Well hey

Last week after my first-evah $50 fill-up I thought a few days later why does my car get relatively crappy mileage for a 4-cylinder? I mean aside from the facts that it’s heavy, has all-wheel drive, and dadblammit it’s so much goddam fun to drive what with the turbo and all, it consistently gets 23mpg. My last car, a VW Passat, got as high as 34mpg on the highway and it’s not that different from what I’m driving now aside from no all-wheel drive, so a little over halfway through the last fill-up I tried a few things to improve that figure.

• It’s fun to drive fast, but I figured going 70mph instead of 80-90mph* would help. Duh, Barbie. So I get in the 3rd/4th lane with the geezers and let everyone else fly past to the left. I even set the cruise control. And it’s funny but I kind of like going slower; there’s less tension and it’s a lot quieter. Oh and I don’t have to constantly look for cops.
• Having a six-speed stickshift is fun too, but I remembered a long-ago story in some car magazine to the effect that a medium-heavy foot on the gas coupled with upshifting as soon as possible might help, so I’m basically in 3rd gear by the time I’m across an intersection and in 6th once it gets up to about 55.

I filled ‘im up again last night and found out that even though I’d only started doing this with less than a half-tank left, I got 26mpg, so I’m continuing this lil’ experiment.

*the unwritten speed limit in Massachusetts, more or less.