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1st timer wants to get her mileage up!

2045 Views 6 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  brenton
hi all,

i would love to get my gas mileage up in my 2002 automatic insight.

i've had tessieblue from her beginning. i've just passed 20,000 miles. i mostly do san francisco city driving which is quite hilly. i probably aveage in the hgih 40s in the city, and in the high 50s on the highway. my highway driving lets say averages around 65mph. i am amazed when people say they get 70+mpg on average in their insights! what am i doing wrong? what can i do to go right?!

my questions are: are the hills of sf that keep me low? am i driving too fast on the highway? is it b/c she is an automatic that she is low--that stick shifts get more? is tire pressure that important? what is the best inflation to have our tires at? how often do you fill your tires? i bought the car in southern california and drove her up to SF (i recommend that to all northern california people, by the way, as i paid $3,000 less down in LA then what they were charging up here. that was in 2002, but it might still be the same.) but i wonder did that first road trip do her in? i've heard you are not supposed to go over 55mph on a new engine, and i did my best to stay down there but did go up without intending to... ;)

finally, i've jsut heard that the toyota prius will go fully electric on the highway when you drive a constant speed and on flat terraine. will ours do that too? mine has not done that yet.

any articles on tips for better gas milage would be so apprieciated. thanks fellow hybrid folks!
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Hills kill my gas milage and its taken close to 8 months to fully master a few commutes home.

CVT's as stated before do not have lean burn which is the real feature that allows people to get those high milages above 70mpg. Most people who have sticks/lean burn and get the mpg will tell you they hardly use the battery. The only times itll get drained are for recalibration where it dies faster than it ever has then charges up normally. So do what you can to not use the battery up hills.

Also pick your mpg goal with the green bars, for instance mine is 75 on the highway and 50 on hills/streets. And I let that determine my speed up and down hills to a point. I try not to stray to 5mph below for everyones else's sanity.

FYI-
The prius II does not go fully electric ever above 20MPH the faster you go the more %gas to % electric ratio will climb. My friend who has one averages/coasts at 75 and gets 45mpg on good days.
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