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**help** somethings is not adding up**help**

5K views 20 replies 8 participants last post by  Foresight 
#1 ·
My Round trip Commute is 89.2 Miles For Math Purposes 90 Miles a Day
90 Miles a Day 5 days a week

90 x 5 = 450 Miles

Today Wednesday 04/22 I'm at work. Trip Computer reads 228.0 Miles.. Yet for the past 2 weeks, I always need gas Friday Morning before I leave for work

Take a look where the needle is a tad below half by the time I get home Even further. I'm sure as in the past I will need gas Friday morning.

yet my calculations say I should be getting 450 Miles per tank

This is my first Hybird is my math wrong, perhaps I'm calculating incorrectly
 

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#2 ·
Thats about right. Half a tank I use to cover 300 miles. thats about the 6 gallons used mark. You got about 4 gallons left including the low fuel lamp going off. It means you got less than 2 gallons left.

The mpg isnt a straight average either/ For some of those miles your mpg is less and for others its higher.
 
#4 ·
A few quick thoughts:
Your Insight is not broken in at all. It might take as many as 8-10k before the mileage it will get becomes regular.
Fuel gauges are not completely accurate. This has been especially true for me with Hondas.
The MPG read out is known to be optimistic. It's just a toy to help you learn fuel effiecent driving techniques.
Do back up the dash toys with actual calculations. Zero out one of the trip meters every time you refuel and divide the fuel you put in by the gallons used.
If this tank seems to be an outlier, it may be because of the fuel pump used or some other thing, like weather or traffic.
Check your tire pressures! Stone cold if at all possible and set them higher than the door label. Up to the max (cold) on the tire itself. The spec is 33, the max probably in the upper 40s. I compromise comfort/Econ at about 38 myself.
 
#5 ·
Uber, its hard to get exact mpg unless you can measure your gas by weight vs volume. Gas expands and contracts with temperature. Also your car seldom sits level when you fill it. If you fill it til the pump clicks off at the same pump and spot you are setting some standards to start measuring your mpg.

The computer is 2-3% higher than actual mpg over a tank. The tank is funnel shape so you start to gain mpg past the halfway point.

Soon we should be switching to a summer from the winter blend, which will help mpg. As your oil approaches the changing point you will see mpg start to drop off.

Oh, its my experience fuel injector cleaner helps you to burn gas faster. :evil:
 
#6 ·
i have about 220k miles on mine and on a good tank..ill get 300 out of the top half and 200 out of the bottom half...but i really gotta work it.

a typical tank is 250 miles top half and 200 out of the second half tank


funny thing i i have gotten 450 out of a tank and my mpg calculator say 43 mpg and i have had it say 49. but the fact was...no matter what it said i was putting gas in it at 450 miles.

i stopped paying attention to my mpg meter a year ago.
 
#7 ·
I'm at about 2600 miles and already looking to trade....was not aware it would take 8-10K miles before the true savings would start. I understand this is considered a mild hybrid. yet I'm at 36 -37 Mpg 80% highway driving. Its better than most but not significant enough when regular gasoline 4cyl are getting 30/35
 
#8 ·
The way you drive has the biggest influence on your mpg. If you are at the upper end, then yes it starts to go up at 10 thousand miles. If you are at the other end, then trade as it wont go up much further.

I have to admit I was rather impressed with that aspect of the prius 3. No matter how I dogged it I got no less than 49 mpg. With effort I could easily get 65mpg.

I keep up with traffic and range between 48-54mpg. I have over 100k miles and a range of modifications for mpg, performance and loud music. :evil:
 
#10 ·
Driving in New Jersey is pretty intense on a day to day basis. I've taken a lot of trips through the Garden State, and have to say that it's a fast pace overall, with a lot of unsteady speed segments on any of the Interstates or Garden Parkway in normal daytime driving.

The commute portions of the day are the worst of course. Best time to drive north to south or south to north is after 10 pm to about 3 or 4 am. I've only driven my Insight through NJ one time, taking it home to Maine from North Carolina.

We were able to skip the rush hour by spending the night near Philadelphia, and get a slow start in the morning. Traffic was still not what I would consider light, and since the Insight was new, I took it pretty easy on the car, varying speed as much as I could.

This car started out with the normal low car lot MID indicated MPG in the upper teens, if I recall correctly. The temperature was about 70 degrees. Our Insight was a leftover, already a year old, with minimal miles on the odometer, 10-12 if I remember. By the time we had called it a day, it was around 10 pm and had suffered the normal Washington evening commute slow go slog. MPG on the MID had climbed to the high 40s by that time. I took a picture of it while stopped on I-95 northbound before hitting the beltway.

We got home in Maine about midnight. My wife was driving our Prius, so there were stops for lunch and diner. When I pulled into my driveway that night, the MID was at 50.9 and the temperature was in the teens above zero. Calculated MPG for this first 1.5 day highway trip for a brand new Insight was just over 48 mpg. Speeds were varied as much as I could safely do, between 55-65 mph. The trip through New Jersey was the normal bumper to bumper mad rush, even with the fact that we missed the real rush hour.

After not driving the Insight a lot this quite chilly Winter, and doing a few- go nowhere battery maintenance runs- out in the driveway, the MID was down in the 30s. Once the salt and sand was off the roads, I've driven the Insight a few times since late March. Today I had to do some errands and drove about 65 miles. I'm still burning down a Winter gas fill from December, and the MID is back to 50.6 today. Closing in on 5,000 miles.

MPG is totally dependent on Temperature, Driving Style, Tire Type, Tire Pressure, Topography, Load in the Car and Traffic Density. Last Summer, my measured (not MID) local rural driving with a bicycle hanging off the back of the car most times was 50 to 55 mpg. We have hills, but the pace on our roads here is pretty laid back and traffic, compared to New Jersey's high density City areas, is very light. Rural speed limits vary from 25 mph to 55 mph.

If you commute and give yourself the least possible time to get to work, MPG will be somewhat lower than if you leave a little more time to get to work and are able to take it a little easier. Even 10 minutes extra can ease the driving tension significantly and allow better MPG. I can get over 55 mpg at 40 to 50 mph. Can't do that going 75 mph on the Interstate and hustling to make the next traffic light in city stop and go. Any car, Hybrid, Electric, Gasoline, Diesel, Natural Gas, or Dilithium powered will show the same economy characteristics.
 
#11 ·
Great Post... My Commute is home to GSP 5 Miles> 10 Miles on the GSP > 1&9 South 30 miles

The Parkway is where I get most of my gains smooth steady 55-65

Takes me 1:30 minutes leave at 7:10AM arrive between 8:20-8:35

1&9 can dance from bumper to bumper up to 65 then
back to bumper to bumper a total nightmare.... mostly all deep blue, a few sections i can get

My Avg Speed is 34MPH
 
#14 ·
Heres a good example of whats going on with your mpg. Its doing a straight average by miles traveled into fuel consumed so to speak. Regardless of the vehicle you will have the same issue.

Lets say you travel 5 miles.

Mile 1 5mpg Cold start
Mile 2 15mpg Accelerating and warming up
Mile 3 30 mpg Accelerating some more
Mile 4 56 mpg Warmmed up at crusing speed
Mile 5 113 mpg Coasting to a stop

5 miles / 219mpg = 43.8 mpg average
 
#16 ·
Sport mode does several things. It holds the ima battery at a higher state of charge. It keeps the valve open in the engine so it engine brakes vs close the valves to reduce drag. Lastly it only loads the engine to 60% load so you have over head for sudden acceleration.

Ive never driven in sport mode in a situation I could compare mpg. I normally use sport mode in heavy traffic or when hauling bags of quick creek, mulch, etc.
 
#19 ·
dilithium drive is not fair. the enterprise does not have to deal with tire pressure and rolling resistance or aerodynamincs to get the best mileage.

ever wonder why the enterprise is so sleek it looks like the Cd is down around .2? why is that if there is no air to push through?

when i had to teach physics to the undergrads when i was in grad school, i had one guy who seemed very interested in physics.

so i asked him why he was so interested in learning physics and he told me that he wanted to understand how the warp drive operated on the enterprise. i gotta admit i was startled, but after trying to explain to him how it was a movie prop, i felt like i should just leave him to ponder it and discover reality on his own or otherwise he would have no motivation to study physics. he did well too.
 
#20 ·
My issue is on some episodes and series it seems Warp Factor x is up to the speed of light with 9 being the fastest, but not quite the speed of light and excessive use will rip holes in time. Other series or episodes it seems a warp factor is the speed of light being warp 9 is 9 times faster than the speed of light. :confused:

he wanted to understand how the warp drive operated on the enterprise.
 
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