Roxanne1. Cruise and coast.
Giving your foot a rest can lead to significant fuel savings. Instead of constant acceleration and breaking that increases gas consumption and wear and tear on your car, learn to cruise and coast.
For long trips, use cruise control to maintain a steady speed and avoid speeding tickets that’ll hurt your wallet. As long as you’re not in a hilly area, the cruise control should give you better gas mileage than your foot can.
As for coasting, it involves letting the car glide after you accelerate and anticipating turns and stops. Look ahead for red lights and take your foot off the gas to let the car glide before a stop. Do that instead of hard braking, and experts estimate you can get 40 percent better gas mileage.
2. Avoid putting the pedal to the medal.
Auto industry experts say that around half of your car’s energy is used when accelerating. If you floor it to take off every time you’re at a light or stop, you’ll waste a ton of gas that you paid a lot for at the pump.
3. Avoid low-gear driving.
If you want to waste a lot of gas, drive in a low gear. To avoid excess gas consumption, use low gears when approaching corners or driving on hills. Otherwise, try getting into top gear as soon as possible. In doing so, you’ll save gas and get better performance.
4. Stick to the speed limit.
Here’s an eye-popping statistic for all of you speeders out there: According to the U.S. Department of Energy, every 5 miles per hour over 50 adds 18 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas. Instead of driving 65 miles per hour, drop it to 55, and you’ll get 15 percent better gas mileage.
5. Close your windows at high speeds.
Some people swear by opening their windows to keep cool versus using the A.C. While this can help improve gas mileage at low speeds, it won’t help you at high ones due to drag. The same holds true for opening your sunroof, so keep it closed when cruising on a high-speed highway.
6. Turn your car off when parked.
It can be relaxing to park in a secluded area and sit there with your car running. But it won’t be relaxing to your budget, as idling can waste as much as half a gallon of gas per hour.
If you idle a lot in your car, don’t feel bad, as you’re certainly not alone. The U.S. Department of Energy states that this driving habit wastes three billion gallons of gas per year.
7. Lighten the load.
If you can, don’t use your car as a storage shed. The heavier it is, the more gas you’ll consume.
8. Keep those tires inflated.
Check your car’s manual to see what the correct tire pressure is. Then, aim to keep your tires inflated to that point to optimize fuel economy.
If your tires are overinflated, you can ruin their treads quicker, forcing you to buy new ones before you should. And if your tires are underinflated, you can increase gas consumption.
