Interstate blues

[chachi]

FCD question for the best gas mileage

should I on the interstate where the speed limit is 70

A: when going up hills, keep the fcd meter at 50, slowing down to a 58 mph (probably making people cuss behind me)

or

B: Try to gain as much speed as possible before the hill without going below 50 on the fcd.

I just use the fcd meter as a reference, because it seems when I stay behind the 50 mark I start to lose mpg.

[lakedude]

Traffic will very likely determine what you are willing to do to get the best mileage. The CVT puts a twist on the equation as well. I'll tell you what to do with a manual and hopefully you can translate that to CVT speak.

You want your average speed around 35-40 for ultimate mpgs. Any faster and wind resistance will kill you mileage. Any slower and you will not be able to keep the car in the top gear. Wind resistance doubles with the square of speed so it takes twice as much energy to push through the wind at 70 as it does 50.

When coming to a hill you want to crest the hill at the slowest speed you can while still being in top gear, picking the speed back up coming down the hill. You want to ramp up to a speed at bottom that will allow for this to happen at the top. If you ramp up to speed too soon the wind resistance will kill your gain as you will have been going too fast for too long. Ramp up too late and you will need to downshift to get up the hill. This is a bit of an artform and impossible on new roads. It only works on your daily drive where you know the route.

Steep hills will not allow for such tricks and you want to crest them as slow as possible with the engine off and the car coasting. The car will speed back up on the down hill.

I'm not sure how much of this trickery you can pull (if any) off in a CVT with traffic to worry about.

[chachi]

THanks for the info!