Top 10 tips to better gas mileage and a more fuel efficient car

Top 10 tips to better gas mileage and a more fuel efficient car. Practical advice and tips to improve gas mileage of your car. Some facts and myths about improving gas mileage. Don't waste your money on that 'miracle' product and just follow these simple everyday steps to a more fuel efficient vehicle. These are not pulled out of another website but tried and tested ways of improving gas mileage.
 


1. Tire Pressure, Tire Pressure, Tire Pressure:

Tire Pressure is to Fuel Economy what Location is to Real Estate.

You have heard this over and over again. It's the most commonly given and most grossly underestimated advice in the automotive world. Forget about fuel efficiency, it could cost you your life!! Ever realized how small the patch of area is where the rubber meets the road ? Your and your family's life rides on those four small patches. The entire weight of the vehicle is resting on those little areas, let alone the stresses they are subject to while spinning at 70 mph, or braking hard or tight cornering. An overinflated tire could burst and an underinflated tire could disintegrate. I will leave the rest to your imagination.

Not just that but modern car systems like ABS, AWD and Traction control systems depend upon proper (equal) tire pressure in all wheels!! Such a lot of things depend on this most overlooked aspect of driving a car.

(A friend of mine who didn't heed this advice had a tire burst on the highway with children in the backseat, one of which was his neighbour's. The tire ripped thru the wheel well, went into the engine bay and came out pulling some electrical wire harenesses rendering his vehicle completely out of control and inoperational instantenously. Its a miracle nobody was hurt in that incident but it is not every day that lady luck is so generous. Not to mention the headache and hassle of repair, insurance and the trauma of driving a rented dodge neon)

Repeat after me - tire pressure changes by 1psi when the air temperature changes by 10°F. And a tire heats up as it spins.

To see this yourself measure the tire pressure in the morning after the car has been sitting all night. Then sometime in the afternoon, drive on the highway for about 5 miles and then measure the pressure again. See what it is now. Some tires heat up and inflate more than others but they all do.
The correct tire pressure for your tire is printed on the door jamb of your driver's side door, and NOT on the tire itself!! The pressure printed on the tire's wall itself is the "maximum" pressure your tire will take. You do not want to ever see your tire inflated to anywhere close to that maximum!!
Secondly, the one on the door jamb is the "cold" tire pressure. So if you exit off the highway to fill air, don't be surprised next morning to find it less than what you filled it up to! No, its not leaking, its simple physics.
Look up your manufacturer recommended tire pressure and remember it. Get a tire pressure gauge. Doesn't have to be a fancy digital one, just the $2 one should be good enough.

Correct way of checking/adjusting tire pressure (especially in summer):-
On your way home, inflate the tires a little more (~2-3 psi) than the manufacturer recommended pressure. Then let the car sit all night and measure the pressure in the morning. Deflate as needed to make it same as the manufacturer recommended "cold" tire pressure.
Basically the idea is the tires should have cooled down enough to give an accurate reading.
The only exception to the above method is in the winter if you park the car in a closed garage, and if the outside temperature is lower than the temperature in the garage. For example, my garage is usually around 50-55°F when it is 0°F or below 0°F outside! The pressure might read correct in the garage but it would drop as soon as you drive outside so just measure the tire pressure when you fill up air.

 

2. Change your Driving Style:

Like it or not, this is the single most factor that will affect your gas mileage. Starting from a stop or near stop consumes gas like there's no tomorrow. An aggressive start is out of question. If your car's highway mileage is 30mpg, its probably giving you 3mpg on that jack rabbit start, and that's not an overstatement. The next biggest culprit is unnecessary idling. Anything more than a minute of idling you are better off shutting down and restarting the engine. When picking up or dropping off or running errands, don't leave it running.You can't do anything about the stop sign or the traffic but you can take it easy on the pedal when you start from a stop, you can shut down the car whenever possible/feasible instead of idling excessively.A popular misinterpretation or generalization of this advice is that you should "drive slow". No, quite contrary actually. A car is most efficient at a certain speed - usually it is around 55-65mph. Above and below that point mileage drops considerably. Obviously you can't drive at that speed all the time so the best you can do is try to get out of the lower gears as soon as possible. Because of the gear ratios of lower gears (frist, second) the engine is revving at a higher rpm, yet you aren't going anywhere fast because they are meant to produce power not speed (unlike higher gears). In a stick-shift you want to shift early - as early as your engine is comfortable in the next higher gear. In an automatic you want to just ease the gas pedal which will tell the torque converter you don't need much power and it will shift to the next gear up. The opposite of this is when you step on it while merging. The torque converter will sense that you need more power and hold it in the lower gear until you let go the gas pedal or ease it a little bit, or until it will run out of torque and has no choice but to shift! You can feel a gear shift in an automatic as a slight push alongwith a drop in the rpm on the tachometer. The more you hold a car in a lower gear the more you waste gas. You will soon realize when you start doing this that you're driving much more easy than you used to - which is the whole idea!

 

3. Use a Fuel System Cleaner and Use good gas:

After several thousand miles your engine's fuel system has accumulated dirt and carbon. You have to clean it, there is no option. Use a good fuel system cleaner atleast once or twice a year.
After some research and personal experience I have found the Redline Si-1 (Si-2 is the smaller bottle) is the best! Followed by Gumout REGANE (only 'regane' and not any of their other cleaners). I have heard GM Top End engine cleaner also gives great results.
Carbon buildup and injector clogging will happen to any car no matter how good a fuel you use, but to prevent it from becoming a chronic problem that can be fixed only by overhauling the engine ($$$), use gas from brand name retailers only. I personally like BP Amoco followed by Shell and Mobil. Phillips is good too.
I guess it would be fair to say, an occasional 'red line' ;) helps clean up those injectors too!


 

4. Change air filter:

Ok, first of all - never clean or vacuum an air filter! No! You can't do that !! You have to throw it away and install a new one.
Although the manufacturer recommended change interval is usually very long, change it every 10-15k miles depending on how the condition of the filter is when it comes out. If its black, you are way past overdue.


5. Change transmission and differential fluids:
This is one of the lesser known tricks, but has significant impact on mileage!
The drivetrain of a vehicle (transmission, differentials) puts a significant overhead on the engine. There is a reason why the internals of these drivetrain components are always submerged in oil!
Over time(heat!) this oil breaks down and looses its lubrication properties causing even more overhead on the engine. Result - loss of mileage and power. Replace transmission and differential fluid. The manufacturer recommended interval is usually pretty long. Have it changed at half that interval, especially if you're an aggressive driver.


7. Check alignment:
When your vehicle's alignment is off, your tires are fighting each other. One wants to go left and the other wants to go right. And there are two more so that makes four of them. Sounds just like  your dysfunctional family, doesn't it ? mine too. Well it's easy to fix. Get an alignment check done. If you have never you should get one done and then every 30-40k miles thereafter. Unless you hit a pothole or curb really hard the alignment shouldn't get screwed up but if that's the case you should get it checked right away.
Another fallout of bad alignment is that your tires will wear out much faster (remember the fighting).


8. Keep the A/C on:
Contrary to the popular belief using a/c does not put a huge load on the engine - just a little.
But the reason I suggest keeping the a/c on in summer is that when you switch the a/c on, the radiator fan automatically comes on as well. Think of the radiator fan as an a/c for the engine. It helps keep the engine cool. A cooler engine performs more efficiently than a hotter engine. A hot engine looses power and thereby uses more fuel.


9. Take heavy/excessive junk out of the car:
Well this is common sense and a personal matter but just keep what you really need in a car. Those empty bottles, cans, books and tools add up weight quickly!


10. Gas/Distance calculator:

Get smart - use www.gasbuddy.com to find out which is the cheapest gas station nearby.
Here's a little calculator to help you determine how far does it make sense to drive to fill up at that gas station.