Difficulty keeping 5 sp @ 65 mph

3848 Views 15 Replies 9 Participants Last post by mjrogers, Apr 8, 2003

mjrogers

Discussion Starter · Apr 3, 2003

I love my new insight, but seriously miss cruise control

. I try to keep my silver spacepod at the speed limit, but have 2 challenges.

1. It wants to zoom. When going flat or downhill this light, spunky thing wants to fly :twisted: .

2. On the inclines I either overanticipate and overshoot, or not anticipate enough and slowly lose 'altitude. :? '

I believe it may be related to old habits of getting it in 5th gear and keeping it there. Should I be going into 4th when anticipating an incline? My daily route is fairly flat. I commute between Davis & Sacramento: the flatter part of the Sacramento Valley. Most of my 'hills' are man made bridges over rivers, duck flyways/rice farms, and interstates.

I am not capable of installing a second party cruise control. Has anyone had success having Honda install one?

Is there something about my driving habits that I can change?

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mjrogers

Discussion Starter · #11 · Apr 5, 2003

puck wrote:

What does cruise control have to do with mpg?

My understanding is that acceleration uses much more energy than velocity. So, if you accelerate once and maintain it you use less energy than if you re-accellerate to get back to where you were.

I haven't taken physics since college ['78 Cornell], but I do remember F=ma [Force = mass * acceleration]. So the less acceleration, the less force, the less fuel used.

The insight complicates this because if the assist kicks in than the fuel used is electric and not fossil, but ii think in the long term it works out.

Also, i like cruise control because it makes me much more predictable to the cars around me. And I find predictability highly correlated with safety.

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mjrogers

Discussion Starter · #16 · Apr 8, 2003

Steadier speed when tires inflated to OM's psi.

I checked my tires for the first time since buying my Insight. Whoa, the dealer had >50 psi in all 4 tires. I adjusted back to OM's psi and have found it much easier to maintain speed limit. I compared the gas mileage on my daily highway 'segment;' mpg went down from 71 mpg to 69.5 mpg. I'm more than willing to sacrifice 2% of excellent mpg to get improved safety [less risk of a blow out, and more predictable speed to my fellow travellers.]

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