More Gas Saving tips

Step 1: Make your car more efficient.

It's possible to make big improvements by making minor tweaks to your vehicle. It's estimated that someone who averages 35 miles per gallon (in old money) could get 40 mpg by driving better, a near 15% saving.

Keep your tires correctly inflated. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 3%

Lower tire pressure increases the drag on a car meaning you need more fuel, so regularly check the pressures are correct and your car needs less oomph to keep it moving.

De-clutter your car. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 2%

The lighter your car is, the less effort it needs to make to accelerate. Therefore, by de-cluttering, clearing out junk from the trunk, and not carrying unnecessary weight, you can make extra savings.

Take your roof rack off. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 2%

A roof rack, even unused, adds massive wind resistance to a car, increasing drag and making the engine work harder. So if you don't need it, take it and anything else that's inefficient off. Even closing the windows will make the car run slightly more efficiently.

Turn off the air conditioner. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 8%

Air conditioning also uses an incredible amount of fuel, so make sure it's turned off unless you really need it. However, if it's really hot, it can become a more effective proposition, as driving with the windows closed is more economical than having them all open, due to the extra drag it causes. Also, don’t keep the engine running; drive off as soon as you start up and switch off the engine as soon as you reach your destination.

Don't fill it up. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 1%

Fuel is heavy, so by filling the car up you're adding quite a weight. The less fuel your car has in it, the more efficiently it drives. Thus filling up slightly more often and putting less in (to 1/2 or 3/4 full) will make the car run more efficiently.

Step 2: Drive more efficiently

It's possible to drive the same distance in the same time, yet use considerably less fuel. You can chop up to 60% OFF your fuel costs without cutting your top speed. It’s simply about driving more smoothly to boost your fuel efficiency.

Accelerate gradually without over-revving.

Speed up smoothly; when you press harder on the pedal more fuel flows, but you could get to the same speed using much less power – a good rule is to stay under 3,000 revs.

Drive in the correct gear.

Always drive in the highest gear possible without laboring the engine.

Slow naturally.

Rather than brake all the time, let your car slow naturally and use its stored momentum.

Think about road position.

To do all this takes road awareness, so the more alert you are, the better you can plan ahead and move gradually.

In many ways this all comes down to one little rule of thumb...

Every time you put your foot on the accelerator, remember the harder you press the more fuel you spend.

Just being conscious of this and your road position, should increase how far you can drive on a tank of gas enormously.

The impact in the real world...

On a recent overseas vacation I got to test this due to a sexy little digital display in the rental car, which gave me a km/litre readout. For every trip, I drove normally on the way there and used the ‘think when pressing the pedal’ method above on the way back…. And if you’re thinking did he really bother? While on vacation, yes I did, and I loved it;

The improvement is enormous.

Overall I drove about 500 miles and the different ‘efficiency’ averages per litre of gas were incredible: for normal driving, it was 11.2 kilometers per litre, but for efficiency-conscious driving, a remarkable 13.4 kilometers per litre. Most intriguingly, the efficient driving didn’t cost me any time at all, and on highways my top speed didn’t change.

Other filling up tips...

There are other ways to cut the cost too:

Always fill up at least fifty miles before your tank's dry.

This way there’s no panic and you’ve enough time to get to a cheaper gas station. Leave it longer and you’ll fill up at ‘the next one I see’, and that means you're not focused on the fuel price. Of course this is slightly offset by the fact that a lighter car uses less fuel, but with 50 miles of fuel left, the difference is miniscule.

Only use ‘better fuel’ if your car can cope.

Many stations sell ‘high performance fuels’, yet there’s little or no performance difference for most non-performance cars; so only fill up with the super-fuels if you've a sports car that you've been specifically advised will actually utilize the gas correctly.

Fill up at night, but don’t overfill.

This is a slight urban myth, as the differences are miniscule, pennies at best. Gas pumps are calibrated by volume, so fill up at night when it’s cold and you get a tiny, tiny extra bit.

Don't try and put more in after the clunk.

While filling up to full isn't great as it adds weight to the car (see make your car more efficient), yet if you must, don't keep going after the gas nozzle 'clunks', because you're overfilling.