Originally Posted by cgettel

One thing that was very counter-intuitive was to find out that higher RPMs doesn't necessarily mean lower MPG. When pulling up a pretty significant hill, I was able to improve the MPG 2-3 points by downshifting. This raises the RPM, increasing torque, and so one is able to back off the accelerator quite a bit, and maintain the same speed. Equating uphill to accelerating going down the road, staying in a lower gear longer may improve your azcceleration rate, thus get you into high gear and high MPG sooner.