FE Turnaround: Disappointment to Satisfaction, 2010 Yaris. Almost +50 MPH. Thank You!

[STC]

Four months ago in late December, I purchased my first new car: 2010 Yaris 3-Dr Hatchback, M/T, P185/60R/15 wheels. I had studied the Toyota line and made my decision for purchase using two main factors: 1) Fuel Economy (FE), and 2) Price. Not to mention, I did like the style of this Toyota vehicle. Driving it back home, I was thrilled thinking I will now be in the high 30’s FE range. Well, reality set in when I was filling up too soon the following week! Only 27 MPG!?!? What? How can this be? I’ve heard so much this was the car for FE. I felt stupid dropping 12 bills and getting less than 30 MPG on a supposedly high FE car! The estimated combined EPA MPG for the Manual 3-Dr is 32 MPG. Online, I found this Yaris Forum. For the next several days I constantly read the mileage threads and all other threads I could get my hands on. It was most interesting what Yaris owners had to say. I started to realize it was not the car... it was the driver! I needed to change my driving attitude and apply physical and mental common road sense to the car. So, that exactly is what I did! In the following weeks and months, I have seen improvements I can’t imagine. Thanks to the great Threads, “Using DFCO to increase your MPG” http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4248 and “Fuel Efficiency and the Yaris” http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5979 have brought up my FE to +49MPG (40city/60hwy combined) within 4 months and only 2,900mi on the vehicle... And most during the height of the Pennsylvania winter season to boot. What is the secret? I do glides (light grade PA mountains) using DFCO, never warm up the vehicle, only use the defroster when needed (short intervals), always slowly accelerate & brake (grandma driving style), keep my shifts at 1600-2000 RPM (little higher on hills and ramps-2,200 RPM), try as hard as possible to stay under 2,000 RPM cycle, and drive at 55 MPH or under. When I cruise (5th gear) at 55 MPH I’m roughly at 2,200 – 2,300 RPM, so I have brought it down to 50 MPH at 2,000 – 2,100 RPM on the highway. Also, at times I shut off the engine at long lights around town, and all the time at ATM’s, car washes, or drive-thru waits. There is one area I have changed and believe is one of the factors to better FE? I switched over to Non-Ethanol Reformulated Gasoline (RFG), instead of using Ethanol RFG. It is actually called, “Reformulated Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending” or simply RBOB gas... a conventional gas. I started to use this gasoline with my second fill. Pennsylvania is not an Ethanol Mandatory State... yet! Give it some time Pennsylvania for the MTBE ban to fully take effect (http://www.npra.org/issues/transportation/smfs/?fa=pa) and all merchants to use ethanol. Although difficult to find merchants that deal with non-ethanol gas, it’s not impossible. There are some merchants who will not buy into Ethanol propaganda and take the incentive to sell. There are only three gas stations left in my area, in which the owners believe Ethanol is bad for the vehicles, as well as being just as bad environmentally as MTBE additive. Mind you, they do not care for government mandates and economic intrusions. Yet, they will have to comply when the law is in place. In the meanwhile, the merchants will sell as long as they can without ethanol... I highly recommend non-ethanol gas if you can obtain. Part for part there is more energy transfer without ethanol, meaning more MPG in RFG. In the summer, I plan to try the techniques of “Hypermiling” as well as physically increasing my tire pressure from 32 PSI to 38 or 40 PSI. With summer gas and using the hypermiling techniques, I’m shooting for +50 MPG! I already broke 500 miles on a tank (504mi) the other day, but less than 50 MPG in my calculation! I know this (+50 MPG) is an attainable value. I’ll be happy if I can make several +500 mile tanks during this summer along with over 50 MPG!?!? Thanks to all for the great wealth of information... I couldn’t have done it without you! I would recommend new owners to try these techniques and be consistent with them... you will definitely see improvement.

Cheers!


Deal Fill (Ethanol) 12/30/09 – 01/08/09 288/10.528 = 27.896 MPG
1st Fill (Ethanol) 01/08/10 – 01/26/10 360/10.276 = 35.033 MPG
2nd Fill (No Eth) 01/26/10 – 02/16/10 396/10.231 = 38.705 MPG
3rd Fill (No Eth) 02/16/10 – 03/05/10 428/10.192 = 41.993 MPG
4th Fill (No Eth) 03/05/10 – 03/20/10 466/09.952 = 46.824 MPG
5th Fill (No Eth) 03/20/10 – 04/05/10 472/09.972 = 47.332 MPG
6th Fill (No Eth) 04/05/10 – 04/13/10 504/10.253 = 49.156 MPG

Note: My 1st Fill (Eth) is when I started to drive with common sense. You can see the drastic change. Most fill-ups within 10mi during the flashing last bar, except the end of the Dealer Fill. 4th Fill (No Eth) involved a highway round trip of 200mi. 5th Fill (No Eth) gas gauge not flashing and two highway round trips of 70mi. 6th Fill (No Eth) involved two highway round trips of 180mi and 150mi.