Ever. I think it's rated 24 for city and 30 for highway and I usually do about 31 to 33 (mostly city, I drive my husband to the train and then home again, to the store, etc), so it's totally possible to beat the EPA estimates. It's a manual transmission and I do get the most out of hills and stops, it's in neutral a lot (approaching a red light, either the clutch goes in and I coast or I shift to neutral and coast - same with big hills, gears just slow you down on the hills. ) There are places that I can go for miles, literally, in neutral and at the speed of traffic. But, I think my real secret is that I'm a super mellow driver. I play the no braking, no shifting game (ie keeping my speed as constant as possible so I don't have to do either) and coasting when possible. If I'm approaching a stop sign, I take my foot off of the accelerator instead of speeding up until I'm on top of it and then slamming on the brakes. I use hills to slow me down (going up not down) and get pissed off at people who constantly break on hills - it's a hill, take your foot off of the gas. Occasionally people get royally pissed off at me and blow on by (and I really don't drive like a grandma, I"m just not in an all fired hurry) and then I end up behind them at the next light. Good thing they were in such a hurry to get absolutely nowhere.

I think a lot of people don't get good gas mileage because they're brake happy. How many people have you ever seen constantly tapping their brakes in front of you on the highway?? Bonus if they're going uphill. And, two footed drivers whose brake lights are on while they're obviously accelerating? Another bonus of a stick is that you can't drive with one foot on the gas and the other on the break, although I wouldn't ever do that anyway.

Another bonus is that my brakes (at 4 years old, bought it late in '03 and about 40k miles) are maybe 30% worn away, which means they should last until 120k at this rate and the clutch is fine.