by Smartie Pants

Created on: July 01, 2007

I got 35 mpg from my 27 mpg rated car. We had this old bus that we converted to an RV. My wife and I were heading from Washington State to Mesa, Arizona for the winter.
We wanted to take our car too and planned to tow it down behind the bus on a rental dolly and went to pick it up the day before we left for the warmer climes. It seemed like a disaster when we were confronted by the brand new manager complete with the company hat and a rag hanging out of her back pocket. I could write a whole article on her and her mannerisms, but the relevant part was that she wasn't going to let us rent the dolly.

So the new plan was to have my wife follow me in the car. My buses top speed is about 56 miles and hour and it doesn't take much of a hill to slow it down, you've might have seen me chugging up a hill on the shoulder at speed as slow as 15 mph. if you saw a car behind it going slow up the hill with the bus, even more of a chance it was me.

By forced extreme gentle acceleration, low top speeds and slowing gradually as possible, our 3.1 liter 96 Oldsmobile Cierra (it's OK, you can laugh at the car) got an average of 35 mpg over about 1500 miles.

So there is a simple effective fix for higher mileage, not much fun, but it works.

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