The amount of fuel your car uses is mostly down to your choice of vehicle and its fuel-saving technology. However, although cars are getting more fuel efficient every year, there are still some easy steps that you can take to slightly reduce your fuel consumption. Although the reduction will not have an instant impact, the amount you’ll be saving will add up to a lot of money in the long run. Here are some simple steps that you can take to save money on gas.
Plan Your Drives
You can not only save fuel by driving your car in a certain way but also by planning your trips in a smarter way. You probably take more trips than you need to and do it at times where traffic is at its peak.
Of course, if you need to get to work or to a meeting at a specific time, there’s little you can do about it. However, if you analyze other trips that you have to make and group them together geographically, you may realize that you can get to more places in just one big trip, using much less gas than you would have if you’d taken individual trips to all those places. Also, by taking the time of day into consideration, you’ll be saving gas by taking some trips outside rush hour.
Remove Unnecessary Weight From Your Car
Many people leave all sorts of heavy things in their trunks for months out of convenience. Leaving everything you don’t need in your garage makes your car lighter, so you can get rid of all those suitcases, spare parts, bottles, and all sort of equipment that you may have back there.
For every extra hundred pounds of weight added to your car, fuel consumption rises by as much as two percent, so figuring out how much you’ll be saving in the long run by taking out all the heavy stuff is just a case of simple math.
Avoid Being in a Rush
This may be a good piece of advice to take in everyday life, anyway, but it definitely applies to saving fuel. Fast driving and late braking will greatly increase your chance of getting in an accident and raise your stress levels, so taking it easy would be a good idea even without the fuel-saving bonus. Driving calmly, anticipating the time and place where you can accelerate and break, and generally not rushing through town can save you about 30% of your fuel.
Closing the Windows
This is a valid advice when taking long drives because at constant high speeds, the car’s aerodynamics play a major part in fuel consumption. It may sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes opening a window will cause more fuel to be used than by turning on the air conditioning system. So for commuters, driving with the windows closed and letting the car cut through the air the way it was designed to do will save you a lot of money over time.
Image via Marco Verch | Licensed by CC BY 2.0
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