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[eddgie]

I live in central Texas. My terrain is not flat, and as you can imagine, it is hot. Even at night, the LOW temps are in the 80s. The humidity is much higher than places like Az. As a consequence, A/C is simply an necessity.

My car is a 2004 CVT with no modifications.

Around town, if I am carefull, I usually get about 45mpg. The lights here are not at all syncronized, and drivers are more aggressive perhaps, so I feel pushed, but I tend to still lean toward trying to get good mileage.

On the highway (again, mild hills), at 60 mph, I can actually SEE the mpg hit when the A/C cycles on. The CVT has a HUGE overdrive, and when the A/C compressor cycles off, if I back way of on the throttle JUST before the point where it hits regen, I can feel the transmission hit its max gearing, and mileage will jump to 75 or 80 MPG (at 50, it jumps to about 95). As SOON as the compressor bumps on, mileage plummets to about 55 to 60.

I think that the OD in the CVT is analogus to lean burn in the manual car. It is very hard to get the transmission into highest ratio and running the A/C or going up a hill causes the CVT to step down. When I do get the transmission into max OD, the car can get amazing mileage.

I can get the max overdrive at about 35 even with the AC running, and mileage goes over 100 mpg, but the SLIGHTEST movement of the accelerator causes it to drop out. Almost impossible to hold unless it is very flat.