Piston Slap: Bogging, Tripminding, Economizing
Joel writes:
I have a manual transmission car and am traveling on the highway at a speed that has my RPMs low for mpg. Now say I come to a hill, and my car can hold its speed and rpms, but I have to floor it or nearly floor it to keep my speed. I could downshift, where my engine rpms would go up, and I wouldn’t have to give as much gas through the pedal. My question is, is downshifting using more gas than keeping it in the same gear?
Now, I do realize that this is pretty much an OCD kind of question, but then again, if the answer is rather large, it would be good to know. And, if the answer is negligible, that would be cool too. So, if you know the answer, or is the kind of thing to put on the website, I’d love to know the answer. Thanks in advance.
FYI: the cars in question are a 2001 Honda Civic and a 1985 Volvo 245, and a 2007 Honda Fit, and all are sticks. That said, I even converted the wife to driving a stick, the Fit is hers!
Sajeev Answers:
I answered this question once, well before there was a Truth About Cars. Years ago I installed a somewhat desirable, vacuum fluorescent display’d Ford “Tripminder” computer in lieu of the bean-counted clock in my 1988 Mercury Cougar. Proud of my accomplishment, I religiously monitored my instantaneous fuel economy to ultimately answer your question. And the answer was most inconclusive.
You have three factors in play: gearbox ratios, engine torque, and long term durability. Let’s stick with that final point, because going uphill at low rpms with high throttle effort isn’t a good idea for the engine. The extra load can have a negative impact on any number of bearings, shafts, etc. And while you might not notice any problems today…
Then there’s engine torque: if you have a gutsy V8 or turbo diesel at the helm, the motor is far less likely to “bog” at lower rpms when you hit the throttle. But most importantly, it’s game over when the motor bogs, downshift to save your engine all that unnecessary stress.
Finally there’s gearing: wide ratio or short ratio gearboxes in particular. When I did my fuel economy tests on my (wide ratio) four cog automatic-motivated Cougar, the rpm jump out of overdrive was quite significant. And mileage went down considerably compared to nursing the big V8 up a crest in top gear. After I made the switch to a six-speed stick, the rpm jump from 6-to-5 was far smaller, keeping the rpms low while avoiding the “bog” was no big deal.
Grain Of Salt Note: Houston is a relatively flat city, so my Tripminder’s calculations have little to no relevance in places with real terrain changes. No driving condition is the same, so I’d recommend this: avoid engine bog at all costs, downshifting accordingly with no regard to the trivial change it might have on fuel economy.
(Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com)
More by Sajeev Mehta
Latest Car Reviews
Read moreLatest Product Reviews
Read moreRecent Comments
- Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Where's the mpg?
- Grg These days, it is not only EVs that could be more affordable. All cars are becoming less affordable.When you look at the complexity of ICE cars vs EVs, you cannot help. but wonder if affordability will flip to EVs?
- Varezhka Maybe the volume was not big enough to really matter anyways, but losing a “passenger car” for a mostly “light truck” line-up should help Subaru with their CAFE numbers too.
- Varezhka For this category my car of choice would be the CX-50. But between the two cars listed I’d select the RAV4 over CR-V. I’ve always preferred NA over small turbos and for hybrids THS’ longer history shows in its refinement.
- AZFelix I would suggest a variation on the 'fcuk, marry, kill' game using 'track, buy, lease' with three similar automotive selections.
Comments
Join the conversation
One of the gaping problems with getting the most out of a tank of gas is the matter of time. Most aircraft pilots do not refer their range with the term 'miles per gallon' rather it is 'pounds of fuel per hour.' Which means that the most effecient setting of an aircraft engine might not yeild the least amount of fuel used, over a given distance because you're in the air longer and therefore are consuming more fuel than if you actually were moving at a higher speed. Those of us old enough to remember experienced this first hand when the Carter administration inflicted the 55 mph speed limit upon us. What we discovered was that on a long trip of say 300 miles we started with the same amount of gas as we did with the 65 mph speed limit, but got to our destination with less gas in the tank. Why? Because the difference in gas mileage between the two speeds was offset by the amount of time spent on the road. So in reality the difference between 65 and 55 was about one or two miles per gallon, but the time difference to travel the same distance was 45 minutes to an hour, and so I could actually use more fuel on a long haul at 55 than at 65.
There's not one totally correct answer here. On older cars with carburetors and distributors then maximum efficiency was when the engine was at full throttle, at it's torque peak RPM, and fully loaded. Those conditions are rarely met and seeking them in the real world is usually futile. It gets more complicated with fuel injected engines. I haven't studied all of them, but most of the common electronic injection systems run the engine lean under most conditions; the computer seeks the air / fuel ratio that is best for the catalytic converter, not fuel economy (for what that tidbit is worth to you). When you floor the throttle, the computer will shift into a "power enrichment" mode and temporarily drop out of closed loop operation - this gets you a nice burst of power but it isn't very efficient. On these cars, running full throttle at the torque peak and fully loaded results in very low efficiency and lots of unburned fuel going out the exhaust. If I had to come up with a "one size fits all" rule - use the gear that provides the lowest RPM as long as there's still sufficient torque available to accelerate the car. If you hit full throttle and can't accelerate it's time to downshift. And try to avoid holding the throttle fully open for any length of time - it's very wasteful.