Attached is a pic of a tire just removed. This tire was run only slightly over pressure as I run them at recommended pressures. Somehow this one ended up at a pound or two higher. I got probably 95% wear out of it.

Bottom line: if you run your tires hard they will wear out the center faster. The higher the pressure the faster they wear out the center.

Under my state driving law & regulations it is illegal to run in neutral.

The reason is simple: if you have an emergency you have to remember to shift into gear or drive before you respond. This is dangerous not because on your best day you'll get it right, but because on your worst day you'll do what you normally do, put it neutral, and then forget you're in neutral when something happens.

I recall being taught that in drivers ed in high school.

If you run tires hard they lose some resistance to puncture.

Tires that are too hard change the dynamics of the spring-damper system designed into the car and make it a bit less stable.

I call these mpg numbers "rally numbers" simply because they do not represent the real world. They bring in methods of operating your FEH that can be dangerous and wear out tires faster.

Much as it's fun to do I think its also dumb in normal usage.

 

Your post here is a Joke right?

GaryG

 

Hey, everyone's entitled to voice their own opinions. That's why I like reading the posts in this website so much. Bill, what vehicle is that tire in the picture taken from...FEH? And how many miles did that tire go at the slightly higher pressure? My FEH has +40K miles and I rotate my own tires. I've always run above the Ford recommended pressure, fluctuating somewhere between 38 and 42 psi. I've never seen that kind of wear on my tires.

Anyway, back to the subject. Thanks for clarifying my questions everybody. As far as I know, I'm using E10. My experience with my '08 is that the car doesn't aggressively shut down the ICE below 40mph. Unless I double-tap, the car will glide down to about 30-35mph before shutting the engine down. During my warm ups from now on, I'll just leave it in D. And I won't be so squeamish about shifting to N from now on since apparently R or even P won't hurt the car. One more point I want to clarify. During my accel from a stop, at what speed do you guys recommend I do the first "fake shift" to get some regen? It always seems to slow me down a lot if I do it below 20mph. So I wait until closer to 30mph to do it, but that takes a while since I'm also accelerating slowly to avoid starting the ICE. Thanks everybody!

 

Wear all depends on the tire, not considering alignment.

I ran my original Continental EcoPlus tires at 48 to 50 psi and got 80,000 miles out of them.

I The ran a set of Michelin Lattitutude Tours at the same and got 25,000 miles, but the corners wore first. Alignment was checked, and was on the high end of within tolerance.

Run my Protenza tires on my Honda Insight at 50 psi.
Got 50,000 miles out of an advertised 40,000 mile tire with even wear.

Generally speaking, on the MAJORITY of cars, people get less tread life running at "recommended" pressure. The recommended pressure is a compromise between several aspects. You can trade less comfort with higher pressure SAFELY if you wish to gain more mpg, and in general, longer tread life.

There are exceptions. You have the ability to try it for yourself.

The Illegal to drive in Neutral law is obsolete.
Dates back probably 75 years. The day of manual transmissions only.
You can't tie your horse to a fire hydrant either.
It is also illegal to drive with the engine off. Then came hybrids! But the law is still there.
Just because something is "on the books" does not mean it is a valid law.

 

My factory tire recomendation is 32x4. It's like driving across a soft sandy beach. I run all my tires up to max sidwall cold pressure. My factory Dunlops are ran at 50 PSI. The first set lasted 80,000 miles, the second was changed around 130,000 miles and now I need a new set at 200,000 miles.

I've gained around 7MPG for the added pressure across those 200,000 miles.

The biggest contributor to balding tires is front end misalignment.

Steering, brakes and all electronic safety features still operate normally while in N. There is no delay in utilizing these features. Proper judgement must be used at all times when driving, it is usually not dangerous coasting in N below 40MPH in most cases.

But it will likely be dangerous if tried at 70 for example.

I recall being taught that in drivers ed in high school.

I was wondering where your data is from. In my 40 years of driving mushy tires create more roll on a curve while harder tires are less.

I suspect the numbers posted here are actual numbers achieved by the members here, performed in the real world.

 

All joking set aside, your FEH will shut down at 30mph after 3 seconds of coasting in "D". It will also shut down with all conditions met below 40mph ('05 - '08) by shifting to "L" and letting off the gas pedal. Always shift back to "D" or "N" once you start to go EV. I always made that shift just as the RPM needle bounces up a little for the sign just before EV.

I'm not sure you understand the "Fake Shift" technique that I came up with in 2005. I called it the fake shift because you're letting off the gas pedal like you would shift a manual transmission. The purpose of the "Fake Shift" was to reduce RPM's and begin at that speed with lower RPM's. So the purpose is to reduce RPM's before the eCVT does it on its own. This technique just lowers RPM to save fuel and adjust the gear ratio to your speed quicker.

GaryG

 

Remember that in most states you are telling people to operate their car in a manner that violates driving regulations.

If you understand spring damper systems you'll get it, otherwise...

These represent cherry picked numbers generated in selected situations not total miles divided by total gallons.

The tire is from my FEH at 60,000 miles on the car. Probably had only 5-10,000 remaining based on the other tire.

 

You're a big joke telling guy I think? Those tires are not from your FEH and you can't read or understand Law.

GaryG

 

Installed a DeeZee Brush Guard on my FEH. Based on one run along I-80 at the speed limit of 75 mph for about 200 miles, my mileage has improved from ~28.5 to 30.1 as read out on the FEH readout.

Who'd a thunk it? I expected mileage to go down! I'll follow up if the numbers bear this out.

garyg: Look it up in your states driving regulations. Get over it, you're telling people to do something that is illegal in something like 43 states if my internet info is accurate.

And yes, I did look it up in my states driving regs.

While I don't argue that you can produce the numbers you do by selective driving techniques, and surely these kind of numbers are fun to generate and compare with others experience, they are a fiction for the real world.

It would be clearly tough for a State Trooper to figure out you're driving in neutral... and issue a ticket... but contemplate the possibility that an accident occurs and the reconstruction shows you were in neutral... and you're then held liable for damages? Those one in a million lawsuits are one in a million...

 

"Steering, brakes and all electronic safety features still operate normally while in N. There is no delay in utilizing these features."

True, but irrelevant to the point being made.

"The biggest contributor to balding tires is front end misalignment."

True, but only if you drive with a misaligned front end...

"...mushy tires create more roll on a curve while harder tires are less."

True, but only part of the story... And I didn't say anything about running them soft.