How to Get Better Gas Mileage (and Improve Your Car’s Performance)
Did you know that your vehicle’s maintenance condition has a strong impact on its fuel efficiency? Many vehicle owners believe that the gas mileage their vehicles get is out of their control. While this may be true to a certain extent, the condition of your vehicle’s core components can effect fuel efficiency, lowering your gas mileage significantly if they are poorly maintained.
The following simple maintenance tasks* can improve your car’s gas mileage AND prevent costly breakdowns:
Replace gas caps! According to the Car Care Council, roughly 17% of the vehicles on the road have gas caps that are damaged, loose or missing. The result? 147 million gallons of gas evaporate each year! If your gas cap is missing or damaged, the cost of replacing it can save you a bundle in fuel costs.
Properly inflate tires. Under inflated tires can cost an extra 1-2 miles per gallon, so check your tire pressure often!
Check for worn spark plugs. Vehicles have between four to eight spark plugs which fire as many as three million times per 1,000 miles. Collectively, this can cause a lot of heat, electrical and chemical erosion over time. Dirty spark plugs can cause your engine to misfire, wasting fuel. Avoid this by having spark plugs routinely checked, along with oil changes.
Clean air filters. Engines, like people, need to breathe clean air. Dirty, clogged air filters reduce the amount of clean air reaching the engine, creating a “rich” mixture, or too much gas being burned. This wastes gas and creates poor overall engine performance. Replacing dirty air filters with clean filters can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 10%!
Driving tips for improving gas mileage – and safety!
How you drive can have just as big an impact on gas mileage as what you drive. Follow these tips to improve your fuel efficiency and safety:
Aggressive driving = aggressive fuel consumption. Driving aggressively – punching the gas, excessively fast acceleration, hard stops etc. – can lower gas mileage by as much as 33% on the highway and 5% in town. Think of conserving your vehicle’s energy as you drive; accelerate slowly, come to a stop slowly, and use your car’s inertia to power through turns.
Eliminate unnecessary idling. When your car is sitting with the engine on, it’s getting – you guessed it – zero miles to the gallon. Unless it’s 10 degrees outside, one to two minutes is a sufficient warm up period. If you’re sitting in the car waiting for someone, turn the engine off.
Speed limits are not your enemy. Your vehicle’s fuel efficiency decreases the faster you drive. Every mph your vehicle goes over 60 costs an average of 10 cents extra per gallon, so take this into consideration when managing your speed on the freeway. Using cruise control to maintain a consistent speed on the highway will help to lower gas consumption as well.
*Courtesy of the Car Care Council (http://www.carcare.org/)
