviced for non-hybrid vehicles. I tried this without switching off the engine and there was a marginal improvement in mileage. (~.75 kmpl)

3. Inflating tyes to 36 psi: This seems to have a very marginal impact on city driving as its mostly low speed/distance.

Other techniques such as "tailgating large vehlcies" etc are not practical in our roads.

I am still perfecting the art of P&G and "pro-active" driving with minimum use of brake and gas pedals. So far I am able to increase my mileage to about 16.3 kmpl. Will report about further progress going forward.

Request TBhpians to share their expereince with hypermiling techniques.

100+ hypermiling / ecodriving tips to increase gas mileage - EcoModder.com


Mods, Think I posted this in the wrong section. Please move this thread to appropriate (street experiences?) thread.

[Eddy]

You can see this thread

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...ht=hypermiling (To save fuel, a new fad called ‘hypermiling’)

[omishra]

Originally Posted by kingshan

Some points I could throw up ...
Here is the ultimatum
Cool down. Fill your tank up on cool mornings. Fuel is denser when cold. Fuel pumps measure by volume, so if you pump when it's cold, you get more gas for your hard earned money.

Some how I calulated the change in volumes from 20 degree C to 35 degree C. to my surprise it was .003% means 3 ml more per litre. So drive up in morning to fill 50 litres you will get 150 ml more fuel.

Now don't ask me how much you burnt for that special trip.

[AbhiJ]

Guys, how does one find a coco (company owned, company operated) pump?

Is there a list somewhere? If suppose I want to find a pump like this in my area, how do I go about it?

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by AbhiJ

Guys, how does one find a coco (company owned, company operated) pump?

Is there a list somewhere? If suppose I want to find a pump like this in my area, how do I go about it?

There is a list of the retail outlets on the respective websites. Just scroll down and look for the COCO outlets.

You may also want to keep your eyes open for one neat your place. Generally COCO outlets display "COCO" very prominently. Also, I think that COCO outlets do not have particular names like "Ganga Filling Station" etc. I could be wrong, but I think that this is the case.

[muralisk]

Here are some tips I have been following for the last few weeks and I am seeing significant improvement in my mileage.

6 ways you're wasting gas

It's not easy to break bad driving habits, but if you don't, the money you lose on gas could wind up breaking your bank.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With all the worry over fuel prices, you'd think drivers would do whatever they can not to waste gas. But look around and you'll see lots of them tooling around as if they owned their own tanker fleet. One of them might be you.

Here are six ways drivers typically waste gas every on every trip:
1. Racing away from green lights

When the light turns green, you don't have to take off as quickly as possible. That pedal under your right foot is called the "gas pedal" for a good reason. The more you press down on it, the more gas you're pumping into the engine.

Press lightly on the gas pedal, and you'll still accelerate, and you'll still get where you're going. You might be surprised at how little pressure it takes to get your car up to speed in a reasonable time.
2. Racing up to red lights

When you're driving down the street, and you see a light red light or stop sign up ahead, you should lay off the gas sooner rather than later.

There's no point in keeping your foot on the gas until just before you reach the intersection. Let off the pedal sooner and give your engine a rest as you coast to the stop while braking gently. As an added benefit, your brake pads will last longer, too.

By themselves, these first two tips can improve your fuel economy around town by as much as 35 percent, according to tests conducted by automotive information Web site Edmunds.com.
3. Confusing the highway with a speedway

Even if it doesn't involve hard acceleration, speeding wastes gas. The faster you go, the more air your vehicle has to push out of the way. It's like moving your hand through water. The faster you try to move your hand, the harder the water pushes back.

In tests by Consumer Reports, driving at 75 miles per hour instead of 65 miles per hour reduced fuel economy by between 3 and 5 miles per gallon, depending on the vehicle.
4. Bumper-buzzing

Tailgating is a bad move for many reasons. First of all, it's unsafe. You reduce your ability to react if the car in front of you slows or stops. It also means you have to pay ultra-close attention to that car which reduces your ability to scan for other hazards ahead of you and to the sides.

And tailgating wastes gas. Every time the driver ahead taps his brakes, you have to slow down even more than he did. (That's because you can't react immediately so you have to slow even more because you're slowing down later.) Then you accelerate again to get back up to speed and resume your bumper-buzzing routine.

Hang back and you'll be safer - plus you'll be able to drive more smoothly and use less fuel. A good rule of thumb is to allow two seconds of space between your car and the one ahead. You can figure that out by counting off two seconds after the car in front of you passes an obvious landmark like an overpass.
5. Driving standing still

You've probably heard that it takes more gas to restart a car than to let it run. Maybe that used to be true, but it isn't anymore. With modern fuel-injection engines, it takes very little extra gas to restart a car once it's warmed up.

Idling, meanwhile, burns about a half-mile worth of gas every minute, according to the California Energy Commission. That's why hybrid cars shut down their gasoline engines whenever they stop, even for a moment.

Now you don't want to shut your engine down for every little stop in your regular, non-hybrid car - it's not designed for that - but if you're waiting for someone to run in and out of a convenience store, turn off the engine.

And don't go through the drive-through at fast food restaurants. You're already paying enough for the oil in those chicken nuggets.

Bonus tip: Don't idle your engine to let it warm up before driving. It does your engine no good and it wastes gas. Instead, start driving right away, but drive gently until the engine is warm.
6. Short hops

For really short trips, take advantage of the opportunity to get some exercise. Try walking to the store instead of driving. You can save gas and burn a few calories instead.

If you can't hoof it, save up your errands. A lot of short hops that let the engine cool down at home between trips can use twice as much gas as starting the car once and making a big sweep to all your stops, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

[COLOR=#002060][FONT=&quot]Go to your farthest destination first so your engine has a chance to reach its optimal operating temperature. Then make your other stops on the way back. With the engine warmed up, the car will restart easily and run efficiently all the way home.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[abhi1309]

Excellent points by appuchan and muralisk. I think there are a lot of bhpians who freak out on FE. Very informative I would say considering I am into similar way of driving. What I personally have seen is that driving keeping all these points in mind, can make a difference of almost 20% or more in mileage. This is a solid amount of savings, you keep your pocket happy and reduce your carbon footprint as well on an individual basis.

For example I used to regularly do about 500Kms on a tank of fuel in my Fiesta 1.4 Petrol, but since I changed the way I drive, 625 is not that hard to get on a full tank. So yeah, it makes one hell of a difference. A 100 kms is almost equivalent to about 450 approximate (in regular driving) bucks which is significant on every tankfull.

[Abhay.Neelwarne]

This is great thread. I went through whole of it. I see bottomelines as sane gentlemen like driving for in-city and a fairly fair speed on highways as key to FE. Seems like around 90kmph seems to be a good speed for optimum FE on highways.

Highway FE: You have

A) vehicle momentum (proportional to velocity) to help you and
B) drag force (square of velocity) and rolling resistance (constant) against.

To bridge the gap between A & B, you have engine power. Right?? Now to say that 90kmph as a good speed for FE could be oversimplification. My arguement is "where is the turbo effect" factored into these arguements?? Turbo can be seen as giving high power or on the otherhad less fuel consumption for the same power. Every car with turbo would have different settings for when the turbo kicks in.

In my opinion, driving with light foot at an RPM about 10-20% more than the RPM at which turbo kicks in should give you the best engine efficiency and the perfect balance between +ve and -Ve forces which are acting on your car and lead to best highway FE???

In my Swift Dzire ZDi, turbo kicks in at about 2000 rpm. In my next 900kms Bangalore-Pune trip this week, I am going to drive steady at 2400 following all the feedback on this thread and report. Lets see.

Any comment??