Hi Leah, thanks and welcome backatchya....ok it's been a little over 4 weeks now I've had my baby and I still love it beyond words. I look forward to every time I get to drive it. And I haven't had this many looks since I had my pumpkin orange 1977 Mercedes 300D. (Now that was fun because you had to push the gas pedal about 5 seconds before you wanted to go anywhere and it made engine noises like an actual tank gunning around.) I've only seen one other new HCH on the road in the past month so I guess people are curious....but I digress, what have I learned in this month?
1) How to read the gas gauge: I had no idea that when I drove off the lot it had a full tank of gas. So looking at the dial a couple days later, when it was still full, I couldn't tell if it was reading "full" or "empty" because the solid row of white dots (to my simple mind) could have meant either way. Finally when a dot or two disappeared I figured it out.
2) The mpg indicator by the odomoter fluctuates a LOT. Depending when I fill up I could claim 50 mpg or 37 mpg. One day I managed to reach work at 50mpg and was I excited. The next day, same drive, same weather, same time I got only 42mpg. So I've changed over to the manual method for the database rather than relying on the display. My husband uses it each morning to do an 8 mile round trip which I thought was the main reason keeping the mileage down. However he hasn't driven it in 3 days now and it's still in the mid-forties mpg. Reminds me of someone else here who posted dejectedly that his wife and teenage son got better mileage driving his car than he did, LOL.
3) I'm embarrassed to admit I restarted the ignition once when it was only in auto-stop. I was in my driveway talking to my husband and just forgot it was in AS mode and just assumed I hadn't yet started the car, so I turned it on again. Normally on my other car you'd hear a weird screechy kind of sound trying to restart an engine already on, but this didn't do anything. So I just took my foot off the brake and it turned on again of course......
4) I'm still trying to P&G, which when I first did it reminded me vividly of how my grandfather used to drive. He used to rev-up and coast, rev-up and coast, and my family would yell at him that he was driving them crazy and he should just keep a steady foot on the gas.....So maybe the old geezer knew something. Now I know not to accelerate too much to get the revs too high and watch the bars of charge and assist to guide me. I also baby that gas pedal with slow accels, barely nudge it when maintaining speed, and coast to every light. I've also tried the cruise control which seems to help the mileage quite a bit. But by the time I get home the darn numbers are always back in the '40s again.....
5) So....I went and bought a tire gauge. I am now an official hybrid geek.
A new HCH owner - thanks
Re: A new HCH owner - thanks
