Folks

just wanted to see if others here have the same findings as me. I don't
have an accurate fuel consumption meter to confirm it.

5 speed manual:

flat road driving with a constant speed best fuel economy is the highest gear
you have

however, as soon as you start to climb a hill, then reduce the gear to keep
the revs closer to the maximum torque range of the engine.

On my mitsubishi (V6 3L) at 100Km/H in 5th I find that I change back to 4th or
perhaps 3rd depending on the hill / load of passengers n stuff.

My mate on the other hand just keeps his foot on the pedal untill the revs
start to slow (meaning he's loosing speed), then changes down to get to the
same gear as I got to earlier.

On an automatic gearbox:

I flick it out of OD as soon as I start up the hill, and flick it back on
nearing the crest (as speed starts to rise anyway). This often requires no
change in pedal indicating to me that I'm not needing to open up the
'throttle' more meaning using less fuel.

no?

See Ya
(when bandwidth gets better ;-)

Chris Eastwood
Photographer, Programmer              
Motorcyclist and dingbat

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