My 2001, 24 valve, six speed with 325K miles still gets 20+ mpg. Maybe I drive slower??
The “belief” at the heart of emotional denial is that MPG = slower. The fact is that it’s,
maintenance of steady-state rpm.
I roll thru town observing,
“never stop & never idle”, and that
may seem slower . . but how can it be so, actually, when I get thru the same stoplights without coming to a stop?
Takes awhile to sort out what’s
least use of brakes & throttle.
A
baseline reference number (highest MPG via testing) is never acquired, thus there’s not a realistic assessment possible.
All else is a percentage change from that number.
Against the day diesel becomes expensive and/or is more difficult to find,
practice is needed.
“Planned Use” is the high altitude view. Arrange the pieces accordingly.
https://www.mapquest.com/routeplanner
Is an example. FEDX or UPS both utilize such. No left-hand turns, etc. With our trucks it’s,
go first to farthest point on biggest road to get all the weeks errands loop started with best warm-up. Work one’s way back home.
According to Big Brother: 90% of Americans go to 90% of tbe same places 90% of the time. Use that to your advantage.
I got 18-19/MPG around town and thought it good. Until I pondered that the single real difference from City to Highway was engine time at steady state. Planning as above helped bring me to 23, City (not a daily commuter).
That was within 11% of Highway.
22% improvement is what to note, not absolute.
1). Cut cold starts to dead-minimum (4-hours).
2). Combine all errands.
3). Drive remaining miles
better.
One starts from today. Or not.
Give an incentive.
Per then-current diesel price and established averages, my annual miles at 20k (15k ordinary & 5k for vacation miles) I just gave myself five thousand miles of “free” vacation fuel (based on annual number of gallons purchased year-to-year).
That was the carrot.
The stick was to do without whatever I’d forgotten that week.
No last minute trips. My ability at compiling lists went up.
Motivation = Planning & Discipline to vacation at a far lower annual expense.
This is before longer tire, brake & clutch life.
Easing along isn’t slower,
per se, so much as it’s learning how to steadily
just glide on down the road.
Carefully build or release momentum. “Progressive Shifting” was what that was called years back in trucking.
Here’s a video of a guy on a familiar road.
He’s pushing along harder than he needs to do. If he’d use his advantage of knowing the road,
his MPG would go up:
Three turns. Each leg is to next turn.
Lower the drive pressure in each to do the same work as the time across each leg isn’t going to change.
It’s good, what’s shown. First gear start, etc.
But time at top speed is too short to have reached so high a speed. (Throttle & Brake penalty are equally inefficient).
— Driving technique that you’d see me use is two fingers to pull down and add thumb to go up. Palm-cup shape against side of knob.
Palm cup over shifter when loaded heavy still mainly using fingers. I’m asking for help, not demanding it. (My long arms means my elbow rarely comes off of the console rest, ha!)
Driver in video needs to also raise seat a little higher and come in a little closer for
least effort manipulation of controls. Again, not bad . . but not ideal. All the little things add up.
Control is not little when it really matters.
I’d pause
maybe somewhat longer across Neutral to drop it in.
Least loss of rpm. Get it in at the exact right moment.
No pressure against shifter. Momentum.
I’d have gone to OD at 45-MPH on the last leg to hold it just above that by easing up to that with less pressure, first. He was in OD barely 20-sec before making a full turn off the road
which he knew was coming up.
Having learned that, I
then learned to
ease that first leg shown the same way.
Get thru the first three gears relatively quickly. Save any accel for 4th. And minimize that in degree.
Most changes are of this sort.
Minor. Knowing the route (best one, not always the shortest one) is The Big Deal.
How to drive it is just some finesse.
“Across this leg is What Gear for Best RPM?” Highest gear possible ain’t necessarily best. The sweet spot for City is a higher rpm as
engine-braking matters more. That
may mean I’m running 37-MPH in a 45.
Kids and old people can pop out of nowhere. So long as my RPM range is inside the ideal, I’m GTG.
Road Speed isn’t as important as those first two.
Best Relation of Gear, Rpm & Max Braking is the sweet spot. How to get up to that and then down again is the skill development as it’s
road, load, traffic & weather.
Therefore,
A feedback device is invaluable: UltraGauge is the inexpensive, configurable tool I’ve used for a decade to confirm or correct intuition
https://www.ultra-gauge.com/ultragauge/
This — and the overhead MPG readout (number doesn’t have to be right, just changes shown are accurate percentage-wise) — is how I ran those
90% same errands loops
and over time honed sharper the edge.
Engine Load Percentage is a damned handy number.
Willingness to learn and 100% utilize any new habits is the only real decision.
Bite off small chunks each time.
.
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
