I got my original Insight on January 1, 2001, way before there were automatic versions. We really felt like pioneers.
Soon after I got my Insight I got a job with a very long commute over a couple of mountains, going from 1500 ft to 3000 to about 0 in Palm Springs. I was averaging over 70 on the way to work and had a life-time mileage of 63.2 by the time I left job 9 months later.
Since then I have alternated between no job or work from home, and thus a lot of town driving with nasty stop signs, and short-term jobs with clogged freeway traffic. We used my car for trips to LA on weekends and a couple of long trips to San Francisco, but now that my husabnd bought a new Prius we use his car for those trips.
My lifetime mileage is down to about 60.1 and still dropping. I rarely get my tank mileage about 50 any more. Part of the difference is probably that I'm not new and enthusiastic, although most of the good driving habits are pretty automatic. (I get better twon mileage on the Prius than my husband does, but I rarely drive it!) Then, too, the local driving is often in areas with stop signs and fewer traffic lights, and our town is on a good grade up to a mountain, so you coast going south and use 3rd gear going north.
But I've been wondering if some of the problem is the age of the battery? An engineer I was talking with implied that batteries perform less well with time.
Soon after I got my Insight I got a job with a very long commute over a couple of mountains, going from 1500 ft to 3000 to about 0 in Palm Springs. I was averaging over 70 on the way to work and had a life-time mileage of 63.2 by the time I left job 9 months later.
Since then I have alternated between no job or work from home, and thus a lot of town driving with nasty stop signs, and short-term jobs with clogged freeway traffic. We used my car for trips to LA on weekends and a couple of long trips to San Francisco, but now that my husabnd bought a new Prius we use his car for those trips.
My lifetime mileage is down to about 60.1 and still dropping. I rarely get my tank mileage about 50 any more. Part of the difference is probably that I'm not new and enthusiastic, although most of the good driving habits are pretty automatic. (I get better twon mileage on the Prius than my husband does, but I rarely drive it!) Then, too, the local driving is often in areas with stop signs and fewer traffic lights, and our town is on a good grade up to a mountain, so you coast going south and use 3rd gear going north.
But I've been wondering if some of the problem is the age of the battery? An engineer I was talking with implied that batteries perform less well with time.