I had a pretty rough day on my tank today. I started from home at 84.7 mpg. I drove my kids into town, had a lot of bad luck, and was down to 83.6 after about 30 miles. Then it got ugly.

I was alone with my 16 year old and I decided I am past due to resume driver training. He will be eligible to get his license in 2.5 months, and he needs a LOT more time behind the wheel. Mind you, I plan to give him EcoCar when he gets his license because it is underpowered and a manual transmission. I am teaching him in EcoCar and he has never driven anything else. I want his first car to be a manual trans so that he will be able to drive a stick for the rest of his life. If he learns on an automatic or an automatic is his first regular car, he may never learn to drive a stick and he may never afford himself the joy of a manual trans.

So today he drove about 1 hour, and covered about 50 miles, raising my trip meter from about 200 miles to about 250 miles. My mpg display fell from 83.6 to 79.4 with him behind the wheel!!!!! I don't know what was more horrifying, his driving and nearly running off my side of the road several times into the ditch or woods at 50+ miles per hour, or watching my mpg slip away!!!

Fortunately, after I got the wheel back and drove the last 6 miles to home and got 2 ticks back, up to 80.2 mpg.

Tomorrow we plan to get in at least another couple hours of practice!!! I should get some special mpg dispensation for driver training time!! What do you think?

Bob

U got my vote!

Learning to drive can be hard enough. Having to learn on a manual makes it a lot more challenging. If you throw monitoring fuel economy on top of that, it could be a disaster. In my opinion, drivers should learn safety before they ever have to even think about fuel economy. That is a lot to throw on to a new driver. Teaching your kid how to drive should be way more important than your ranking in the database.

Obviously, you know how to squeeze the miles out of a gallon of gas. I say mention that you were teaching your kid how to drive in your notes on the tank and move on.

I haven't made a special car for when my wife or parents drive my car. (My wife has actually done quite well.)

Mr Kite makes some good points about safety.....

Oh no, I am not teaching him to hypermile or to even monitor his fuel economy. I am teaching him to drive, and teaching him about safety. I let him idle at stops and I have not even introduced him to cruise control yet. I never bring up FE with him at the wheel. I just glance over at the display now and then to see how the mpg is doing. This is about teaching him to drive a manual transmission since that is what he will be driving when he gets his license. I will let him discover fuel economy and hyper miling on his own someday or introduce it to him many months or some years from now when he is thoroughly comfortable in the drivers seat. Let me tell you, I know how challenging learning to drive a car with a manual trans is on him. My first car was a stick. I am trying to spoon feed him what he needs to know to learn to drive and to keep us both alive now and for a long time.

As for my request for special mpg dispensation for driver training, it is too bad there are no tongue in cheek smilies. I just thought it might be a fun way to introduce a thread about driver training stories to the website.

I say if he can't keep the car at at least 80mpg to take him to the back woods and beat him. Man one bad tank won't kill you. This tank I'm on is crappy right now over 150 miles with the AC on with 3 passengers while driving like I typical Cali driver with mountains. 38.9mpg displayed after the day was done. I've brought it back to 49 as of today at about 390 miles and if I get it to break 51 by the end of that tank I will be extremely happy.

And the joys of teaching man I have about nine years til that happens for me. Maybe I can teach him on the Box.

James


Best MPG tank: 57.7 calculated
Best Trip: 73.8mpg displayed(Palmdale"LACR" to LAX)

rjbarlow,
I understand what you are saying. I'm always glancing at the display when my wife is driving. That is good that you have not brought up FE. Learning how to drive a manual takes a lot of patience from both teacher and student. I've been on both ends. When I was learning, my dad was extremely impatient and offered little instruction. I ended up learning with my mom quietly sitting in the passenger seat. As for teaching, I've had one success story and one failure story. As for my failure story, that's part of why we don't have a manual transmission car any more.

I also have 9 years before I have to really start teaching. In the meantime, I think I will just use Need for Speed: Most Wanted as an instructional tool.

Today, my son drove 4 hours: 2 hours in a 25 miles per hour subdivision with many stop signs, and 2 hours on a 4-lane highway with no lights or stops. We logged about 115 miles total, and my mpg dropped from 80.2 to 69.6 at about 382 miles on the trip meter. He dropped from 70.0 to 69.6 just trying (3 or 4 times) to back into the driveway.

I will have to work on getting this tank back up tomorrow.

BTW, during driver training I even disable autostop by turning the "Econ" button off.