stupac2

Hi all, this car (the FFH) is the first car I've owned whose condition I cared at all about (my only previous car was a total clunker I used to get from point A to B in high school), and I'm wondering what the maintenance should be like. I'm assuming that whatever the owner's manual recommends is overly aggressive, but that's only out of cynicism. Should I keep to that schedule to as large an extent as possible? Also, for oil changes, what kinds of oils are recommended? I saw a couple in a different thread, and I've read that hypermilers use thinner oils, but my knowledge of this kind of thing is rather poor. Additionally, is there any reason to have this done at a dealership rather than Jiffylube (or whatever), or doing it myself? I'm not sure if my dealership gave me the free oil changes others mentioned. Thanks.

I got my Fusion back at the tail end of July, and was reliably getting 38-41 on every trip. The past month and a half that number has been more like 33-36. Temperature didn't occur to me as an explanation because in Northern California it doesn't get that cold, but apparently 50 is enough to cause the drops. I also have the (apparent) disadvantage of a short commute, which I chose partly because it meant I had the option of biking in (which I have yet to do, lazy lazy...). This isn't always an issue, as I've had my trip mileage be as high as 50 before (seeing that number was awesome), but with something like 8 stop lights and 3 stop signs, I'm doing too much accelerating for my taste. My natural temperament is pretty well-suited for mileage, it seems. I've had no problems with accelerating slowly and steadily, breaking slowly and steadily, driving at reasonable speeds, and coasting as often as possible. I only have trouble sticking with it when people are behind me and unable to pass, I know how much I hate being behind a slowpoke (which, driving like this, takes a real slowpoke), and I dislike inflicting that upon others. One thing that I'm really interested in, and haven't been able to answer myself, is how best to use the EV. I've been tending to use it to accelerate, since seeing the instant MPG reader nose-dive kills me, but it seems that might not be the best. The physicist in me thinks it wouldn't make too much of a difference (energy is energy), but I doubt in the messy real world that's the case. Hilariously I forgot to report my lifetime average, it's 34.6 right now.