Drive 55 miles per hour
From Lazer
I always wanted to know how to get the highway mileage that the manufacture sticker states. My car is a 2004 Toyota Corolla, which says the highway mileage is 38. We typically only drive the car on highway trips and still get around 35 miles per gallon. I have been reading studies saying that 55 miles per hour is the best speed to archive the best miles per gallon. The reasoning behind driving slower to increase miles per gallon is that, at higher speeds the air resistance on the car is so great that the engine needs more power to maintain the constant speed. Therefore the car uses more gas to fight air resistance than to gain miles on the road. There is a speed at which if one goes faster or slower the car will get worst miles per hour. This speed is different for each car. The typical speed for the best miles per gallon is around 55 miles per hour (more info). So, the experiment was to see what the best miles per gallon that I could get with my car.
First, I filled up the car and drove for 295.1 miles on the highway going about 60 miles per hour. This was a harder task than I first thought it was going to be. Most of the time I had people wising by going at least 10 miles per hour faster. I was getting worried about a car not realizing that I was going slower than normal and rear into me. For a long stretch of the drive I drove behind a semi that was going about 60 MPH. At 295.1 I stopped get get gas, which only required 7.244 gallons to fill up. Doing the math gives.
I was really shock at how much more MPG that I achieved in only reducing my speed 5 to 10 miles per hour.
Then on the way back from my trip I did my normal driving where I would run at speed of 5 miles per hour over the speed limit. The speed I drove was mostly 75 miles per hour. When I got to my destination I filled up and below were the results.
This was a difference of 6.38 
.
News article tells another study done by going 55 miles per hour and the effects it had on there MPG.
I am thinking about putting a bumper sticker on my car that would read.
