Gas Mileage Tips & Tricks
Posted under: Gas Mileage Tips
Let’s face it: gas is expensive.
Doesn’t matter if you’re driving a sipper or a guzzler, there are a few things you can do to maximize the bag you get for your buck at the pump.
I’m not talking hypermiling, per se. I love seeing my mpg (miles per gallon) number skyrocket, but not at the expense of my comfort. True hypermilers will sacrifice air conditioning at any cost – I compromise by being aware that I get better gas mileage if I don’t need to turn on air conditioning or open windows, but I don’t hesitate to crank up the temperature control on a nasty day or roll down the windows on a lovely one.
Stop and Go
All of my tips revolve around the absolute certainty that it costs a lot of gas to swap between STOP and GO.
Accelerating from a stop costs gas. Once you’re already moving, it costs less to keep moving. (This is true of motivation as well as gasoline!)
Parking
Let’s start with an easy one. Parking.
You’re gonna have to park.
However, not all parking spaces are created equal. If you park in such a way that getting OUT of the parking spot (or in, for that matter) requires that you back up, stop, then move forward again, you’ve just added in the STOP and GO elements that equal “wasted” gas.
If, on the other hand, you have the ability to pull through a double parking space, you ensure that when you leave, you’re only accelerating – no additional stopping required.
Small? Oh, yes, but if you can save a chunk of gas every time you park the car without really having to go out of your way, why not do it?
Stop Signs and Stop Lights
Every time you stop at a stop sign, you are STOPping and then GOing. Bad mojo.
If you have alternate paths that you can take, opt for the one that has fewer guaranteed stops and you’ll save a significant chunk of gas. For myself, I swapped from a route with six stop signs (just to get out of town and to the county highway) to a route that had only three. This netted me significant gains in my average mpg for my commute, and cost me less than a minute’s extra drive.
Same goes for stop lights (although you’re playing the lottery and might snag a green). Every time you STOP and then GO, you’re spending extra gas.
Keep Your Distance
You don’t have to come to a full stop for the STOP and GO rule to take effect. If you’re driving on the highway and the car in front of you tickles their brakes, do you have to hit your own brakes? If you leave enough space between you and the possible idiot in front of you (they’re idiots if they’re in front of you and maniacs if they’re behind, right?) you can simply release the gas pedal and coast.
I’ve found this to be true in MOST traffic situations – the guy in front of me is braking and zooming, braking and zooming (likely in reaction to the traffic in front of him).
Me? I’m releasing the gas and coasting while he’s wasting his forward momentum on the brakes, and gently accelerating when I see him move forward.
COASTING is freebie time. You’re moving without spending gas to speed up or wasting gas by forcing a faster slowdown.
I love coasting. I love watching the numbers on my mpg meter zoom upward when I get to coast on the highway.
I’ve seen a ton of guides that recommend using cruise control to spare your gas mileage. I don’t know how true that is because I almost never use cruise control. The folks driving AROUND me don’t seem to be sticking to a single speed, so I’d have to be constantly disengaging cruise to avoid accidents.
Neutral
This one is just plain FUN, but I don’t recommend using it at high speeds or in heavy traffic situations.
Sometimes, even when coasting, your vehicle may be running at a high rpm. If you don’t need to accelerate (if you’re coasting or braking), you don’t need to have your car in drive.
You can slip the car into neutral. Your rpm meter should drop below 1k, your engine should quiet, and your gas mileage should zoom upward.
The danger here is needing to accelerate and forgetting to slip the car back into drive.
Heh. Not that I’ve neutral coasted down to a stop sign and forgot to slip it into drive before trying to go forward. Nope. Not me.
I use this trick on the last leg of my trip home. I’ve got a residential street with low traffic, a slow speed limit, and a gentle downward incline that has no stop signs for several blocks. I kick the car into neutral (watching for pedestrians, because I can still BRAKE in neutral) and don’t bother putting it back in drive until I hit the stop sign I turn at.
Acceleration
This one’s an easy tip to give and a difficult one to take.
If you don’t NEED to get up to highway speeds as quickly as possible…maybe take it easy? Just because you CAN slam the pedal to the floor doesn’t mean it’s the healthiest thing for your pocketbook.
Especially if you like to hear your engine roar as you zoom past other motorists, this one may not be advice you want to take. However, I’ve had excellent results when playing with my mpg by tipping over into the slow lane and letting folks pass me as we get up to speed on the highway only to catch up to them and possibly end up passing THEM after I reach my cruising speed.
Nothing Earth-Shattering
Nothing I’ve got here is going to rock your world, but these days even saving a few dollars on gas every week can help out. Now that I’ve got a car that reports average mpg to me, I have been able to do a lot of futzing around with my driving habits and see the results in real-time.
Sure, I get fantastic mileage for mostly highway miles, but the important thing for me is how to maximize my driving habits for my daily commute. By driving mindfully, I’ve seen differences of up to 10 miles per gallon over more aggressive driving tactics.
My commute involves neighborhood, county highway, and full highway roads.
Any Other Advice?
Anyone else know any good tips and tricks to share? I’m always open for learning!
Another tip: don’t idle.
It’s not simple to calculate the exact amount of gas that a car uses when it’s running but not moving (ie, idling). However for the average car, if you’re going to be standing in place for 10 seconds, you’re better off turning the car off and restarting.
Here’s a link to some information on it:
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/05/18/idling-vs-shutting-the-engine-down-how-many-seconds-make-a-dif/
Re-starting an engine does use extra gas — but nowhere near as much as idling for, say, a minute does.
I’m going to date myself here, but I learned this as a kid during the gas crises of the 70′s. There were a couple points where things got pretty bad then. Not that most people today remember it! The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 and the 1979 Energy Crisis (following the Iranian Revolution and the fall of the Shah of Iran) were nasty. Prices didn’t just skyrocket. We had gas rationing, stations unable to acquire gas, quarter mile lines at gas stations that DID have gas, etc.
It’s bad to wonder how you’re going to pay for a tank of gas. It’s much worse to wonder where you’re going to find gas to buy and whether or not you’ve got enough gas to make it to your rationing day. Things are definitely rough now, but we ought to remember that they can get much, much worse.
One thing that those crises proved is that idling (say, in a quarter-mile line for gas) is terrible. There was a lot of debate at first, because of the extra gas you use restarting your engine. But once they did actual studies, the answer was plain. 10 seconds is a good general rule.
That’s great advice! I’ve never heard the definitive ten second rule, but that’s a great one.
I will, however, idle for however long I want while my car is heating up during the snowy months. *grin*
And you’re right – things can get MUCH worse than just “expensive” (and honestly, we’re still much cheaper than many european countries)
air tire pressure, don’t lug around a bunch of stuff in your truck, etc.
i really wish that cars had a good dynamic breaking system. have you heard of this? Some of that wasted friction/heat/stopping energy used in breaking gets converted into potential energy for later. Google says it is used for trains, but I remember watching a show about newfangled electric box cars that used some form of it.
On coasting in neutral: The big street that goes past the high school and my home street is a huge hill. When I was driving my truck, I’d put it in neutral at the football stadium, coast past the parking lot, the band hall, the school, the gym, the baseball fields, the start of my neighborhood, break a little to turn, coast down the street and finally stop to turn into my driveway. that’s about .7 miles of coasting!
I’ve not heard of the dynamic braking, no, but that sounds wonderful!
Nice job on the near mile of coasting! That’s awesome! *fist bump*
I know subways (and buses, I think) in NYC use dynamic braking. Hopefully the car manufacturers get on that one soon.
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I don’t think dynamic braking would help much with your fuel consumption (unless you’re in an electric car). I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s mostly limited to creating electrical energy (that could be stored in a battery). At least, those are the only systems I’ve seen with it installed (not that I’m an expert on this or anything). I suppose it could charge your battery, but I’d bet you’d still want your alternator for that anyway.
I did see a fairly cool use of solar in an electric “car” once. Basically, it monitored the temperature in the car and ran the AC (only on the solar energy, so it didn’t drain your battery). The idea was your car wouldn’t be butt-melting hot when you got into it on a summer day.
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My commute to work every day is about 30 minutes long mostly on expressways. I have always driven right around 65 miles per hour and been very happy (speed limit is 55). I pass some people and some people pass me, so I figured I was about average. Well, all of a sudden gas prices skyrocketed and I decided to try slowing down because I knew lower highway speeds would help my mileage. At first it was very difficult, as it felt like I was just creeping along while everyone passed me by. However, for the experiment to be meaningful I had to stick with it for at least a week of standard driving. The pain slowly subsided as I learned new ways to move in the traffic (our traffic is actually very light here in Rochester, NY) and didn’t try to stay in the passing lane as I used to. After the week was up, a comparison showed a 15% increase in my mileage! That was very surprising and needless to say that almost a year later I’m still driving slower.
Now you might think I’m talking about a drastic reduction in speed, but in reality I only dropped down to 60! That’s right, 5mph=15% increase in mpg (your mileage may vary, ha!). How did it affect my commute time? It went up from 30 minute average to … 33 minutes!
I am SO testing this out myself.
I tend to do the same – hover around 65 in the 55 (with lots of folks passing me). Thanks for the tip!
From what I understand, and I am not a gearhead, this depends on your car. Some cars are allegedly more fuel efficient at higher speeds than lower speeds. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-economy/question477.htm
Mythbusters did a couple of experiments on gas mileage. For one, they had 2 SUVs drive around, one with air conditioner on and windows up, and the other with no A/C, windows down. The idea was that the drag created by driving around with the windows down would waste just as much gas as driving with the A/C on. The car with the A/C on ran out of gas first, but they were really limited in their experiment (they could only drive under highway speeds, on 5 gallons of gas to start, etc.). Lots of people argued that the drag created could absolutely negate the amount of money you spend to keep your air conditioner running if you’re actually at highway speeds. So like, I dunno, use your best judgment.
They did another where they tested pickup trucks with the tailgate up or down to figure out how much drag the tailgate generates. This doesn’t apply to me, so I don’t remember what they figured out.
They also tested the idea that a dimpled surface (like a golfball) would get better gas mileage. They covered a car with clay and dimpled the surface. It got around 3 more miles to the gallon! Take to your car with a meat tenderizer mallet! No wait, don’t. :P
Dirty car vs. clean car? Clean car got better gas mileage.
There were probably more on gas mileage, since many of us are really preoccupied with it, but I’m feeling too lazy to google today ;)
Tail gate up was better but that’s the only part of that episode I remember. :D
You’d think the weight of the clay would have negated any gas mileage increase there. Weird.
Also, freaking weird with the clean car. I wonder how dirty it has to be to be affected.
I’ve done the “distance” thing in rush-hour Houston traffic in a standard (using the clutch instead of neutral). I got to average something like 5-10 mph in stop-and-go traffic. I figured I was saving gas, but I mostly juts did it because it gave me something to do in addition to singing “Phantom of the Opera” or arguing with myself in my truck.
Another thing I sometimes do (that I believe saves gas, but who knows) is reserved for hilly areas. Mildly accelerate going downhill and decelerate (by lifting off the gas a bit) going back up. I usually keep the speed difference within 10 mph, depending on the size of the hill. My goal is to hit the speed limit when I hit the crest of the next hill (in case there are any police and so I don’t slowly accelerate past the sound barrier). Allegedly, this can help in icy weather because you gain enough momentum going down to slide up the next peak (and you won’t stall out and slide backwards, uncontrollably down a hill). But it’s warm and fairly flat here, y’all, so I don’t know.
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Why are you driving in Houston? Did you move and I missed the memo?
The speed up to hit a snowy hill thing totally works, but it’s very scary if there’s other traffic nearby who don’t know about it. I try to keep a hills-length (rather than a car length) between me and the next guy in bad weather on hilly roads.
I used to live there. I still live in not-Houston (haven’t moved since I bought my house).
brad-o´s last post ..Witness to a Crime Against Flirting
Gotcha.
Is your not-Houston home overrun with exotic animals yet? (I include in this list the Amazing, Farting Bouvier)
Our cat, Tater, will tolerate no other non-humans. And she’s the biggest, baddest, no-clawed creature I’ve met. I’ve seen her terrorize other cats that were twice her size in the other cat’s house. So, dogs will have to wait.
We do have some reindeer, antelope, and dik-dik neighbors. The deer, bunnies, raccoon, foxes, possum, snakes, spiders, and turtles are all squatters. Then there’s a whole host of birds. Owls, cooper’s hawks, hummingbirds, bluejays, cardinals, mockingbirds, woodpeckers, and a few little “cleaner” birds that run around the exterior of the house every morning, eating the insects that got stuck to our window screens.
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Reindeer and dikdik neighbors? *boggle*
A neighbor has a dencent amount of landthe and raises “exotic” game animals.
Brad-o´s last post ..Witness to a Crime Against Flirting
That’s…wow. Neat. Unless you have to watch them get hunted, I suppose.