$5.00? Can we really expect to pay $5 per gallon of gasoline at the pumps? More probably than likely. What will that do to our lifestyle? If history can tell us the future, not much. We American's love to drive. We drive to work, to live, and to play. Just about everything we do is designed around driving, even our cities are designed and built for driving. We choose to live in urban and rural areas to get away from the din and clutter of city life. We just love our cars , trucks and SUV's and the prestige that a vehicle might give us. And so it goes.
The following are tips that can be found almost anywhere, I thought that it just might be time for a refresher on a few common sense tips that just might save us some money.
Some tips on saving gas -- such as walking more or taking public transportation -- are obvious. Others are less so. Check out these tips:
* Use the lowest grade of gas your car can take. Unless your vehicle owners manual calls for premium gas, there is no reason to use it. Use the grade of gas you need and nothing higher. Does your owners manual say premium unleaded only? No? Then don't ever use premium fuel. There. You just saved 40 cents a gallon... or $8 on a 20-gallon fill up. If your engine is designed to run on regular gas, there is absolutely no benefit to putting in high test. It pollutes more, it costs more, and doesn't give you any benefit in performance or fuel system cleanliness.
* Slow down. For every mile you drive above 55 miles per hour, your fuel economy drops by 2 percent. And gas mileage tends to drop quickly at speeds above 60mph. The EPA offers this rule of thumb: Assume that for every 5mph you drive over 60mph, you might as well be paying an additional $0.20 per gallon for gas.
* Drive in the highest gear you can, at the lowest possible speed. The slower your engine turns, the less gas you use. Getting into the highest gear you can, at the lowest possible speed, will begin to save you gas. Why? Because you use less gas when the engine is turning slowly. The slower the engine turns, the fewer the number of explosions in the cylinders. And fewer explosions means less gas consumed.
So, if you drive a manual transmission car, shift sooner. As long as the engine doesn't buck, shudder, or ping, you're fine. You'll sacrifice the ability to accelerate quickly - but you can always down-shift if you need to accelerate.
* Turn off the AC when it's not hot out - f you don't need to run your air conditioner, don't. Your cars air conditioner forces the engine to work harder - and that's energy that could instead be used to move your car forward. So if it's 74° Fahrenheit outside, open the windows instead of wasting fuel running the AC at 72° Fahrenheit.
* Don't accelerate when driving uphill -- it makes your mileage per gallon plummet. Instead, try to drive at the same speed, or even a little slower.
* Try to brake less by anticipating stops. When you brake, you waste the acceleration you have already used. Instead, try to accelerate slowly when leaving a stoplight, and then coast to the next light.
* Ditch your cars luggage rack, roof rack and related outdoorsy gear and put it away until you actually need to use it. The drag created from this gear can reduce your mileage per gallon by up to 5 percent.
* Get rid of the junk in your trunk. Every 100 pounds in the trunk can reduce your fuel economy by 1 to 2 percent. (I guess that means I can take out the sand tubes now.)
Back to the obvious for a minute, we are used to taking the car everywhere we go. Three blocks to the store? We just hop in the car and go. However, if you stop and consider it for a moment, you'll realize you there are lots of good alternatives. Besides saving money on gas, when you walk, you'll get exercise and live longer. When you bike, you can stop and meet that new, single neighbor down the street. If you live in a town or city with decent public transportation, leave your car home and use the bus or train. Even if you use public transit just once or twice a week, you'll save wear and tear on your car, you won't be shelling out for all that gas.
Buy a new car. Time to buy a new car? Do the math and see what it might cost you if gas costs, say, $5 a gallon in a few years. If you are like most American's, and drive about 20,000 miles a year, increasing your cars fuel efficiency by 10 MPG can save you over a thousand dollars a year - not to mention countless stops at the gas station where you breathe fumes and stand in the rain. Best advice? Get the smallest, most efficient vehicle that makes sense for your daily driving. There are more hybrids on the market every year. And, when you really do need that huge, inefficient, road hogging SUV for loading up the family and hauling the 24-foot cabin cruiser to the beach, rent it for two weeks.
What's your mpg when you're idling? It's negative! You're actually burning gas... and going nowhere.
If you're sitting outside the local Wal-Mart waiting for your grandmother, and you know it's going to take her a good 15 minutes to walk up and down the aisles to find that specific piece of new plastic ware, turn off your engine. You're just burning money. Some people have heard a myth that it takes more gas to start a car than to run it. So they use that as an excuse to leave a car idling. It's complete baloney! If you're stationary for more than a couple of minutes, shut it off, and save gas.
This tip also applies to warming up the car. Unless it's below freezing, cars don't need to be warmed up at all. Driving them gently is the best warm up there is. If it's 25 degrees out, you might want to let it warm up for 30 seconds. If it's 10 degrees out, warm it up for a minute. If it's -10 degrees out, move somewhere warmer.
The softer your tires are, the greater the friction between the road and the rubber, and the harder your engine will have to work to move the car. Over time, when you check tire pressure on your car, you will notice that they are often nowhere near the recommended pressure. Here's why it matters: Under-inflated tires lowers gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every one pound of drop in pressure of all four tires. So, if you're down by 10 pounds... you're losing 4 percent in fuel economy.
f you're not sure what the correct tire pressure is for your vehicle, you can find it on the door to the glove compartment or on the drivers-side door pillar. When the seasons are changing, keep an even closer eye on your tire pressure. For every drop of 10° Fahrenheit in air temperature, your tires will lose one pound of pressure.
Getting your car serviced regularly is one of the most important things you can do to maximize fuel efficiency. Regular service can spot lots of problems that reduce gas mileage and increase pollution, such as a broken thermostat, low transmission fluid, sticky brake calipers - or even something as simple as a dirty air filter. If you can't remember the last time you had your car serviced, take it in. In extreme situations, you might increase your mileage by up to 10 percent. So what? Well, if you drove 20,000 miles a year, you would save $250 - enough to cover the cost of the service.
Tell your boss that you're going to be working at home one day a week. Then, get another job for that one-day a week you're at home. Think of all the gas you'll be able to afford! Seriously, by working from home just one day a week, you'll avoid putting wear and tear on your car, using gas, getting stuck in traffic - and, quite possibly, you might even discover that you get more work done at home than in the office.
All in all, saving a little will not take a complete lifestyle change but it will take all of us to make some changes. We use too darn much oil, for everything from our lawn fertilizer to the water we drink out of one-use plastic bottles. It takes a lot to save a little but we all have to start somewhere.
