April 21, 2012

• Cruising Through the Gas Crisis

  

  Living in Southern California has some wonderful benefits, including temperate weather, rich blue skies, close proximity to both the ocean and the mountains, and a wealth of cultural diversity which makes for excellent restaurant choices. The young enjoy a vibrant club scene and although we haven’t had an NFL franchise in a couple of decades, sports fans are usually happy with the choices available in a number of arenas. I understand the Dodgers opener was a lot more positive this year than last! 

  I’m always apt to proclaim you’ve gotta take the bad with the good, and sometimes there are drawbacks to living here as well. High taxes, including an almost 10 percent sales tax for example. California pretty much leads the country when it comes to attempts to control greenhouse gases. As a child, I “clearly” remember when “smog alerts” were not only common. Sometimes we were advised to stay home from school the air quality was so bad. It’s still not great in the urban areas, but there are more clear days when you can see downtown L.A. from three to five miles away than in my youth. Because of the restrictions on fuel refining, our gas prices are a tad higher than the rest of the country. (We also have a LOT of automobiles out here in SoCal, so much so that the freeways resemble more of a long parking lot than an expressway during what is ironically called “drive time”.)  

  Whenever there is a “gas crisis” (which for some reason it seems we’ve been experiencing off and on since 1973 or so, with the “latest” iteration coming in late 2008 with no end in sight.) prices at the pump can sometimes spell doom for the weekly budget, esp. when one is still living pretty much paycheck to paycheck. You’ll find a lot of Priuses on the roads out here. They get an average of 50 mpg, or so one of my Prius owning friends tells me.

  Last year I was forced to get alternate transportation, when the supposedly “routine” replacement parts on my 11 year old sports car started to drive my overloaded budget over the edge of reason and into uncharted territory. I read Consumer Reports. I looked all across the great internet for deals. I weighed in with the hybrid owners. I bought my “Mock Evo” (Mitsubishi Lancer ES with manual transmission and 4 cyl. internal combustion 2.0 liter, 148 hp Mivec (Mitsubishi’s Innovative Valve Timing Electronic Control) engine instead of a hybrid (I really wanted a Honda CR-Z) because prices are higher for hybrids, and further “down the road” one will need to replace the batteries which allow for the 50 mpg rating.

    The first car I ever owned with “cruise control” was the Eclipse in 1999. I only used it sporadically, ususally on trips to Vegas where driving can get pretty boring. Even though my new car has a manual transmission, it has cruise control as well, and a few weeks ago, I began using it regularly on my daily commute. The Mivec engine gets up to 33 mpg on the highway. I wanted to see how high I could go during my regular commute. My first few fillups (without cruise control) were averaging about 24 mpg. Where my last car got about 18-20 mpg on city streets, my Lancer is  now averaging 27-30 mpg on a mix of freeway and city streets. (And it has gotten almost 35mpg on the open road using cruise control). I’m filling up after driving 325 miles. I fill the 10 gallon (roughly 13 with reserve) tank about twice a month now. I’m driving about 15  miles a day on my commute, and with the money I’m saving on gas, I’ve been able to make a few “trips around town” on weekends as well. Just this morning I took a rather long trip up into the San Gabriel mountains, to Mt. Baldy, on a photo expedtion.

  I “learned” to use my cruise control (CC) in this time, and now I hardly ever turn the system off. (I do understand why some cars have “acceleration problems” however. One’s foot on the gas pedal isn’t in charge when a computer is basically injecting gas into the cylinders for you.) I don’t advise using cruise control as I have been doing if you’re not a careful or alert driver. I’ve been driving for well over 40 years. I’ve driven everything from a motorcycle to a big rig. I’m pretty good at it, and I’m not afraid to “learn” something, like how to use cruise control to save money at the pump!

  My cruise controls are on the steering wheel, so I don’t have to fiddle around with “looking” for anything. There are raised areas (like the home key on a keyboard) on the “acc res” and  “coast set” buttons. I will admit not even knowing what these abbreviations stood for at first. I knew I could press the “acc res” when in CC to accelerate instead of using the gas pedal. I didn’t really understand the use of this button for “resume”. Or for that matter, how to use the “cancel” button to it’s immediate left. Let me tell you what I’ve learned, and again, I want to warn you, DON’T substitute the CC for the regular foot pedals. And don’t get lazy. It’s pretty easy to do so when the car seems like it’s driving itself. I also want to impress upon you that I got the manual transmission so I would feel more like I was in control. Using the manual, and using the CC when I can, has helped me to save gas, and enjoy my commute like never before.

  Sometimes I just want to bypass the freeway exit to work and keep on going. This morning I had my first actual “longish trip” using the CC, and it was almost exciting seeing the computer display telling me how much farther my mpg were going on the open highway.

  The first “leg” of my commute is about 2 miles on one street. The second is another 2 miles, then about 8 miles on the freeway, and I”m at work. It takes about 20 minutes. As soon as I accelerate to about 40mph and shift to fifth, I hit the “coast set” button, which locks in my speed. I drive to work at 5:30 in the morning, and even in SoCal there isn’t much traffic at that hour, in fact there’s hardly any until I get about a mile from the freeway, but I have been using the CC on the trip home too. If I’m approaching a stoplight, I hit the “cancel” button, which saves my locked in speed of 40mph. When the light is green, and I upshift back to fifth gear, I hit “acc res” which resumes my locked in speed of 40mph. If I have to slow down, I press “coast set” which unlocks the CC so my car slows down. If there is an emergency, or I need to stop, hitting the brakes or gunning the gas pedal overrides the CC altogether. On the freeway, I’m getting pretty good at maneuvering through traffic using just the CC.

  My trip this morning, using three freeways, and traveling about 50 or so miles, allowed me to see 34.2 mpg. Even after I went up into the mountains. (I turned the CC completely off during my 2nd and 3rd gear slolam up to the 5000 foot marker at Mt. Baldy and going downhill as well. ) I found I was getting 27.7mpg.

  There are more gas concious engines available in modern automobiles. And hybrid/electric cars are getting better as the manufacturers develop better batteries. However my little ”Mock Evo” has a bit more power in it’s engine that I wouldn’t have found in a Yaris (106hp) or Corolla (132hp) or Fit (123hp). As you probably know, I like sports cars.

  I’m just cruising through life with mine. And saving some money on gas while having fun at the same time.

  See you on the highway!   

  REQUIRED READING: Overview of the 2011 Mitsubishi Lancer ES

  • 9:56 pm
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