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With gas prices soaring, everyone wants to save money on gas. Unfortunately, most of what gets passed around the internet is pure bunk (boycotting gas stations will not drop prices, and buying gas early in the morning will not put more gas in your tank for the same price). Here are some REAL tips for how you can get the most fuel efficiency out of your car. Of course, the best way to save money on gas is to DRIVE LESS, but since we won't do that, try these:
1) Avoid High Speeds: As your speed increases, your aerodynamic drag increases in an exponential fashion. Driving 62 mph (100 km/h) vs 75 mph (120 km/h) will reduce fuel consumption by about 15%.
2) Do Not Accelerate or Brake Hard: By anticipating the traffic and applying slow steady acceleration and braking, fuel economy may increase by as much as 20%.
3) Keep Tires Properly Inflated: Keep tire air pressure at the level recommended by your vehicle manufacturer. A single tire under inflated by 2 PSI, increases fuel consumption by 1%.
4) Use A/C Sparingly: When the air conditioner is on it puts extra load on the engine forcing more fuel to be used (by about 20%). The defrost position on most vehicles also uses the air conditioner.
5) Keep Windows Closed: Windows open, especially at highway speeds, increase drag and result in decreased fuel economy of up to 10%.
6) Service Vehicle Regularly: Proper maintenance avoids poor fuel economy related to dirty air filters, old spark plugs or low fluid levels.
7) Use Cruise Control: Maintaining a constant speed over long distances often saves gas.
8) Avoid Heavy Loads: Remove the sand bags from your trunk in the spring, don't carry around tools and gear that you won't need on this trip, and pack lightly for long trips.
9) Avoid Long Idles: If you anticipate being stopped for more than 1 minute, shut off the car. Restarting the car uses less fuel than letting it idle for longer than a minute, but short idles are cheaper than restarts.
10) Purchase a Fuel Efficient Vehicle: When buying a new vehicle examine the vehicle's rated fuel efficiency. Usually choosing a small vehicle with a manual transmission will provide you with great fuel economy.
11) Combine Multiple Trips: Plan several destinations in one day and plan your route to include the most straightforward path instead of going out, coming home, going out, coming home, going out, etc. which can exponentially add to your gas consumption. Try to drive to each destination with as little doubling-back as possible.
You can also visit http://www.gasbuddy.com/ to find the cheapest fuel in your area (for most major cities, you can also type in www.[yourcityname]gasprices.com in your web browser and go directly to that city).
But before you drive 30 miles across town to save 2 cents per gallon, factor in the amount of gas SPENT in getting there and back. For instance, if your closest gas station is selling gas at $3.60 and 10 miles away is another gas station selling gas for $3.58 and your car gets 20 miles to the gallon and you have a 10 gallon tank, then you will have spent 1 gallon of gas to get there and back. That's spending $3.58 in order to save 20 cents. You just spent 1700% of what you saved!
But, since you should now be combining your errands and trips into one, long, linear path in one day (as opposed to running out to the store every day for just one more thing), you can look up the cheapest gas station on your route and get gas while you're out, rather than making a special trip across town to save a buck (which you won't).
So, pass this around to try and combat the poor advice given out by other emails. And remember to protect your friends and family's email addresses by putting them in the BCC field and erasing all headers from those who forwarded this to you. forwardedemails@yahoo.com is available if you must put something in the To field.
http://www.gasbuddy.com/
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/gastips.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp
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no subject
Date: 4/21/08 05:09 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 4/21/08 05:42 pm (UTC)From:Thanks for the info, I shall put it to good use.
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 05:50 pm (UTC)From:I do try to keep the a/c on low and use just the vent in the mornings or when the car has been sitting in the shade, and when it's raining, but some things are just worth the extra expense!
I also keep many pounds worth of tools and gear in my trunk and I'd rather spend the money in gas than haul it inside every day. But that's my informed decision - at least I know where my money is going and I can make the compromises that suit me :-D
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 09:46 pm (UTC)From:I can't back this up, but I've been told that, given a choice of AC on or windows down, AC on is the more efficient choice.
I also talked about fuel mileage vs octane here:
http://phantom-man.livejournal.com/61939.html
I'd be interested if anyone has harder data than mine.
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 10:23 pm (UTC)From:Also, with the average 20 cent price difference, for a 10-gallon tank, you are spending only $2 more for the higher octane. If you increase your mpg by only 1 mpg (let's use my example above of 20 mpg increased to 21 mpg), here's what we get:
10 gallon tank
$3.50/gallon and 20 mpg = $35 to fill up and 200 miles traveled.
$3.70/gallon and 21 mpg = $37 to fill up and 210 miles traveled.
35/200 vs. 37/210
You get a ratio of only .1% difference in cost vs. efficiency.
I increased the mileage efficiency to 26 mpg as a totally uneducated guess that your gas mileage probably wouldn't get more efficient than a 5 mpg increase and the difference was only 3% cost vs. efficiency.
So, if you have the extra $2 and your car's manual says to use higher octane, go for it. It's not that much of a difference and it's probably better for your engine in the long run (thereby increasing long-term fuel efficiency and savings). But if you don't have the extra $2, it's probably not going to increase your gas mileage on this tank of gas and also probably not going to be a significant increase long term purely in terms of gas consumption (although engine condition could factor in and alter that).
However, my math skills are very rusty, so I may be incorrect in my formulas here.
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 10:43 pm (UTC)From:http://ask.metafilter.com/42167/Hot-window-breeze-or-cool-car-breeze
And
Conclusion:
The majority opinion seems to be that it's not an answerable question because too many factors are involved, including size of the car, horsepower, newness of the car (how sophisticated the engine is), how fast the vehicle is traveling, anything else that might affect the "drag" of the vehicle (like wind speeds) and even driving style (remember tip #2 above?).
The conclusions seem to be in favor of A/C over open windows, but just barely and, with too many interfering factors that can affect a strictly mathmatical "winner", my personal conclusion is that they're both statistically similar (equal, for all intents and purposes) on average, but individual vehicles and their drivers may identify which is better or worse for them
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 11:06 pm (UTC)From:I got a little curious about octane vs mileage, when I found out that a Nissan car and its Infinity equivalent specify the two different gasolines. It came down to the demographics of the owner. The perception was that an Infinity owner would not object to paying for premium, but the Nissan owner would. They just set the Engine Control Units for the appropriate fuel.
It hurts my Spock-like sense of logic. :-)
no subject
Date: 4/21/08 11:20 pm (UTC)From:But I do try to keep it down low and only use it when I need it ;-)
And, well, I suppose it is logical to decide what gas to recommend based on the owner demographics. For some definition of "logical" anyway.
no subject
Date: 4/23/08 01:55 pm (UTC)From:Word. I think that part of the Prius' high mileage comes from the fact that you can see your mileage in real time, moment to moment. Having that feedback trains you to drive more efficiently even if you don't make a conscious effort to do so.
no subject
Date: 4/23/08 02:35 pm (UTC)From: