Learning to Save Gas Without Driving Less

With gas prices still hovering above the $2 mark you don’t have to drive less to save gas. You can help control your gas mileage by following some simple and inexpensive vehicle maintenance tips.

Most of us don’t really have an option to drive less when gas prices go up however we can cancel out some of the increases by making sure our vehicle’s are getting the maximum fuel economy available. The amount of fuel used is directly related to vehicle maintenance and driver behavior. Both can have a huge impact on how much fuel is used.

Here are some simple steps we have put together to save gas without driving less.

• Keep your car properly tuned to improve gas mileage by an average of 4 percent.
• Keeping your tires properly inflated can improve gas mileage by 3 percent.
• Replace clogged and dirty air filters on older vehicles to improve gas mileage by as much as 14 percent.
• Replace old and dirty spark plugs. Dirty plugs reduce gas mileage by 2 miles per gallon
• Change your oil regularly and gain another mile per gallon.
• Check your gas cap. Damaged, loose or missing gas caps allows gas to vaporize into the air.
• Observe the speed limit. Gas mileage decreases rapidly above 60 mph
• Avoid excessive idling. Idling gets Zero miles per gallon. Warming up the vehicle for 1 - 2 minutes is sufficient
• Avoid quick starts and stops. Aggressive driving can lower gas mileage by 33 percent on the highway and 5 percent in the city.
• Consolidate trips. Several short trips taken from a cold start can use twice as much gas as one longer multi-purpose trip
• Don’t haul around unneeded items in your trunk. An extra 100 pounds in the trunk reduces fuel economy by 1 - 2 percent.

I know recently as this past fall I had fallen behind on my own scheduled maintenance and on top of that I had a small oil leak (gasket) which meant I was using much more oil than I should of been using. My vehicle has a lot of miles on it and I questioned whether the money spent on maintenance and repairs would be worth it.

Many people including myself thought we were saving money by putting off needed vehicle maintenance and repairs. However what I now realize today is that by neglecting routine maintenance and repairs it could of ended up costing me a lot more in the end. I found that my own car was using a lot more oil and gas than I thought and am very fortunate that I did not blow up my engine.

So a new gasket and some spark plugs got my vehicle running amazingly like (almost) new. I have 294,000 miles on my 2011 Scion and my car really runs great and the expense of the repairs has been well worth it. I do get better gas mileage, my car runs smoother and has better get up and go !!

information supplied by The Car Care Council