Oversimplified Guide to Getting Better Gas Mileage
These tips are listed in order of greatest savings to least savings.
1. Accelerate and brake less aggressively (traffic permitting).
2. Drive AT THE SPEED LIMIT using cruise control.
3. Shut down the engine if stopping for over a minute.
4. Your car takes about 10 seconds to warm up, even in the winter.
These are the only four tips you need to pay attention to.
If you trust me, you can stop reading. If you want an explanation, keep going.
Sure, there are tons of other tricks that can save you maybe one or two miles per gallon, but they’re usually illegal, extremely annoying to other drivers, dangerous, or annoying for the passengers (pulse and glide technique, engine-off coasting, accelerating as slowly as you possibly can, coasting to stops, etc.) You may end up causing an accident or getting fined for being the most annoying driver on the road. That will definitely negate the few dollars in gas you’ll save every week by trying these stupid “hypermiling” techniques. As far as in-car luxuries go, having the air conditioner on while listening to music is NOT A BAD THING. Your gas mileage only starts to suffer once you start using anything in excess (for example, blasting music with your new 400-watt subwoofers with the windows open and the air conditioning on full blast.) So don’t worry. Drive the car as it was supposed to be driven. And for the love of God, DO NOT remove your spare tire/jack/other emergency equipment from your car thinking you’ll save a bunch of money on gas because your car is now lighter. If you’re going to remove anything from your car, remove the junk from the center console, the boxes of crap in your trunk, and whatever’s left over in the back seat from your last long trip. Your passengers will thank you.
Anyway, how do my tips actually work?
#1: Gas used = throttle x RPM. Less acceleration = less throttle and shifting at lower RPM = less gas used. Braking more moderately will use less power braking (which steals power and therefore gas from the engine) and will allow you to conserve momentum when approaching red lights (increasing your chance of the light turning green and you making it through without having to start from a dead stop). I added in the “traffic permitting” clause because frankly, it’s unsafe to accelerate like an old lady when you’re the first one in the line of traffic at a red light on a 45 mph road, just as it’s unsafe to begin braking 100 yards before a stop sign on a 25 mph road. Don’t piss off other drivers.
#2: For any given gear, higher speed = higher RPM = more gas used. Remember also that traffic lights are timed (based on speed limits) to make traffic flow smoothly. That’s their job. So moving at the speed limit will get you more green lights. Cruise control helps you stay at that speed, smoothes out acceleration, and prevents you from “surging” to keep up with other cars. Lots of people say that cruise control will decrease mileage on hills. While this can be true (since it forces your car to accelerate against gravity), the benefits of the increased mileage on flatter land greatly outweigh the losses on hills. Also, keep in mind that cars with automatic transmissions are smarter nowadays and will always be in the right gear to make it up the hill most efficiently. And again, slowing down while going up a hill will piss off most other drivers.
#3: In modern cars, the amount of extra gas it takes to start a car = less gas than it takes to let it idle for about a minute (this is not an exact number; it’s a general consensus among experts based on the majority of the cars out there). In older cars (especially cars with carburetors), the amount of gas it takes to start = anywhere from two to three minutes of idling. So when you stop to pick up your friend and he/she invites you inside for a drink on a hot day, shut off the engine and set the air to recirculate to keep the car from becoming an oven while you’re inside.
#4: Modern engines do not require any sort of warmup time. Once the engine is started and the RPM settle to idle speed, you’re good to go. The transmission needs to warm up, but this is best accomplished by just driving (and maybe taking it a little easy at first.) Just remember to bundle up in winter; no “warmup” time means your car will be freezing cold for the first few minutes of your trip.
So really, just follow those 4 tips and don’t really worry about anything else.
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