Any advice for mountains?

[jjonrofl]

Hello all! I am new to the forums!

I drive a 2009 3-dr auto Yaris liftback and I don't seem to be getting very good mileage... I live in the mountains so I do tend to drive up and down hills a lot. My last tank average was 30.5mpg, but it was because my tire pressure began going low and at the end of the tank the light came on. They were at 22PSI and now I am at 32PSI. I only have about 2600 miles on the car, as I got it new in August.

Does anyone have any advice about driving on mountains and hills? Also, I read somewhere that when waiting at a light, I should either turn off the engine or switch to neutral. Should I switch to N when waiting? Are there any consequences to this? I just want to get better mileage :( The best I've gotten before this is 33mpg with 70% city and 30% highway.

PS- Even though I haven't gotten fantastic mileage yet I loove the yaris and I think it's a blast to drive and I've gotten lots of compliments on it.

[1stToyota]

:tweetz:

Maybe that got Bailout's attention :wink: ...he's the one to ask about this topic

[Yaris Hilton]

Switching your auto Yaris to neutral at a light won't save a worthwhile amount of gas. Turning it off will save some, but you will have to shift it into neutral or Park to restart. I do neither. I got an automatic so it could do its thing automatically, and I'm going to let it do so. I do turn it off when I'm waiting in a slow drive-through line or such.

Driving up and down steep hills is hard on your fuel economy. While climbing you're burning extra fuel to build up the potential energy of the car's mass being at a greater height than before. If you could coast freely down, you'd get most of that back, but you'd be going way too fast, so you have to hold the brakes and convert that energy you've already paid for into waste heat. You can't really change that. What you can do is avoid using enough throttle to go into open-loop mode accelerating uphill, let your speed fall off as you approach the crest of the hill so you carry as little speed as possible over the top, avoid ever using the gas to accelerate downhill when you can just use gravity to do it, and if you can let it coast freely and use speed from one downhill to carry you up the next hill, do so.

[127.0.0.1]

30 is good in hilly areas

[scape]

keep your tires inflated properly too, that's important nonethematter; i found mine were 8psi low since the winter hit, now my fuel economy is starting to be more reasonable with them inflated back to 36 (i don't have stock tires nor tire size, yours might need to be at 32)

[Sir A.Y. Atoyot]

You should be getting better mileage than that, even in hilly country. In August I drove from Vancouver to Edmonton, mountains most of the way, two big people in the car, air conditioning on a lot, and still got 49.5 mpg (Imperial gallons, slightly bigger than the US kind.) Driving style, maybe?

[TLyttle]

Inertia is everything. The Yaris is a rocket compared to the cars I used to drive, but my driving style is hard for me to break, ie charging hills, ignoring corners, carving, brakes are for sissies. Keep that inertia up, best you can! Good for mileage, soft on the components...

[HTM Yaris]

This is how to drive in the mountains

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMMzBNr7GIo

or maybe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=920nzEj3BLA

or maybe you just wanna frustrate a car with triple your horsepower :smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=920nzEj3BLA

[Yaris Hilton]

Inertia is everything. ...Keep that inertia up, best you can!

Conservation of Momentum:
It's not just the law.
It's a good idea!