Get 25-150% better fuel economy in your current car!

Hypermiling is a way to get better fuel economy from your car, without having to actually change your car, and without having to modify it at all.

Using this method, I got about 150% more range from my old car than others driving the same model. I got 65mpg (UK) across a whole tank, in a car that should have got about 28MPG. I thereby had better fuel economy than a Prius (Generation 3).

I will just copy a reply I made to one of the 'bright ideas' posts:

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Hypermiling is basically a driving philosophy where you aim to use the least fuel possible to do a certain journey.

Simple techniques include changing up to 5th gear as soon as possible when driving, and also only using half throttle to accelerate (because, engines inject 50% too much fuel on full acceleration to stop the engine 'overheating' (detonating). You can avoid this with moderate acceleration. Other techniques include switching off the engine at stoplights / intersections (because an idling, warmed up engine uses enough fuel to do 20km/h... except you are wasting the petrol by not moving).

Slowing down also helps a LOT, e.g. do 90km/h in a 100 zone. This is usually only possible on dual carriageways or quiet roads, and even on DCs people still come up behind and get mad, rather than just overtaking, which is odd. This even happens on quiet 3-lane motorways at times.

Medium techniques include hidden aero-modifications to remove drag (noting that, at 100km/h, air drag accounts for about 66% or more of all resistance (wasted fuel)). Other techniques include removing unnecessary weight from the car.

A very good technique is to fit an engine block heater (high-power 2-3kw) to your car, use it 15 minutes in the morning, and avoid the VERY inefficient first few minutes of engine warmup (where the car uses 3 the amount of fuel, easily). I used a 'Kenlowe Hotstart' in the UK. Overall, you trade a small amount of power station CO2 for a lot of petrol emissions at the start of a journey (and you also reduce engine wear).

Extreme techniques including using the engine to either accelerate (moderate), or just switch it off and freewheel! You can get very good savings from this (I got nearly 3 times the mileage in an 80s turbo Nissan, thereby beating a generation-3 prius, using this method). However... you shouldnt try this right away. You need to be aware of the changes to brakes, steering, what to do in an emergyency etc, or you could have/cause an accident.

Other extreme techniques include extreme aero-mods. Type 'aerocivic' into google to see what I mean (note the tail is a similiar shape to a plane). This car looks odd but uses only a fraction of the fuel it would normally use! http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/01/more-details-ab.html

The final aim of all this is to reduce CO2 emissions thereby helping the environment. And save money with ever-increasing petrol prices. The forum where I am a member, www.gassavers.org, is a very good overall site for 'hypermiling'.

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For what it is worth, with what I learnt on gassavers.org, I got 150% improvement in a manual 1.8 turbocharged car (modifications : engine pre-heater, mild hidden aero mods (partial grille block). I only get a 30% improvement in my current car (above official figures), but that is to be expected because it is an automatic.

P.S. Moderators : gassavers.org is an eco-friendly website, not a website promoting magnets for the fuel line, and it is, of course, free :)