Posted on 07/23/2008 10:29:53 AM PDT by SmithL
When Maurice del Prado of Dublin drives north on Interstate 680 and reaches the truck scales in Sunol, he puts his car in neutral and coasts almost all the way into Pleasanton.
Is he crazy? Yes, about saving gas.
Del Prado is one of a number of Bay Area residents who define themselves as "hypermilers." He and his ilk will go to almost any lengths to pare their gas costs.
Before he started hypermiling, del Prado got about 26 miles per gallon in his Ford Focus. Now he gets 30 or 31, he said.
"The No. 1 thing I'm doing is driving slowly and at a more consistent speed," he said. "Before, I didn't think about how fast I was driving. I just kept up with traffic."
Some of hypermilers' tricks, such as coasting downhill, are illegal, and some fall under the "do not try this at home" category, but all of them reduce gasoline consumption.
The movement arose over the last few years, spearheaded by Wayne Gerdes of Chicago, whose hypermiling Web site is at www.cleanmpg.com.
"Most California driving habits are a little too aggressive," said Gerdes, a former nuclear power plant operator who launched his site three years ago. "Hypermiling" technically refers to exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency's estimated miles per gallon for a given car. The basic principle is to keep rolling at a slow, even pace, avoiding coming to a complete stop when safely possible.
While there's much to be learned from hypermilers, who use a wide array of tricks to get the most out of a gallon of gas, organizations such as AAA, the automobile association, have expressed concerns that some of the tactics can be dangerous.
"There are good and bad things that go along with it (hypermiling), and it's important for the motorist to know which is which," said Michael Geeser, AAA's spokesman for Northern California. However, "Many of their tips are ideas we've been encouraging for many years," he noted.
Driving more slowly and avoiding jackrabbit starts is endorsed by AAA and just about every other authority, including the government's fuel economy site, FuelEconomy.gov.
But hypermilers have plenty of additional ideas.
"I use cruise control a lot, and the second thing is not burning rubber off a stop, just taking it easy," said Chris Chafe of Palo Alto. He's able to squeeze 28 mpg out of his 1979 Subaru, he said. Chafe's brother Steve has a hypermiling site, www.hypermiling.com.
Hypermiler Andy Corr of Alamo, a Corvette owner, lets his wild side out at high-performance driving events at places like Infineon Raceway near Sonoma, but he drives 60 or so off the track.
One thing that really bugs his liver when driving on the highway: "Priuses blow past my Corvette all the time doing 80," he said. "If you're going to exceed the limit by that much, why bother with a Prius?"
Corr considers the Cleanmpg.com. suggestion, "Do not idle excessively," a critically important tip.
"One of the worst things you can do for mileage is stop your car," said Corr, who squeezes 22-1/2 mpg out of his Corvette, a car that despite its small size is known for low mileage because of its high-performance V8 engine. Before Corr took up hypermiling, his mileage was closer to 19 mpg, Corr said.
"When you are just sitting there not moving, you are still using gas, but the car is not moving forward. So your mileage is dropping," Corr said.
"If you are waiting in line at the McDonald's drive-through or a similar situation and think you are going to be waiting for longer than one minute, you can save some money by turning your engine off," agreed AAA's Geeser. However, Geeser cautioned, don't do this at a traffic light or stop sign, in case law enforcement or an emergency vehicle might require quick movement.
"If you see that a traffic light is changing ahead of you, slow down enough to give the light a chance to cycle so you can either roll through at speed or only slow down half as much," Corr said.
"When driving, you should always be thinking three to six blocks ahead of where you are," Gerdes said. "Keeping an eye on what is happening ahead and anticipating what might happen makes you a safer and far more fuel-efficient driver."
Gerdes said he is able to get 37 mpg on his wife's Acura MDX, whose EPA estimated mileage is 17 mpg.
Longer drives on the freeway save money because you don't have to stop at traffic lights. But because you have to accelerate to get up to speed on the freeway, short freeway trips aren't advisable, Corr said; you won't drive long enough to make up for the extra fuel burned when speeding up.
"If there's a destination you visit often, like the grocery store or the gym, find country roads or local roads with no stop signs to get there," he suggested.
Though these suggestions aren't considered dangerous, how about that trick of taking the car out of gear and coasting downhill? Not kosher.
"The driver of a motor vehicle when traveling on down grade upon any highway shall not coast with the gears of such vehicle in neutral," California Vehicle Code Section 21710 says.
"It's because you don't have control of your car. Certainly you can hit the brake, but certain circumstances require you to accelerate and you have to make an additional movement to do so if your car is in neutral," explained Scott Yox, a California Highway Patrol officer and spokesman for the CHP Golden Gate Division in Contra Costa County.
Some identify "drafting," or following closely behind, large vehicles such as 18-wheelers as a hypermiling technique. Drafting boosts mileage because it reduces wind resistance and drag, both of which make the engine work harder.
But both Yox and Gerdes decry the idea.
"If you did get close behind a big rig you could reduce your gas usage, but it forces you to follow at an overly close distance and is illegal," Yox said. "Once you see significant increases in mileage, you are at the point where in California an officer could issue a citation for following too closely."
Gerdes said, "We don't advocate drafting. We advocate following at a safe distance."
He said he has never advocated so-called "San Francisco stops," in which the vehicle slows down but doesn't come to a complete halt at stop signs, though many associate the practice with hypermiling. Rolling through stop signs is against the law, Yox pointed out. But here's a hypermiling trick that is harmless and helpful: Keep an eye on the mileage counter, or purchase one if there isn't such equipment already on your dashboard.
"It's just like somebody stepping on a scale when they're dieting," Corr said. "If you can see what's happening, you can be aware of when the problem is occurring."
Del Prado, who doesn't have such a gadget, keeps detailed records of his mileage (as it happens, food diaries are also a dieting trick).
"Whenever I get to the gas station I whip out my little notebook. I check how much gas I just bought and look at my odometer to see how much gas I've saved," del Prado said. "It's a great feeling."
Love to see these California ‘hypermilers’ try some of that stuff on Massachusetts roads.
Gerdes said he is able to get 37 mpg on his wife’s Acura MDX, whose EPA estimated mileage is 17 mpg.
I have a lot of difficulty believing that statement.
The Sunol Grade is not a good place to “drift” unless you want to be shot by another commuter. Among other effects, I imagine it forces the semis into the faster lanes and causes a lot of near accidents, maybe some real accidents. California driving is insane enough without this.
I see people all the time now turning off their cars at long lights.
I wonder if restarting a motor that often saves enough gas to pay for the new starter and/or switch.
Fixed it.
I retired and stay home almost every day. 16 MPG in my 2007 GMC 1500 4X4 is not bad. Someday I will get a chance to stick it to some stupid environmental nut.
Life is good.
I try to drive more conservatively these days and it does improve my gas mileage. But I don’t go so far as to hold up traffic or annoy the drivers around me. Luckily I live in an area with mostly uncongested roadways.
Hypermiling is evidence that Americans will do most anything to avoid driving less miles. That’s why raising CAFE standards won’t work. A car that gets better mileage will simply be driven more miles. Why? We love driving, THAT’S why!
Yea, in the boom boom days of “my house is worth a billion dollars” and the no interest no document home equity loans, these were most likely the same peddle to the metal fist waving, get out of my way self important arrogant SOBs that cruised the highways of the US.
Hope they get their cars repossessed so they can really “‘hypermile’ it with their feet (as I blow by in my slow old Ford that gets 30 mpg and gets $25 worth of gas per month whether it needs it or not!)
Putting your vehicle in neutral is about as dangerous a stunt as you could devise. Most vehicles these days have power assisted brakes and steering, both of which are disabled with the vehicle in neutral, thus their ability to stop or even control their vehicle is compromised.
My wife was held up at several lights by people turning their cars off at lights and forgetting to start them again, resulting in far fewer cars getting through.
I do sometimes drop into nuetral when coasting to a stop at lights.
I advocate a modified stop allowed at specified and marked signs, or a wholesale change to yield signs. That would save millions of dollars a year by not bringing cars up to speed to simply stop again.
the thing that gets me is these a$$holes do this crap in the left lane of the freeway!!!!!!
I crawl up and down the 405 freeway riding my brake... there are no open spaces in Los Angeles to hper-anything.
saw a piece on CNN about this before, though focused on New York drivers.
Some crazy and dangerous stuff not worth the savings IMO.
“Putting your vehicle in neutral is about as dangerous a stunt as you could devise. Most vehicles these days have power assisted brakes and steering, both of which are disabled with the vehicle in neutral, thus their ability to stop or even control their vehicle is compromised.”
That is where you are wrong. Putting the transmission in neutral still leaves the engine running (at idle). The engine still produces vacuum (for the power brakes) and still turns the power steering pump. Try it with a stick shift with the clutch in. Steering and brakes still work with the clutch pedal depressed (same as putting tranny in neutral).
The main danger is that, with the tranny in neutral, the engine compression does not slow the car and gravity can pull it downhill too fast. Trying to slow with the brakes only can burn up your brakes. That is why truckers downshift going downhill in the mountains.
Shutting off the engine at every light may have engine life consequences too. When starting, the oil pressure is momentarily zero. Most engine wear happens at startup, though its most serious when the engine is cold. Even on a hot restart, repeated many times per trip rather than once, there is still abnormal wear.
This practice is a very bad idea if you have a turbocharged engine. The turbo keeps spinning for a while after shutdown, and if they haven't had time to spin down sufficiently when the oil pressure goes away, they will self destruct.
Hybrids are specifically designed to operate under these conditions. Conventional cars are not.
No mention of overinflated tires?
That really does work, but I wouldn’t go too much over.
If the tires are 35 psi max you can get 3 mpg by going to 40 psi.
Ah yes...the Sepulveda Impasse was my second home for well over 20 years.
power assisted brakes and steering, both of which are disabled with the vehicle in neutral,
::::::::::
Please recheck that. I believe it is not true.
Have you wondered about the excessive wear (center of tread) that happens when you overinflate? Ever had a blowout? Will your gas savings pay for a new set of tires?
Hypermorons
The people I know who drive a lot are commuters and very few, if any, of them LOVE to drive. Most commute because they either cannot afford a home near work or chose to live in an area they find to be superior to any near work. I have known many such people and every one of them treated driving as a necessary chore and not as a pleasure.
In fact, I cannot recall ever meeting anyone who LOVED to drive. I have met a lot of people who drove a lot when they didn’t have to in order to keep a job; but these people drove a lot because they wanted to get to a place or places they found especially attractive or pleasant and not because they liked the driving that was necessary to get them there.
I think that if people say they love their cars it is because the love the freedom that comes with the ability to travel easily from place to place. With the exception of a handful of people I have met who simply liked tinkering with complicated machinery and showing off the result I have met very few people who even liked their cars. Cars, for most people, are necessary expenses which they find to be complcated and costly to maintain and repair and if they could find a cheaper, easier way to get to where they want to go a whole lot of them would abandon their cars without much regret. But because there is no cheaper, easier way to get around people will not abandon their cars willingly because they value the freedom that such transportation gives them.
If you coast with the motor running you should be ok. The assist in power brakes comes from intake manifold vacuum. There is vacuum as long as the engine is running. Power steering will also work as long as the engine runs.
If you coast with the engine off, you could damage an automatic transmission, since it may not get sufficient lubrication. This is the same problem you can get towing a car with an auto trans.
I used to do 80 mph on those 60 highway miles, and got 20 mpg.
Not if engine idling is maintained.
Having said that, they better have really good brakes. And have them checked often!
I was just about to wonder out loud about hybrids dealing with this kind of use.
I gather the hybrids spin the engine up to idle speed and won’t start up the fuel injection and ignition unless there is oil pressure.
Coasting in neutral still requires the throttle to feed gasoline into the cylinders to maintain rpm. Leaving the car in “D” with cruise control set on a speed lower then the intended coasting speed tells the fuel control to shut down the flow of fuel as the engine is maintaining speed and rpm without adding more gasoline.
Comments welcome on this theory
What ya’ll need is a grappling hook to hitch a ride from the car in front of you. 680-580-880, etc. are no picnics either.
I would bet lunch that you are correct.
Yup, pisses me off too. You know somethings wrong when cars in the middle and right lanes are blowing through at 70 and some jerk is in the left lane doing 50. And the jerk is clueless.
Uh, because it costs less for gas and is a more practical car than a Corvette? My daughter's boyfriend recently got a ticket for doing 85 while they were driving her hybrid in Wyoming. When you're on a road trip that covers a couple thousand miles, you don't want to crawl to get there. She gets over 700 miles on a tank of gas, even while speeding. Can you do that in your Corvette?
Even if you keep your tires inflated to exactly the max psi it will increase your mpg. Most people have under-inflated tires because they seldom check them.
Its the easiest and cheapest thing you can do to gain a few mpg.
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