Many of us are visiting fuel station more often than necessary. This is certainly something that we need to address quickly, due to the rising oil costs. There are bad habits that actually increase fuel wastage. We should avoid doing these habits to help the environment and our financial situation. There are things we do that negatively affect our car’s MPG value. Even cars with good MPG rating could eventually suffer from poor efficiency due to prolonged bad driving habit. It is possible for a small economical car to become true gas guzzler due our poor driving habits. Here are things that we need to avoid:
- Aggressive start stop driving: Many drivers tend to accelerate and brake too quickly. This could happen when we are commuting to our workplace and we are rushing to reach our destination faster. However, studies show that aggressive start stop driving only reduces our travel time by less than 5 percent. Unfortunately, our fuel consumption would increase by a massive 40 percent. To avoid fuel wastage, we should make sure to apply gentle braking and slow acceleration. It would be better to sleep and wake 30 minutes earlier, instead of rushing each day to our workplace.
- Choosing the wrong gear: It is inadvisable to travel in 3rd gear, if we are supposed to do it at 4th In this situation, we are forcing our engine to work harder and we are burning more fuel than needed. In general, we should shift up when we reach 2250RPM. Also, by applying gentler acceleration, we will change gear less often.
- Idle too long: It is a bad idea to let our car idles for too long. When our car is running and stationary, it is burning fuel needlessly. Is possible, we should turn the car engine off, if the car stays idle for more than a few minutes. This also applies during very severe traffic jam that causes us to stay stationary for more than 15 minutes.
- Unsteady speed: It is very inefficient to alter speed constantly. In fact, we can save up to 15 percent of fuel when we keep the speed constant. When driving along the highway, we should maintain the car at its ideal speed that ensures the highest MPG, for many cars it is at about 60 km per hour. Speeding isn’t only unsafe, but also a rather inefficient style of driving.
Even if we have adopted proper driving style, it is possible that our poorly maintained car consumes more fuel than necessary. We should check the pressure of our car. In normal condition, we lose about 1 psi of air pressure each month and the loss of pressure can be higher during the summer. Friction increases if we have under-inflated tires. This will cause the car engine to work harder than necessary to reach specified speed. By making sure that our tires are properly inflated, we could save more than 5 percent of fuel. We also often carry unnecessary weight and heavier car will require energy to accelerate. There are items that we don’t really need, such as heavy items in the boot and roof racks.