Quote:
Originally posted by kenny@Aug 5th 2004 @ 11:55 AM
I really am not sold on the driving with the load thing.
Remember Physics 101?
The force of gravity is constant, going up or downhill.
The way I see it whatever you lose going uphill you gain going downhill. So, it's a wash.
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I'm not sure about that. Well maybe not the load thing but I do think one can benefit from hills. I've thought about this a lot while driving and while sitting in Physics 101. I'm sure it's a case by case (car by car) case but think of two equal distance stretch of roads. One has a hill and one is flat. On the hilly stretch think of it as two sections, pre-crest and post-crest. Now think of the flat stretch broken into the same two sections just flat. As long as the marginl difference of the pre-crest from the flat's first section is less than the difference of flat from post crest than you should be making out. ( I hope that makes as much sense in words as it does in my head)
The empirical data that I have for this crazy-speak is this. My parents have a GMC envoy (18.5 mpg avg hghwy, and it KILLS ME) Living in Denver we go skiing a couple times a year. We drive up into the mountains, over-revving the whole way up, getting like an avg of 8-9 mpg. But on the way back down we coast the whole frickin way. I actually have to put it in 3rd gear to engine break down to save the brakes. But guess what the MPG is when we are back down the mtns? Low 20's to mid 20's. That thing would never get those kind of numbers on a flat road.
Something to think about.