Today, with the price of oil skyrocketing into the stratosphere and taking everything else with it, most of us are complaining about prices at gas stations. Unfortunately, many of us treat the cost of filling the tank like we treat the weather – we complain, but we don’t really do anything about it. Fortunately, unlike the weather, there are a number of things we can do to help ourselves that won’t cost us a penny.
Tip number 1: don’t mistake your car for a dragster.
We share the road with many people pulling away from a red light, treating the light change as the start of a race away from the intersection.
Every once in a while, we may have a good reason for charging down the road away from a stop. We may have to turn a short distance, for example, and our inattention has left us in the wrong lane. Or our lane may be ending, we will have to merge, and we don’t want to get stuck behind a “slow”. But every time we do it, we waste gas: Acceleration sucks up fuel like a dry sponge sucks up water, and doing it as a matter of habit or routine will send our mileage plummeting as our gas bill soars to new records. Putting your foot on the gas pedal, kicking off smoothly and smoothly after a stop, rather than showing off our car’s muscles, will do wonders for our budget.
Tip number 2: Avoid the brakes and spoil the emir’s earnings.
Just as starting the starting blocks at the stoplight will soak up the accelerator, stopping with a screech not only wears out the brakes, it wastes fuel as well. There’s a good reason that mileage in the city is worse than it is on the highway – it’s easier to maintain a certain speed than to accelerate. So a driver who constantly pulls away from one traffic light only to stop at the next uses more fuel than one who can maintain a constant speed and avoid braking at all. And the hatchback driver brakes with each flash of the brake lights in front of him, not only making everyone nervous, but also reducing his mileage.
The best drivers in town will try to maintain a speed that will allow them to smoothly navigate through a traffic light while seeing as little red as possible. And they’ll let go of the gas long before they have to stop. Doing so not only prevents brake wear; it also greatly increases gas mileage. Altogether, using one “light foot” on the gas, rather than switching between one “heavy foot” on the accelerator and one on the brake, can increase your mileage by up to a third.
Tip number 3: Your car gets better mileage going forward than standing still.
Hybrid cars achieve much of their phenomenal gas mileage by turning off their engines whenever possible and running on batteries whenever they can.
A conventional car doesn’t really have that option – turning off the engine in most cars means the car can’t move. Of course, this is less of a problem when the car is not moving in the first place.
Turning off your car at every traffic light and stop sign is not really good for the car. And one day, you may even find yourself on the wrong side of an argument with a disgruntled trucker. But when you’re stuck at a railroad crossing, watching a train, or waiting for someone to walk into a store to buy something, you’re not going anywhere. And despite what your grandfather may have told you, restarting a car with a modern fuel injection system isn’t really a waste – in fact, it’s one of the most efficient things you can do.
No matter how efficient the engine is, a car that is not moving gets zero miles per gallon and uses gasoline at a speed of about half a mile per minute. Even the worst gas guzzler can do better than that. So if you’re going to be stuck in the same place for longer than it takes for the traffic light to change, you’d better turn off the engine.
Tip 4: Consolidate your travels as well as your pocketbook.
It’s no secret that a warmed-up engine gets better gas mileage than one that’s still running.
Planning your trips to consolidate your errands – making multiple stops to do all your shopping in one outing, rather than spreading them out throughout the day – has a lot to commend it. And among the main benefits you will notice is the effect on your weekly fuel bill.
Tip 5: Don’t pretend the highway is the Indy race track.
Lastly, it’s no secret that speed on the road carries risks. It also sends more money into the pockets of the oil companies.
It takes energy to move a car. The faster you go, the more it takes, not just to power the engine, but to supply the additional force needed to overcome air resistance that a car traveling at a higher speed will encounter. Estimates vary, and savings will vary as well, depending on the road and conditions, but slowing down to ten miles per hour can probably increase your mileage by 10 percent.
Every car is different, and some cars are more aerodynamically efficient than others. But each car will have its own optimal highway speed, based on its air resistance and engine efficiency. Keeping track of your own mileage between refuels will let you know what your car’s primary cruising speed is. Once you find it, you can choose to save your money or get to your destination a few minutes earlier. For most of us, the choice should be a no-brainer.
