The 300 mile tank... City vs. Highway matchup.

If you need even more convincing just how startling the difference between punishing city miles versus easy highway miles, here is one more breakdown. This will only be for the transmission, braking and cold start sequences. Of course suspension, tires, blinkers, door usage, window usage, seat adjustments, seat wear, battery usage, air conditioner strain, exhaust system and countless other important variables are not considered in this demonstration.

The average American daily commute is calculated to be 10.84 one way or 21.68 miles roundtrip. Below are the averages in a pure city roundtrip commute:

4.6 stops of 1 minute or more

8 stops of less than 1 minute

12.6 transmission shifts per roundtrip.

12.6 brake sequences per rountrip

2 cold starts per roundtrip

Results after one 300 mile tank of these driving habits (Pure City based on 21.6 mile roundtrip commute)

Total commuting miles     300

Total transmission shifts  175

Total braking sequences   175 

Total cold starts                 28

Now, compare those figures with the highway ones below. there is a startling difference.

Here are the results after one 300 mile tank (Pure Highway based on a 150 mile roundtrip commute)

Total commuting miles      300

Total transmission shifts      16

Total braking sequences       16

Total cold starts                    4

If you were to extrapolate that over the lifetime of usage the numbers would be staggering. This is the math on a car with 75,000 miles on it:

Pure City:

Total commuting miles      75,000

Total transmission shifts   43,750

Total braking sequences    43,750

Total cold starts                   7,000

Pure Highway:

Total commuting miles      75,000

Total transmission shifts     4,000

Total braking sequences      4,000

Total cold starts                   1,000

This has to be looked at seriously. The difference in these numbers is astounding considering these categories alone. If I could add just one more convincing point and that is that the engine itself has been worked very hard on the city miles and although the highway miles are higher RPM, the engine is working far less strenuously and at more optimum levels. Of course there are no cars that are purely driven highway, but the point remains clear. There is simply no comparison. A highway driven vehicle is the more "youthful" car, even if it has higher mileage. It is hands down the car to buy and is one of the first questions that I ask when purchasing a car.