Volo VP15 OBD Tuner

[Loren]

Very unscientific testing indicates that going back to stock did exactly what I expected.

First thing I noticed was that it feels smoother and less "punchy" at very low revs. That jives with both softening the throttle response curve, and less aggressive timing advance. Having played with timing advance on older cars where such things can be manually adjusted, and on cars with programmable ECUs, this all makes perfect sense and it's what I expected.

Fuel economy is up. Way up. More than I expected. Made a quick trip out to the mall last night in the rain. Without really trying, I was hitting 42 mpg by the time I got to the mall. Puttering around the mall parking lot looking for a parking space got it down to about 39. Leaving the mall after dinner got it down to 36. And before I was back home it was over 40 again. That's with several stop lights in both directions, very wet roads, and again... I wasn't trying. I'd call that a pretty solid 3-5 mpg improvement in "easily achievable MPG". Not bad at all.

Went out again today to get lunch and round up some car parts. Similar trip. Not quite as wet. Worse traffic, and more waiting at stop lights. Totally not thinking about it, as I had a friend in the car and we were chatting. Very similar results.

Oh, and all of the above was with the AC on.

Next time I drive it, the Volo is going back in. I've already reprogrammed it with economy settings. Should be interesting.

[phaux]

That's pretty good to hear. I'm very curious to see your results when using the actual economy settings. It sounds like there's nothing but positive gains coming from this miracle device.

[Loren]

It's all subtle stuff, nothing "night and day", but it definitely seems to do what it's supposed to do.

I plugged it back in yesterday. Of course, I still don't know exactly how it works, I still think it's messing with long-term trim values. But, they say it's supposed to take a hundred miles or so to fully "learn".

Right away, though... with the economy setting, and the "header and exhaust" settings, I could tell that the throttle response was even smoother than stock. The throttle response doesn't feel sluggish or anything, just a smoother application. And, I swear it feels like it actually has more power, so maybe these guys actually know what they're doing? Optimizing for the header and exhaust a little bit should make a little more power.

I didn't drive it enough yet, just a short trip out to get dinner. But, I did see 42 mpg average by the time I got home.

I'll keep watching it, of course. And I'm resisting the urge to mess with my tire pressures for a while longer. I want to see how much of a difference JUST switching the settings on this device made.

[Loren]

Okay, I'm gonna wrap this "evaluation" up.

Where I'd usually see 36-38 mpg in my "daily errands" kind of driving, I was easily seeing 40-42. Not only that, but it was pretty easy to achieve. And when I'd see a dip (from leaving a traffic light) on a short trip, it would "recover" very quickly, often before I even realized it. My guess here is that it's mostly throttle curve. I'm getting a little less throttle opening, especially at light pedal inputs. And it all adds up. They could have also tweaked the DFCO settings, I really don't know. But, it's effective.

And then on my way back from lunch and a trip to the bank today, I was sitting at 41 mpg, and decided to reset and hypermile it. Traffic was light, but I did hit several traffic lights, and on a couple sections of road, I was up to 45-50 mph. This kind of route is where I might normally see 52ish, and if I REALLY tried and got REALLY lucky with the lights, I'd see 54-55 mpg. Today, I got an easy 59.3.

My unscientific opinion is that when combined with good hypermiling techniques, the economy settings on this little box can absolutely net an easy 10% improvement in fuel economy.

Now, it might not be an increase in ULTIMATE fuel economy. The uber-hyper-milers among us are capable of achieving these results with just driving technique. But, I think it's making adjustments that make it EASIER to achieve better FE. I was hypermiling today, but I wasn't crazy about it. There was traffic behind me, and I wasn't slowing them down.

I'm inspired now. Gonna air up the tires and try to see 65 mpg at some point! But, that's another thread.

[phaux]

That's still good news to hear -- it's not just another snake oil device that blinks lights, but actually is doing something to improve FE.

I looked on Volo's site earlier, looks like they now make a VP16 model, which does all the same things but with a touchscreen and built-in datalogger. Wonder if the same gains can be had with that device?

[Thiccboi]

I've had the VP15 since mid 2018 and I do concur that the economy mode helps a lot. Even on other vehicles, to varying degrees of success.

The Mirage may have gotten a 4ish? MPG increase, but even the V8 in my truck has seen 1-2 more MPGs, which is great since it gets like 23 highway to begin with.

Sorry for the tangent but there's not many threads about the VP15 anywhere and I just wanted to share my experiences so far.

[Eggman]

I've had the VP15 since mid 2018 and I do concur that the economy mode helps a lot. Even on other vehicles, to varying degrees of success.

The Mirage may have gotten a 4ish? MPG increase, but even the V8 in my truck has seen 1-2 more MPGs, which is great since it gets like 23 highway to begin with.

Sorry for the tangent but there's not many threads about the VP15 anywhere and I just wanted to share my experiences so far.

Hello Thiccboi and welcome to the forum.

You'll have to tell us more about your Mirage - what year, what trim, etc.

[Top_Fuel]

My unscientific opinion is that when combined with good hypermiling techniques, the economy settings on this little box can absolutely net an easy 10% improvement in fuel economy.

I must have missed this when you originally posted it. That is a significant improvement!

You mentioned that this device has to stay plugged in to the OBDII port. It sounds like I might be able to use one of these and still have my Scangauge connected if I use a cable like this. Hmm....

[phaux]

You mentioned that this device has to stay plugged in to the OBDII port. It sounds like I might be able to use one of these and still have my Scangauge connected if I use a cable like this.

You should be able to. That's how I do it with my ODBLinkLX and the dongle from my insurance company, never had an issue.

[Top_Fuel]

You should be able to.

Thanks for letting me know that. I think I will give this thing a try next spring.