Review: UG in 1996 Mazda Protege

[fratermus]

{Technical details of protocol and the 33 gauges in this thread.}

Received the unit safe and sound.  I wasn't expected to receive the stalk;  I thought that was an accessory.  Put the yellow rebate info to the side and booted the laptop to do rebate process.  The rebate process took 12mins, not counting printing and envelope stuffing. 

I set up the gauges thusly:
A iMPG
B RPM - my car has no tach
C Coolant Temp - want to watch temps in the brutal TX summers
D MPG ave
E Intake Air temp - not married to this one.
F Distance to Empty - fuel gauge is hidden by GPS :-)

GPS-corroborated distance calibration:  correction = .978 measured over 2+ miles of straight road.

Thoughts:
It's good to have a real RPM and temp gauge.   

I've never had a obdii gauge before so the iMPG info is it's really eye opening.  Like I've been wearing blinders all my driving life.  Tiny fluctuations in accelerator and road grade make huge iMPG differences.  In just the first hour I found myself coasting more, looking ahead more, using a more rational approach to grade changes, and getting into higher gears faster.  Looks like as long as my revs are above 1200rpm or so the higher the gear the better.  The sweet spot seems to be a little under 2000rpm for this motor:  good iMPG without feeling like it's lugging. 

The feds revised/combined mpg for this car is 30.2;  Over the past 4 yrs or so I've owned the car I've been getting 32 with using the uncorrected odometer.  The correction would put my real mpg at around 31 using gentle, egg-on-pedal style driving but no aggressive MPG-saving techniques.  I'm looking for 34mpg, which would be a 10% inprovement.  35mpg combined would make me giggle like a little girl. 

I just went out and cranked up my tire pressure...

[hondahirny]

I'm really enjoying my UG in my Accent.   Works great.   I started off with lots of MPG-related gauges at first, but it seems i got the calibration dialed in pretty good.   Only minor correction factors required for both distance and MPG (under 5%).   I now primarily monitor coolant temp, voltage, intake temp, catalytic temp, etc.    I still have a page set up for trips, where i have iMPG, AMPG, DTE, and so on.   

I was finding myself staring at iMPG too much, so i don't have that up full-time anymore.    As long as i drive smoothly and coast as much as possible, the MPG just works itself out

[BigGreen]

I am with you HONxxxx, as long as I drive "normal", no gauge ever helped me increase my mpg.

Once thing I noticed is, thus mine uses the MAF sensor which is supposedly the most accurate, it still needs adjustment via the 2nd fill up with actual gallons pumped.

Thus it calculates the average MPG, the gauge is completely off. 35 gallons with 16.4 average, the DTE left after around 200 miles should be around 200 miles, and not over 300.

So the next fill-up with entering the exact number of gallons pumped brought it all up to "real".

Greetings!

[fratermus]

The trick, IMO, is to remap one's normal driving style.

The gauge is not a magic wand, but it is a way to get empirical feedback on which methods are productive and which are counterproductive.   I have already learned a great deal about my own driving style and made modifications.

I will point out that obdii and vacuum are wildly popular among hypermilers and those would be the folks most likely to already know what they are doing, I would think. 

[wingerr]

Adopting a driving style like grandma probably produces the best MPG, slow acceleration, lower highway speeds, less fun.
Also pretending you have no brakes will help a lot towards the best MPG goal, by not accelerating hard up to each stop light and backing off the gas well in advance of the next stop.  Of course then you wouldn't want to draft trucks, because that wouldn't be safe, although it makes for pretty astounding differences in the instantaneous MPG readings.  Boxy cars vs. aerodynamic ones exaggerate the benefits.

[BigGreen]

Adopting a driving style like grandma probably produces the best MPG, slow acceleration, lower highway speeds, less fun.
Also pretending you have no brakes will help a lot towards the best MPG goal, by not accelerating hard up to each stop light and backing off the gas well in advance of the next stop.  Of course then you wouldn't want to draft trucks, because that wouldn't be safe, although it makes for pretty astounding differences in the instantaneous MPG readings.  Boxy cars vs. aerodynamic ones exaggerate the benefits.

  This is why they sell gauges and all other fancy stuff.

Greetings!