Combined Results - Hypermiling Challenge Closure

I've been delaying posting this mainly because we've been traveling but I'm also very disappointed with the results, but here they are:

Winner: BW
Control week: 161.7 miles on 6.640 gallons for 24.35 MPG
Hypermiling week: 151.8 miles on 4.683 gallons for 32.42 MPG
Improvement: 33.1%

Second Place: ME (as in "the Doc" not "me")
Control week: 271 miles on 10.2 gallons for 26.6MPG
Hypermiling week: 255.9 miles on 8.5 gallons for 30.1 MPG
Improvement: 13.3%

Third Place: AB (who didn't provide the details)

Control Week: 24.8 MPG

Hypermiling Week: 27.7 MPG

Improvement: 11.7%

Last Place: Me
Control Week: 31.1 MPG
Hypermiling Week: 24.8 MPG
Improvement: -20.2%

I'll be happy now to put this behind us and move on to more useful posts for people searching how to fix their a/c compressors.

P.S. Go here (my wife's blog) and scroll down a bit to see a picture of the four of us with our cars/truck.

Hypermiling Challenge Complete

I've completed my portion of the hypermiling challenge, but I think there was an error. I can't convince my fellow contestants but I think it filled to a higher amount at the end of the hypermiling week (thus adding more gas and reducing the calculated mpg) than I did at the beginning. I'm going to try and post pictures some day, but it'll be awhile.

Anyway, I dropped from 31.1 mpg down to 24.8!!! That is just not possible, although I did get stuck in some traffic jams.

Anyway, Alex and Ben both did very well... Congrats guys, we'll see who the winner is when Matt finishes up.

Hypermiling Week - End of Day Five

There are only two days left! I'm not feeling very confident about my results so far, so I might push it a bit longer and see how well I can do over the course of a full tank of gas. As you can see in the picture below, I've used about 1/4 of a tank and I'm at 122.9 miles. I think this is actually better than my normal week of driving since at the end of the week I had only gone 147.6 miles on about 3/8 of a tank. I'm pretty sure I can get more than 24.7 miles out of the next 1/8th of a tank (based on the first 1/4, I should get another 60 miles or so). Anyway, we'll find out soon enough.

For your amusement, here are some hypermiling quotes from our contestants:

"Screaming passengers are a verification of healthy hypermiling techniques." - AB quoting something seen elsewhere (I apologize for not having the actual source here.)

"I felt so great that I got about a mile with zero gas usage." - Me (concerning a coast with the car turned off while taking a highway exit and approaching a red light)

"I am rocking this challenge like a 10.0 on the Richter. You're gonna owe me all kinds of rewards, and I might even sign a deal on teaching a hypermiling class at our local community college. It's in the works." - Mr Cocky (aka BH)

"When the road was wet at lunch, the truck wants to fish tail badly in a turn. I told her to calm down and not to waste any energy. It seems that everyone is getting frustrated." - AB, my favorite quote of the competition.

"Just be sure to call one of us to come pick you up when she rams into a median barrier. No shame, no judgments, just a tow or ride when needed." - BH, in response to AB

"It was the most brutal drive home yesterday that I've ever experienced... and traffic wasn't the problem." - BH

"I got passed by 3 dump trucks this morning on the way to work." - AB

Here's my current status (sorry for the bad glare - it's sunny at the top of the driveway):

Hypermiling Day Two Complete

For some reason, I forgot to take my picture today. But this morning, Alex let me borrow his air compressor and add some air to my tires. I was surprised to find out that one was down to 20psi and the other three were at 24-25. They really did look fully inflated. Anyway, I brought them all up to 35psi, still well below the limit of 44psi, so I think I'll be safe from exploding tires (which would be really annoying since I don't have a spare).

That's about all for now.

Hypermiling Day One Complete

After one day of hypermiling, I used just a little bit of gas and drove 33.5 miles. I don't feel like I'm getting very good gas mileage though. I got stuck in stop and go traffic at the end of the day. It was moving too fast to shut the car off, but frequently stopping still. The whole time I was thinking about how much gas I was wasting. I'd be disappointed to get worse gas mileage during my hypermiling week.

Anyway, I thought I'd introduce Alex, my neighbor. He is also in the competition and made a post on his blog about it. He took some extreme duct-taping methods today. This idea was recommended to me, but I couldn't bring myself to do it (plus he has much bigger gaps on his truck). You have to check out the picture he posted. It's pretty amusing.

Start of Hypermiling Week of Driving

First of all, let me start by saying I weighed my car today. The reading on the scale was 2860 pounds - only 80 pounds less than previously. However, I also weighed it with a full tank of gas, whereas it had only about 3/4 tank last time (about 4-5 gallons different). Assuming a tank of gas weighs 6.1 pounds, that equates to an additional 24.6-30.5 pounds. So my total weight loss was about 105 to 110 pounds. Not a whole lot considering the interior is pretty well emptied of large parts. I do like that the weight difference is about the same as what is frequently reported in news articles. For example: "Every 120-pound reduction can yield a 1% gain in gas mileage, says Bill Grabowski, director of body core engineering for Chrysler."
I guess that'll make a small improvement in my gas mileage, but probably not enough to keep it that way. One side benefit is that I can't carry passengers, so that reduces my weight a bit and forces other people to drive and use their gas if I car pool anywhere (like a meeting for work).

Next, I filled up my tank and kicked off my hypermiling week today. For the record, I'm at 157,851 miles now (as seen in the picture below). I didn't want to sit in the parking lot baking in the heat with the car off for too long, so the needle isn't quite up to full, but it was headed there. I've started parking at the top of my driveway to avoid backing out and I'm shutting off the car and coasting whenever I can. I'm also following at a pretty good distance so I can avoid hitting the brakes too much. I had a hectic day at work so I didn't get a chance to wash the car and inflate the tires, but I will do that ASAP.

P.S. If you got here looking for posts on Volvo A/C or other repairs, feel free to leave a comment and let me know and I'll try and reply with my thoughts on your problem. If it is specifically Volvo A/C related, I'd suggest checking out www.volvoforums.com.

Hypermiling: Informal player

So, a coworker gave me some numbers for a parallel experiment that he did (and is continuing). He drives a lot farther than me every day and has a smaller tank so he's on a faster pace than I am. The following are the results of his initial experiment (in his Kia Rio).

In one tank of gas with normal driving, he got 27.2 mpg. Then he checked the air pressure in his tires and found that three were at 35psi but one was at 22psi. The recommended pressure is 35psi and the maximum is 44psi. So, he filled them all up to 42psi and drove for another tank of gas.

Results: 32.3 mpg, an improvement of 5.1 mpg just by overinflating his tires (and fixing the one that was underinflated previously). That's pretty impressive, now I'm encouraged that I'll see some real results in my experiment.