Okay... first long trip w/ my Jetta (1000 mile round trip from Maryland to South Carolina and back. On the way down (Good Friday), way too much traffic to give it a fair shake. Lot's so of backups and stop-n-go... but still averaged 42 mpg...
Today, on the return trip, I did everything I could think of to improve mpg.... drafting large trucks (maintaining a safe distance, of course), using "hypermileing" when feasible and cruise control alternatively. I got the "avg" mpg indicator on the MFD to read 50.0 four times and 50.1 once (even snapped a couple pics w/ cell phone for proof to a couple of my "hybrid" buds). Once I got several dozen miles into the trip, I had worked it up to the upper 40's, it stayed around 48 +/- 1.5 mpg.
I did have about 30 miles of city driving before getting onto the interstate, and when I filled up just prior to getting home, the mileage calculation was 47.307 mpg (492 miles on 10.4 gallons of fuel) That included 3 stops for restroom breaks and food).
I kept the RPM between 1500 and 2300 as much as possible, which meant running less than 70 mph (VERY hard for me to do! ), but using the "instant mpg" indicator as a guide, it seemed to make a difference.
I'm pretty pleased with this performance, and realize it takes some dedicated "geek perspective" driving to get those last 3-4 mpg out of it, but I'll take it!
I'm keeping a spreadsheet on my mileage, fuel, fillups, etc... even keeping track of where I get each tank. I'll make the move to the "Fuelly" software soon enough, but this way I've got history to input.
Back to commuting tomorrow morning (54 miles each way, southern MD to Arlington VA), so my next challenge is to keep the commuting avg over 40 mpg... wish me luck!
