At least she's driving it... celebrate the little steps. Big steps can be made with enough little steps allowed to occur, yes?

 

My wife has made great strides to improve FE in the first month of owning the car. It turns out she was actually trying too hard and not accelerating enough from a dead stop going up hills. She was letting the car drag out in the 20mpg range too long and then hitting the next light and starting again. Once she saw me accelerating harder, and then letting off the gas to get the RPM's down to 1200 and the mpg back up to about 70, she did the same. Our first tank we got 43 mpg average, the second tank 44mpg and now after she changed her driving technique we are running at 48 mpg average on the meter, which will translate to 49mpg calculated. We are 3/4 through this tank now. I know it was her stop and go technique that was the problem as she would get 50mpg on the way to work at 5:30 am and about 28 mpg on the way home for a 38 mpg average. The last three days she has averaged 46 mpg. I still get higher mpg than she does, but I will just give her time to pick up the next little technique. The car is also improving greatly as it is breaking in and only has 1200 miles on it now. I got 59.1 mpg on the way to work on Tuesday and about 50 mpg on the way home for a 55mpg average. On the first tank, I was only able to get around 49 mph most of the time. I am also improving a bit as well I guess.

 

If you're watching Jake.:



If you saw what he said, my apologies.

Let's keep this thread going and forget that unpleasantness.

 

You are MUCH luckier than me already.
I tried to buy wife a Civic Hybrid back in March-06, she complained it is too small, powerless, cheap.....
We ended up with a V6 Accord at 17MPG!! What can I say? She was "nice" enough not sticking with a bigger SUV!

Don't complain, you are a lucky man.

 

If all else fails, there's the "Cliff Clavin Negative Reinforcement" solution:

Equip the driver's seat with a high-voltage wire controlled by a remote trigger relay. Then every time the wife does the leadfoot routine or engages in other FE-killing behavior, you hit the trigger and give her a nasty jolt.

 

My Wife drives a 540i, so you can imagine when she drives, the HCH's gas pedal has had the pleasure of being mashed into the floorboard. I gave up on nursing the mileage after the 2nd day of ownership.

 

Same here. I just gave up for the sake of peace