Ford says get up to 400 miles to a tank of gas in their advertisement. We all know you can get much better if you try and use the tricks here at Greenhybrid.com.

Finally got a clear picture of my gauge today after filling up. Tried to post it on my sig page, so bare with me. What generally happens with my MTE reading is the number increases after driving awhile. After 40 miles, it may jump up again to a even higher number than 628 as the gas gauge starts to move off full. When I get to over 700 MTE, I'll post the change. It takes a lot of 45mpg in a row to get the reading this high. You can't do it with one or two high mileage tanks. At least it has not done it for me.

GaryG

 

OT - Merry Christmas everyone here at Greenhybrid.com. My son took off a year from MIT to help a company develope a security software program. Its rather unique as it test websites and warns you before you click on them. Its designed to work with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Fire Fox. My son wrote the entire Mozilla and part of the Internet Explorer program. It will work in addition to your existing security programs.

Your welcome to download it for free as they are allowing people to try it before its released early 2006. Of course I have the program downloaded on my three computers and my wife's office computers and it works great. Newer versions will be updated in the future at a cost but you can always keep this version and pay nothing. This is our Christmas gift from us and Siteadvisor. Read about it

athttp://www.siteadvisor.com/tellafriend.html

and download it if you want

GaryG

 

The two stars I got means this was a bad post. The picture I made must have been worth a thousand bad words to someone. Please don't download that security program I offerred. It was for friends that benefit from one another. Sorry my MTE is a shock to you, but I don't play games with my mileage.

GaryG

 

The only thing bad about this post was that my MTE has never been above 520-530 or so.

My 5 stars should bring you up to 3 and a third stars. Can't help beyond that though.

Gary - your quest for higher mileage reminds me of a Steven King short story I read forever ago called "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut". It was about a woman on a mission to find the shortest distance between two towns by taking all these backwoods roads. You should read it if you can find a copy of Skeleton Crew. Some may think your mileage is as improbable as a Steven King short story but having seen what can be done in these cars in LESS THAN ideal conditions, I would love to have the chance to test my skills in IDEAL to PERFECT conditions that you enjoy.

Keep it up - I want to see if that MTE gauge goes to 4 digits......

 

The highest MTE I have seen was 440 which was when I bought the car. It seems to have settled around 380 and I am happy with that. I thiunk it topped 400 once when I was on a road trip down I-5 to L.A. Since local conditions are far from ideal (hills, temps outside optimum, high speeds etc.) I am happy with what I got.

 

Thanks Ray, I guess posting that photo was like rubbing salt in the wounb of someone with bad FE with that cold weather up north. The heat during the summer is bad on FE here but some of you have that also.

A number of 520-530 MTE I would think for the AWD where your at is great.

Monday morning I let my son, daughter and two friends take the FEH to Disney World so they could save some gas money on about a 350 mile trip. My daughter got impatient driving the speed limit with my son so she took over at the first service plaza on the turnpike according to him. They came home about 2AM and my daughter had to go to work at 8AM. Needless to say what happen to my MTE when I filled up Tuesday. It felt like my FEH had been raped and left on the side of the road for dead. The 15min average was 26mpg and at fill up the MTE was 472, down from my picture below. All I could do was just give her a bath, reset the numbers and tell her I still loved her no matter what happen. They won't be taking my baby anywhere in the future. Well, maybe my son wll get another chance. He took a flight back to Boston to your conditions yesterday.

As you can see, I was pretty upset yesterday!

Agree with you about my quest for FE. Thats what a FEH can do to someone thats got bad FE all their life. Its like xcel, he has pushed his FE to limits beyond the best out there. When there is no more oil left in this World, no one can blame him for it. When I find the limit for me in the FEH, I'll let you know. The problem is finding the limit. One thing I think your missing from my post is I'm starting to get unreal FE taking most any roads now without being a pain to other drivers. The higher mph EV mode is making this posible now. The recharge tricks are the icing on the cake.

There is no way I'm the only one who can set the cruise in EV at 37mph and drain the battery till the ICE starts up. Beyond 37mph on a regular bases is imposible for me at this point. The "L" gear shift at 43mph, ICE off at 40mph and a preset 37mph cruise is the trick for the FWD with over 15,000 miles on it. Take advantage of coasting under 40mph in EV when posible and you will be at a 600 MTE in a FWD in weather above 55F in no time. My bet, but I can't say for sure, this can be done in the hills also without the cruise.

GaryG

 

I bumped the rating up on this thread. Why punish someone for "going the extra mile" - or is that "GETTING the extra mile"?


I may not get even the 500 MTE range in my 4WD, but I appreciate those who get incredible FE - it gives me hope and I value the advice on driving methods to acheive better FE.

I have been getting around 28 MPG average and that's with that crappy stuff they do to our gasoline during this time of the year in Arizona. Before that, I was getting 29-30 MPG avg. But the best thing has been how this hybrid has changed my driving habits and affected my lifestyle. I no longer have to fear a traffic ticket for speeding and I am stress free in rush-hour traffic now that i drive for FE instead of speed!

 

I'm surprised, until winter hit I was getting well over 500 with each fill up. Now with winter, I seem to have dropped down to 400-450 range. (Speaking of which, I just added my worst tank ever. For once I can't wait for summer and warm weather to get here; just to save my lmpg! Worse yet, we still really haven't hit winter! )

So it's possible, at least here when it's not winter.

 

Like the others in the frozen north, we don't see 500 MTE now either. (We wanted to keep our hyper-miler star through the end of '05 and held off posting fuel numbers for 6 weeks, but are caught up now.)

Yesterday I let hubby drive the FEH instead of the pick-up. Try to be nice to the guy and what does he do - dumps the mileage (again). And he wonders why I nag him about his driving.

I suppose with all the jumbo SUV's using all the fuel they do, global warming will happen sooner and in a few years, those of us in the colder parts of the country won't have to worry about sub-freezing temps.

 

Looked like the best place to put this out and not start another thread.

Hi All,

Maybe someone out there has an explanation for what is going on with my MTE jumping going up and down – same day, no refill etc.

Here is the conundrum. I had filled my tank 2 days ago and at that initial time the MTE read 464 miles. OK – everything went along fine, checking actual miles plus MTE to see if I was gaining or losing. Well seems I was reading say 422 MTE and 44 actual for a total of 466 computed MTE. Well I got in – started up and the MTE was reading say 385 with 46 actual for a total of 431 computed MTE. The instruments stayed this way thru a couple of cycles of on and off then ‘Bam’ back to the higher reading on the MTE.

Could it be because of the temp (was sitting outside), atmospheric pressure - - - -. Just wondering!



Phillip