10 Tips To Help Cut Your Gas Mileage In HALF, Plus A Few Myths
Save Your Money and the Environment
We all know that gas prices are not going down, and the negative impact of fossil fuel burning vehicles on our health and environment isn’t getting better over time either. Save your money and our health by reducing your gas mileage. Here’s 10 simple-to-do tips for using less fuel, that when put together could add up to a 50% savings in your fuel consumption, as well as your emissions. Suck on that tailpipe…
For those of us who do not yet own a hybrid, or a fully electrified vehicle, here’s what you can do to make a difference in your piggybank, your lungs, your rivers, my rivers, and a bunch of stuff all related to greenhouse gas emissions.
10 Tips To Reduce Gas Consumption
- KEEP YOUR ENGINE PROPERLY TUNED
Much like our bodies, your car needs to be properly tuned for maximum efficiency. Re-tuning and maintaining a vehicle that is running rough or has failed an emissions test can improve its gas mileage by an average of 4 percent, though results will vary based on the type of repair and how well it is done. Fixing a serious maintenance problem, such as a faulty oxygen sensor, can improve your gas mileage by as much as 40 percent. - REMOVE EXCESS WEIGHT FROM THE VEHICLE
That doesn’t mean leave your wife at home. It means take all that extra unneeded junk out of your trunk, from under your seats, in seat pouches, door pouches, everywhere. Every ounce counts. Racers know this and do everything they can to get their vehicles to the lowest possible legal weight. Your engine works to move the total weight of your car around – it’s that simple. The less your vehicle weighs, the less work and energy your engine needs to expend, saving fuel. Efficiencies range depending on the amount of weight removed, size and style of the vehicle. - USE OVERDRIVE GEAR
Many people don’t know what overdrive is, or how to use it, so here’s a bit of OD education for you… Overdrive is an extra gear in an automatic transmission designed to lower engine RPM at highway cruising speeds in order to save fuel. Though it can be left on most of the time, the electronic transmission controls help your engine to operate economically at cruising speeds – except in hilly areas and upgrades, when it should be switched off to gain maximum climbing torque (force) from lower gears. However, it should be mentioned to follow the overdrive instructions in your owners manual. - USE CRUISE CONTROL
This one may seem like it couldn’t have that much effect, but in practice it makes a big difference. First, cruise control eliminates driver accelerator input and thus preventing nervous “surging.” Second, it changes the driver’s perception by taking a long view of the road rather than reacting to every little change in the traffic around them. Drivers are more reluctant to disengage the cruise, rather than make pesky intermittent little taps on the brake and accelerator, which are wasteful. Efficiencies of between 7 to 14% can be achieved by using cruise control.
(NOTE: If you are in a hilly area you should disengage cruise. It will try to maintain your speed and will use a lot of extra gas downshifting to lower gears to accomplish this. ) - REDUCE DRAG – REMOVE UNUSED RACKS
While roof racks can be very convenient, they cause a significant amount of unneccessary drag on your vehicle. This drag factor increases the faster you go, so if you’re doing any highway driving with empty roofracks, it’s like adding a few mini-parachutes to your car. Removing roof racks (depending on size and style), can increase efficiency of your car at highway speeds by 10 to 15%. - AVOID EXCESSIVE IDLING
You get 0 (zero) miles per gallon when you are idling. ‘Nuff said.
Don’t go through the drive-thru… Park, WALK (read on), and get healthier two ways. Oh yeah, emissions are at their most wasteful when you are idling, too. Fuel efficiencies of 100% can be reached when you don’t idle.
- LOWER YOUR SPEED
You see those great big SUV’s speeding down the highway at almost 90mph… their last concern is gas mileage. It has to be, or they’d be driving a hybrid two-seater. Speeding wastes a significant amount of fuel. While different vehicles reach optimal fuel economy at different speeds (or range of speeds), fuel efficiency decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph. You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas. For us Canadians, that’s like each 8kmh over 100kmh, you’re paying an extra $0.06 per liter. And wasting that much fuel, and causing all those extra unneeded emissions too. Oh yeah, the safety factor again – observing the speed limit is also considerably safer than excessive speeding. - REDUCE AGGRESSIVE DRIVING
This is a biggie. Probably the biggest. This is the one thing you can do that will have the greatest impact on your fuel consumption. (Isn’t that ironic, the biggest factor in reducing your vehicle’s fuel consumption – is you.) So you thought a hybrid was the answer? Check the mirror (more accurately, your shoes – for lead). You’ve got hybrid-style mileage in your gas pedal foot. Pumping the gas and revving the engine when you first start the car is the WORST thing you can do – it wears a cold engine faster, you get 0 miles per gallon, you’re putting WAY too much fuel into the engine for nothing, and… you get the picture. While driving, take a longer (more distant) view of the road and brake easier. This tip alone can save you unbelievable amounts of gas. If you slow your 0-to-60-mph acceleration time down from your current 10 seconds to a more normal city pace of 15 seconds, you’ll feel the savings immediately. For vehicles with turbos, saving can be even greater. Efficiencies of 30 to 40% can be immediately introduced – just by removing lead-foot.
- DON’T USE YOUR VEHICLE – WALK or BIKE MORE
Yes, that’s right. The one you’ve heard but want to ignore. The best way to reduce fuel consumption and emissions is not to use it. The added health benefits of walking or biking to your local destination are also very evident. - TRY ADDING ACETONE TO YOUR GAS
I’m sure you’re saying – “WHAT?! Add paint thinner to your car’s gasoline – are you NUTS!?” – or something much worse. Well, as it turns out, there may just be some science to this crazy suggestion. Seems that those in the know have discovered that the “thinning” properties of acetone also work on gasoline, by “atomizing” the gasoline into smaller particles for more efficient use in the carburetor (or fuel injectors) and piston combustion chambers. Significant savings in consumption have been reported, but from the research we’ve done, determining the exact ratio of acetone to gasoline is a bit of a trial-and-error process – the formula seems to vary from make to make, car to car. 5 ounces per 20 gallons seems to be the average mixture – but it is up to you to try this one out! Some suggest that the acetone will prematurely wear out the rubber components of the fuel system – but if you check the science again – it’s a sort of alcohol/petroleum derivative (much like some of the newer cleaner burning fuels) so it shouldn’t really harm anything. I haven’t read anything that suggests that claim either. Acetone is synthesized from propene, which is “produced from non-renewable fossil fuels – petroleum, natural gas and to a much lesser extent coal. Propene is a byproduct of oil refining and natural gas processing. ” (wikipedia)
I’m sure you’re still very skeptical, so watch this video, and decide for yourself…
MYTHS
- FILL YOUR TIRES TO PROPER PRESSURE
While it sounds like a good idea, it turns out this may be the least effective thing you can do to reduce gas mileage. While there is a slight increase in efficiency of 2 or 3% (going from 24PSI to 32 PSI), the greatest benefits are for your safety. Properly inflated tires allow for better handling, are less likely to fail at high speeds, and wear more evenly over time.
- REDUCE DEPENDENCY ON A/C
Oh yeah. This is the one we’ve all heard a thousand times since we were kids… “Turn the AC off… you’re wasting gas!” It turns out the the simple act of cooling yourself by rolling the windows down creates just as much – or more – drag on your vehicle than the A/C system does. If you have a larger vehicle and you open your sunroof, the drag is even greater making your A/C more efficient than fresh clean air… but the difference is negligible, so go for comfort – or fresh air.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Do you know of any other tips or myths for reducing vehicle fuel consumption and emissions?
