The stop and go is killing it.

I normally get over 400 miles per tank. Except for today when I filled up at 370.2 on the trip. I fill up, on average, every 5 days.

I have a ScanGauge II. Today when I drove to lunch, I arrived at a fast food drive thru. It was about a 5 mile drive there. I was showing ~35 mpg when I pulled up to the speaker thing. I placed my order, drove up, with two cars in front of me, waited a minute or so for each, paid, got my food, and headed out. At this point my "trip" mileage was down to ~24 mpg.

Bottom line is that having your engine running, thus using gas, and not covering any ground, is bad for overall gas mileage.

Sometimes, if I hit a drive thru and there is a line, I just shut it off except for when I need to pull forward. I've played with the scangauge thing enough to determine that shutting if off for 15-20 seconds helps.

I don't recommend this; however, it works for me. I also do this when I arrive just as a light is turning red and I know it is going to be a few minutes before I get to go again.

YMMV!

 

The scangauge is very usefull.