City around here is more like medium sized town. Not actually city stoplights every 300 yards. I'm talking a mile or two between stops. The only true city driving I do is the last 3 miles to/from work typically. More lights/stops in that stretch than the previous 30miles combined. I wouldnt drive 45 on a hwy even if it netted me 30mpg in this thing. I dont have time for that nonsense.
Anyone that tries to hypermile a full size SUV needs slapped. If its light traffic and I have absolutely nothing to do I'll usually cruise upper 60s on the hwy. Its 55 where I'm at so that is still moving at a reasonable speed with regards to other traffic. That seems to get me my best mpg at a reasonable pace. I'll pay the price in mpg for the 15min it saves me each day not driving like grandma. That's like an extra week of time I dont spend in a vehicle at the end of a year.
I absolutely agree with you. That's why I said earlier if you drove that slow you'd die from boredom.
Anyone with a large SUV shouldn't be worried about fuel mileage anyways. I gripe all the time that they're pushing to make them more and more fuel-efficient it at the cost of engine longevity and durability and stuff like that. It's a 6000 pound tank. I'm certainly not worried about four five miles per gallon versus a little Honda.
I can see things both ways though because on a trip it's really not about the time. If you drive 80 miles an hour or push it pretty hard you only get there 15 or 20 minutes quicker in the average fairly long road trip versus driving 62 to 70.
I do get a kick out of being the GPS sometimes though. We were going to Louisville Kentucky one time to look at a car and we were in a GM Oldsmobile minivan but those things are quick and ride nicely. We got behind a brand new charger who was moving right along. We were at speeds pushing 90 miles an hour for quite a while. It's only about a three-hour trip. I think we ended up knocking 18 minutes off the original GPS time.
It's fun to do but kind of unnecessary when you're relaxing on a vacation or whatever what's another 20 minutes especially if it saves you 5 or $6 in fuel. I guess you might save ten bucks and fuel because the mileage disco down as you speed up.
As far as maximizing mileage. You have to get to your maximum speed slowly and stay there without stopping it at all. I have an Excursion stretch SUV that has the V10 in it and if you fill it up and then get on the highway and get up to 62 miles per hour and then reset the miles per gallon , it will hit 16.2 miles per gallon on the freeway. As soon as you come off an off-ramp though it starts to drop. Around town it never sees 10. It's lucky to see 9.1. I think 16.1 is very impressive in an almost 40 foot long vehicle. Some people don't get that in a standard Excursion but then again they actually give it gas may take off. In this thing it's basically driven like on an eggshell and the pedal is never pressed over a very small amount.
