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Not a Fan Of Eco Cruise


Fits2at
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So, I drove for a week with the Eco cruise turned on.  I gotta say...I am not a fan.  Rarely could I get over 40mpg on a trip when before I had been consistently beating the 47mpg rating.  I drove a mix of highway and city.  It seemed like it took longer to get up to speed and wouldn't go into EV mode very often.

 

Turned Eco cruise off a couple of days ago and I am back up to 45 mpg on alot of trips and some I'm getting more than that. 

 

Before, if I really didn't pay attention to the EV mode and just drove the car, I would get 35mpg.  Today, on my way to work I got 38mpg.

 

Also, something else I have noticed is that I drive better wearing a thinner soled shoe vs. something like tennis shoes. When I can actually feel the gas pedal, I seem to drive better.

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I haven't seen a clear answer on exactly what Eco Cruise does other than allow the car to lose a few MPH when climbing a hill and then accelerate back to the set cruise speed after the road levels out.

 

I've been doing the same thing manually in city driving without the cruise on. I accelerate slightly on downhills in EV mode to gain momentum and then lift off the accelerator when going up and lose a bit of speed but still stay in EV mode for most or all of the uphill.

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I drive a 52 mi. round trip course about 3-4 times a week.  I take the same roads every time.  On hills I just tried to maintain the speed limit (for the sake of the cars behind me but some still passed me) and I consistently see better mpg without Eco cruise on. I can get up to speed faster and it seems easier to stay there.  And even with ICE running I can back off the gas pedal just a bit and still see mpg over 40 on the display.

 

Once I started using Eco cruise, my lifetime mpg went down from 38.8 to 38.2.  Granted we had a couple of snow storms and a few days of vicious 40+ mph winds but it took me over a week to get back up to 38.6 lifetime mpg.  After taking Eco cruise off, it has only been a couple of days and I'm back to 38.8.

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Maybe when the eco cruise is ON the pulse and glide driving technique is defeated.   When it is OFF the car better simulates the pulse and glide which we have established earlier improves mileage.     This seems plausible and should be experimented by how the EV reacts both ways.   

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So, I drove for a week with the Eco cruise turned on.  I gotta say...I am not a fan.  Rarely could I get over 40mpg on a trip when before I had been consistently beating the 47mpg rating.  I drove a mix of highway and city.  It seemed like it took longer to get up to speed and wouldn't go into EV mode very often.

 

Turned Eco cruise off a couple of days ago and I am back up to 45 mpg on alot of trips and some I'm getting more than that. 

 

Before, if I really didn't pay attention to the EV mode and just drove the car, I would get 35mpg.  Today, on my way to work I got 38mpg.

 

Also, something else I have noticed is that I drive better wearing a thinner soled shoe vs. something like tennis shoes. When I can actually feel the gas pedal, I seem to drive better.

 

 

Fits2at: Are you running without cruise control entirely or without ECO cruise turned on?
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I only use the eco-cruise for uphill or when I am tired of the eco game.

 

Now, P&G would work with the eco on. Say you set the eco cruise for 60mph. You can pulse up to say 68 and let it glide down to 63, kick in the EV as long as possible and then once the batt juice runs out, let the eco-cruise kick in and repeat. The only oddity I found was driving up hill with the same eco cruise setting but on the glide component (still going up hill), eco-cruise still kicked in the ICE part even at speeds more than the cruise threshold. I could not do full EV uphill unless I turned off the cruise. I called it odd but there must be a purpose to this which I have yet to understand but now that I know it's there, I'll work around it.

Edited by Jus-A-CMax
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Having the car option set to ECO cruise should not make any difference to how the car drives unless you have the cruise control set at a specific speed. There is "Cruise Control" and ECO "cruise control".  With "cruise control", if you set your car to go 68 mph it will go 68 mph even if it has to run at wide open throttle.  With ECO "cruise control", if you set your car to go 68 mph, it may allow the car to slow down while climbing a hill in order to not work as hard, and save some gasoline.

 

However,  in my opinion,  I don't care if it's "cruise control" or ECO "cruise control", you will always achive your best mileage if you drive with your right foot, the seat of your pants, and your head!  The only place using "cruise control" would get you the same MPG's both turned on or off would be on a perfectly straight and flat road which I haven't found yet...

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There are lots of perfectly flat and straight roads between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. :)

 

I hate driving through flyover country.

 

Although even in the mountainous west there are some long ass flat roads, I have crossed Utah and Nevada every direction possible, Wyoming and Montana too. California has a lot as well, I5 in the valley is very very boring... Much of eastern Oregon and Washington are chock full o long flat roads.

 

Let's not forget good old Florida...

 

There is a road in Tennessee and South Carolina which is called "the tail of the dragon" and crosses over Deals Gap in the smokey mountains. It has 318 curves in 11 miles. Lots of TShirts and stickers and whatnot say that: "318 curves in eleven miles".

 

Well some guy made up shirts that say "Ride Florida: 318 miles with 11 curves."

 

Haha.

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I live in the Irish Hills area of Michigan and have used the same procudeure described earlier of accelerating up a hill and releasing the pedal just prior to the crest. The car drops to EV mode just before it peaks the hill and it will remain EV until it gets partially up the next hill. Repeated as necessary the drive in along US-12 garners 40.3 to 43.1 since returning from Xmas break. Entire ride is 60.5 miles each way., and have not had the greatest success on the ride home as traffic is more congested. Can only get as high as 39.8 for that trip and sometimes lower.

Edited by MichaelM
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I guess I'm probably all alone here, but I never use cruise control. Every car I've owned for the last 20 years has had it, but I've never used it except to test it to make sure it functions.

 

I feel the same way about armrests. Both of my hands are always on the wheel, so why is there a padded spot for my elbow?

 

OK, I'll crawl back under my rock now.

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I am luvin the eco-cruise and here's where it helps - set it to 55-60mph going up a long hill. It will throw in the extra EV when it needs to. Also, I observed, and I have no documented proof of this, but if the batts are more charged (3/4 to full) more EV is utilized and the better MPG using this eco-cruise. I have seen it happen even at speeds greater than 65MPH.

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I'm in flyover country (Illinois) and it is FLAT. Our "hills" are all around river basins and overpasses. So I am the control case for removing the effects of terrain.

 

Today I tried both Cruise vs Eco-Cruise on highway at 65 mph. Eco-Cruise did better by about 3-4 mpg. Both were better than any pulse-and-glide I could figure out. I have no idea what the difference is between the two Cruise modes.

Granted, the mileage was awful: 35ish (Cruise) versus 38ish (Eco-Cruise). Temps 22-23 F. (No grill covers)

I am still breaking in the CMax engine and my driving, so I may change my mind in a couple of weeks.

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