[This is one of the many posts I have on saving money. There are more tips on how to do everything on cars here.]
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the last six months, you’ve noticed the pinch of gas prices. You don’t need to just sit back and watch your wallet grow thinner and thinner. You can take action and learn how to get more miles for your dollar than ever before.
- Brakes are your enemy. When you step on them, you have spent gas to go nowhere. Think ahead to limit the amount of brakes that you need to use. Trust me, it becomes a habit very quickly and you no longer have to think.
- Coast to red lights. Why use gas when you are going to have to stop?
- Coast down hills. I see a lot of people gunning it just to have to brake when they reach person in front of them.
- Coast to green lights far ahead of you. Â If it has been green for a LONG time, you might not make that light by the time you get there. That will force you to brake (see #1).
- Don’t tailgate… …In fact do the opposite. Leave plenty of room between you and the person in front of you. If the person needs to slow down a little, you can coast to catch up a little instead of using your brakes.
- Take three rights instead of a left. UPS drivers do this in metro areas like NYC and found that they save fuel that would have been spent idling. Only look to do this at those really difficult left turns.
- Use Cruise Control. A constant speed is the most fuel efficient.
- Drive between 40-60 miles per hour. If you have a lighter car, you can aim for the 60 MPH number. If you have a heavier car, you’ll want to go 40 MPH. Go here for more information why.
- Avoid Traffic. Don’t drive during times of high traffic if you can avoid it.
- Use a GPS tracker. Time spent lost is gas wasted.
- Avoid air conditioning (if you stand it). Some tests seem to show that it’s not a big factor, so if it really impacts your comfort level, you might want to consider using air conditioning.
- Don’t carry extra weight in your trunk. I do like to have some emergency supplies in the my trunk, but I won’t leave a bunch of weight in there if I’m not going to use it.
- Don’t carry extra weight around your waist. (Yes, this is more of a health tip, but it will still save you money in gas.)
- Convert your car to run on vegetable oil. Then filter your own oil from the stuff that restaurants don’t use.
- Remove any obvious wind resistance. This includes any bike racks, antenna ornaments, etc. Some say that rolling the windows down creates drag and others say it’s not a significant factor.
- Get low rolling resistance tires. These are tires designed to minimize the wasted energy due to the normal friction with the road. Check out Green Seal’s PDF report for more information. This can lead to some significant savings.
- Check the tire pressure Air pressure matters. Follow your manual and you’ll get more miles for every gallon. You can get a highly-rated tire pressure gauge
from Amazon for less than $15.
- Use a fuel injector cleaner. You can pick this up an any car part store. Add to a tank full of gas or as instructed.
- Get a credit card with gas rewards. The Chase Perfect Card with give you 6% cash back on your gas purchases for the first 90 days, then 3% after that. That’s like getting a 12 cents a gallon discount.
- Consider not using a credit card. This goes against the above idea. There are gas stations near me that give discounts if you pay with cash or debit cards. Find what works for you.
- Use the web to find the cheapest station near you. I like to use GasBuddy myself. I have a friend who uses his cell phone to get prices while he’s already out on the road.
- Don’t drive out of your way for the best price. It doesn’t make sense to spend a gallon of gas driving out of your way to save a couple of pennies. You’d have to have a huge tank and a very fuel efficient car to make it work.
- Find cheap gas in unusual places. When I lived in Boston, the cheapest gas was from a local grocery store chain. My wife, who lived a little further out west, found that the warehouse club she belonged to had better prices most of the time.
- Don’t buy premium grade… unless your car requires it.
- Consider a different car. Do you drive great distances in an car that gets poor gas mileage? If so, you might save more money selling your current car and buying a different one. It’s not a common situation, but one worth checking out.
- Buy a Hybrid Car. Note that all hybrid cars don’t have amazing gas mileage.
- Buy a Small Car. Smaller cars weigh less. They also typically come with engines that have four cylinders which often get better gas mileage.
- Buy a Motorcycle. Though I consider them quite dangerous, it is a way to save on gas. As a bonus you may get to ride in many high occupancy vehicle lanes
- Don’t buy a car that requires premium grade gas.
- Use a bike or walk. It’s also good exercise, so you kill two birds with one stone.
- Park far away. This is typically a health tip, but I see too many spending their gas going up and down the lanes looking for the best possible parking spot.
- Reduce your commute by moving closer to your job. My Money Blog did a great example on commuting showing the math vs. living in higher cost cities. Since he did it in March, his cost estimate for gas is conservative.
- Follow the price of crude oil. I like to look at CNBC every now and again, but it looks like you can look up crude oil prices here. If it rises today, there’s a good chance gas prices will go up in 3-4 days. If it drops, it might be wise to wait for that to filter to your local gas station.
- Explore buy gas on Wednesdays. I’ve read that statistically gas is cheaper on Wednesdays. That’s helpful, but others say that there are so many other factors to consider that it’s worthwhile. Perhaps you might want to futher investigate yourself or just do it if it’s convenient.
- Buy gas a few days before a holiday. Have you ever tried to get gas on Memorial or Labor Day weekends? It seems like gas station always raise rates, knowing that you are going to pay it.
Be a More Efficient Driver
Make Your Car More Efficient
Get the Best Price on Gas
Pick the Right Car
Don’t Drive as Much
Get Gas at the Right Time
Two Bonus Myths
- Check your air filter. I’ve seen conflicting information about this. Consumer Reports says it’s a myth. About.com says that it can reduces gasoline mileage up to 10%.
- Fill up when it’s cool. People think that cooler gas is more dense, but some studies show that the temperature coming out of the tank is the same.
Did I miss any gas saving tips? Let me know in the comments.
Changing your air filter often is not a myth, it’s a fact – it needs to be done often, especially if you live somewhere dusty. If not enough clean oxygen is getting into your engine to be ignited, you are not getting the efficiency you could be getting. Great post!
Nice informative post. Many of the things listed I have done. My lease ended on a big truck 2 months ago and I paid cash for a 02 Hyundai Accent with low miles. No A/C and I’m okay with that. Been learning the care and getting better mileage with each tank.
I couple things I have read before.
1. Don’t fill up your tank with the nozzle set on full blast. Our fuel is a liquified gas. When it is mixed with air at high rates of speed it will lose some volume as it returns to pure gas form. Think of slowly pooring a can of soda into a glass versus pooring it in very fast. What happens? Some of the liquid turns to gas and leaves the glass as it is poored fast and less so if it is carefully poored.
2. Don’t run the tank too low. The lower the level gets the more the fuel will splash around and leave its liquid form.
3. My favorite point here and a little off the point of this post. There is a website that you can find where each big gas company is listed and broken down by where they get their product from. Many of them don’t buy from the middle east or venzuela. These are the companies I don’t buy from for obvious reasons.
4. If you drive a manual don’t keep the vehicle in too low of a gear. High revs equals more fuel usage.
Regarding number 13:
http://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/blogbreak-and-factoid/
I want to share some insight on the air filter “myth.” First, it only makes sense to keep the air filter clean: A freer-flowing filter is more efficient. Try covering your nose and mouth and run. Pretty simple.
Second, a freer-flowing filter can allow the engine to produce more power — which can give you the same power at smaller throttle opening which equals less fuel used.
In short, a clean filter is better for fuel economy than a dirty filter.
I call it a myth because Consumer Reports tested it and found it to be the case. Their results were good enough for to report it as a myth. As such, I stand by these two reputable sources in calling it a myth.
I find that the single best thing to do to reduce gas consumption is to carefully track your mileage, at least every week. Newer cars may have real-time gas consumption or mileage calculations in the dash, and you can buy devices that talk to the computer in your engine to figure that stuff out, but the lazy-man’s method is to fill up at least once a week and reset your trip odometer every time you do.
Once you are tracking mileage (and on a short enough timescale that you can remember the driving conditions), the myths become clearer. You should be changing your air filter every year or two anyway. If you’re tracking your mileage, then whenever you get around to changing your filter, you’ll see if it makes a difference (in one of my cars it does, but not so much in the other). You’ll also detect engine trouble sooner (which can kill your mileage). You’ll pick up on how much behavior changes (like less idling, less breaking, etc.) actually help. Once you know what sort of mileage to expect, it’s easy to spot things that help or hurt.
One last tip–almost all fuel additives are included in premium gas, so if you’re going to use more than one additive, consider just filling up with premium for one tank (or half-tank). These days, premium gas can be as little as 5% more than regular, and I can see an improvement afterwards.
Consolidating trips and errands are a big gas saver. Not always possible, but if you get in the habit, it helps.
[Editor’s Note: This is very dangerous, I purposely didn’t include it on the list for the reader’s safety.]
Follow a truck… the larger the better. Let them push the air in front of you … lower wind resistence = better fuel economy.
Using or not using air conditioning makes no difference. The compressor is always running since it is mechanically attached to the engine via the serpentine belt. Weather you’ve got it on or not, it’s still running.
Three rights instead of a left: UPS doesn’t turn right INSTEAD of left. What they do is plan their routes with mostly right turns wherever possible. If you need to go left then three rights probably won’t help any.
Use a GPS tracker: I think a ‘GPS navigator’ might be more useful. A tracker doesn’t help you get unlost.
some tips from the brittish:
drive a manual (..stick shift):
automatic gearboxes are heavyer
—————————-
no, the other SMALL:
ie, not 4 wheel drive and and engine size under 2 liters
—————————-
petrol (‘gas’) is not a gas.
ever.
its a light distilation of crude oil. it does however evaporate in warm conditions or low pressure but only to the point where it saturates the air in the tank.
————————
and finally hybrids are a load of balls.
my car: (toyota aygo) 60mpg
skoda octavia: 55mpg
toyota prius: 30mpg. on a good day.
There is a spelling mistake in sentence #3. Should be “brake” not “break”.
Good tips.
Spiderwebby: In the US, we don’t have the option of the first two cars (that I know of), so the Prius (which gets 45-48 MPG according to Wikipedia) may be the best option available.
Reference comment #9: James says the air conditioning compressor is running all of the time. NOT!
The compressor is attached to the drive pulley by a clutch that is engaged when you turn the A/C to the ON position. So yes, the pulley turns all the time but the compressor only turns on demand.
Also, the spelling is pretty bad in the article. It could use some work.
Thanks for pointing out the spelling guys. I think much of it is fixed, but I will give another look in an hour or two.
In general, my spelling is actually pretty good, but there were some typos and places where it didn’t cut and paste well from my editor of choice and characters got chomped.
Haha, I do the same thing with spelling. Maybe I rely on the little red underlines too much but I somehow always get an email the next morning with the exact phrase of what I misspelled and its ALWAYS right after the feed is sent out…
Anyway, great article. Well done!
Great post … I’ve started trying to lay off the brakes and make coasting a habit. Every now and then I forget to pay attention but for the most part I’m doing pretty well and my last half tank (I don’t let it get below that ever) got an extra 40 miles more than what I usually get (240 vs. 200).
Great stuff! Most that I have never used before. Thanks, I plan on sharing this with my friends.
Tip #1 is crucial, one of the essential cornerstones of hypermiling is reduce braking as much as possible.
LazyMan:
Awesome list.
Even though all these things you listed DO add up, I am convinced that the change needs to be deeper than that: behaviorally and socially, we seem to be a civilization of waste and endless entertainment.
Check our our article on ways to save this summer that compliments your article very well.
http://blog.lendingclub.com/2008/07/10/21-nearly-painless-tips-on-how-to-save-money-today/
As a retired mechanic of over 45 years experience I must say your advice is mostly very good. However I have to disagree with you about air filters. My experience is that a dirty air filter will rob you of gas mileage. Regular oil changes are also important. Dirty oil contains sludge and particles that increase friction in the engine and requires more power to run. This is also true of transmissions and differentials, both manual and automatic.
READ YOUR OWNER’S MANUAL!!! They put it in the car for a reason.
Last point: I don’t trust anything I see in Consumer Reports. They have been very wrong on too many things. Air filters is just one of the minor ones.
Old Shakey, I quote two sources that I consider reliable on the air filter front – Money Magazine and Consumer Reports. If you have a problem, I would suggest e-mailing their authors and disputing their studies.
um i do know that for a fact if you dont have a clean air filter your car will not only lag when being drivin but it will not do well on gas either
Then I please ask you to write the writers that I sourced and pursue them. Consumer Reports said they tested it and they don’t seem to be the kind of organization that would debunk the common wisdom without good cause.
I recommend http://www.fuelfrog.com for gas mileage tracking.
as a mechanic, some of this is nonsense,
losing weight before challenging traffic has a lot of health benefits but about as much effect on mileage as a rock thrown in the ocean has on the tide across the sea
as for running cars on used vegetable oil, the entire valley of 50,000+ people where i live on vancouver island would provide enough used oil to run at best fifty vehicles, using ethanol is even stupider, using food stuffs to power hummers is ridiculous…..
hybrids are expensive, rarely exceed their equivalents and nobody is considering the price of replacing the batteries, which is huge
my advice to americans would be to drive less, use smaller cars and stop using precious resources invading other countries
@Robert – agreed on all counts.
Prius, schmius. Get a bike! If you HAVE to drive, follow the tips above.
By the way, I’ve gotten over 800km (about 42 mpg) to a single tank of gas in my 2001 Civic DX by following a series of trucks on the highway. Yes it’s dangerous, and illegal if you’re too close, but the mileage improvement is incredible if you are 1 vehicle length behind or less.
From a maintenance standpoint:
Don’t ignore a ‘check engine’ or ‘service engine soon’ message or MIL, Malfunction Indicator Light even tho the vehicle may seem to be running ok. It could mean almost anything from serious to trivial and can be costly to just diagnose. However, if the computer has flagged a certain sensor as ‘bad’ and has turned on the MIL, commonly fuel management system goes into ‘limp or safe mode’ and basically runs the engine within certain narrow, factory-set parameters until you can get it fixed. All those other fancy, expensive, EPA mandated sensors that also give input to the brain box are ignored and your fuel economy (surprise) gets better! Or completely tanks. I’ve seen both scenarios mostly with Hondas. But the newer (’95 and up) cars always get worse.
Shop around for a dealer/shop that will wave the diagnostic fee if you fix the problem. If you don’t ask, guess what. Anywho…Opt in for the yearly wheel alignment, air up your tires, etc., and unless the air filter is really obstructed, the difference is minimal.
Oh, and stay of your damn brakes and stop driving like an ass! You should be ashamed. 8)
You would do well to proofread your “blog” before you publish it to avoid simple spelling and grammar mistakes.
That’s the beauty of a blog. It’s not formal writing that requires proofreading. It’s about getting an idea out there quickly.
I’m just one person with one set of eyes and a budget a lot less than traditional media.
I’m tired of hearing this crap about driving between a certain speed or whatever. Your goal here is to keep your RPM’s low, under 2000. The less revolutions per minute the less gas is used.
I track my mileage very carefully, and i find that the factor that makes the biggest difference in my car is rate of acceleration. When I drive my commute at non-rush hours and don’t have other motorists behind me on the “city streets” portion of the drive, i use barely any pressure on the accelerator and upshift below 2000 rpm (on level ground). When I’m able to do that consistently, my mileage (in a Saturn LS2, 1.9 liter 5-speed) improves from low 30s to 40+ mpg…
If I may add another tip – in line with the A/C tip. You may not realize that in the winter, your Defroster is actually using the A/C. This is very good for clearing fogged windows, but once your car is toasty warm, switch it to front or floor vents. Most cars have 2 settings – full defrost, and split defrost/floor, both of which will activate the A/C. But front and/or floor vents only do not. So run your defroster long enough to clear the windows and warm the car, then switch to just vents and save some gas!
Pardon for the comment, but I just stumbled on your website and am an auto tech myself. While I enjoy “Consumer Reports” and generally have a high opinion of their staff, I remember an exercise we did in class that makes me question their study.
In that class we were asked to take a before and after measurement of a car’s intake manifold vacuum when we replaced the air filter and cleaned the intake. The car I was working on had a manifold vacuum of 14 inches of mercury (“Hg), which according to the data provided by the manufacturer was about 6-7″Hg below performance specs. I opened the air box and found the filter clogged with blow-by and dirt. After replacing it and cleaning the bottom of the air box, I took another reading, and the gauge held steady at 19″Hg.
A 5″Hg difference is incredible, and the only factor changed was the air filter. Surely if the air filter was NOT the factor there would have been no appreciable difference in the results of my test.
While Consumer Reports states that cars have sensors that will adjust for a clogged air filter, the fuel injection computer can only adjust so far before the parameters swing beyond the spec of the programming, and the ECU either turns on the check engine light, goes into limp home mode, or both, and the performance of the car is drastically affected. The effect of a clogged air filter over time, therefore, cannot be “negligible” as the article states. They also forgot to allow for non-electronic cars that are incapable of making such adjustments.
I also agree with a previous commenter: surely if it were not important, the manufacturer would not recommend that certain routine maintenance (like air filters) be done, as they have no interest in providing what amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars of unnecessary free parts to customers under the car’s original warranty.
Hmm.
Incredible article and useful for us auto drivers polluting the earth lol!
I’ve linked to your article at http://www.colourfulmoney.com.
There are several good ideas above, some of which are questionable.
Big gains are made by:
Reducing RPM for any given speed (reduces number of power pulses from your engine per mile).
Reducing the weight of the vehicle.
Reduce the rate of acceleration.
Reduce your throttle movements. Sharp throttle movements require that the EFI system injects a LOT more fuel compared to slow and progressive throttle movement.
Overrall, drive as smoothly as possible, don’t rev your engine higher than you need to, to drive off from standing start, and don’t move the accelerator pedal up and down as you are driving. Move the throttle pedal very slowly both when opening the throttle, and closing the throttle.
I’m a big fan of walking. In addition to saving gas, it’s also great exercise and less stressful.
I believe that number 5 should refer to leaving room between yourself and the car in front of you, not the car behind you. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks for the catch TK. I made the fix.
commute via public transportation. in nyc, millions of people don’t even own cars because they don’t have to. live in an area with a decent infrasrtucture.
bike commute: wear a helmet. use lights, strong ones, both spot and blinking to see the road and alert cars to your presense. obey traffic laws, watch out, be careful. if your commute is 15 miles you can do it in perhaps an hour, if under 5 miles, it’ll probably take the same amount of time as driving AND you’ll burn calories and feel great. be very careful, some drivers hate cyclists, i’ve had friends hit, stabbed, run off road. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/ShareTheDamnRoad
What an awesome list. I have noticed that if I sort of coast the whole way to work I end up using like 30% less gas. I should actually post about it at my site, although I am sure more scientific blog posts have explained this phenomenon. I will have to implement all of these now that gas prices are heading back into the stratosphere. Of course, they never fell anywhere close to “normal” levels after the first crises anyway. What a scam!
In #5, “breaks” should be brakes.
I have found that it’s worth it to seek out 100% gas over 10% ethanol blend to get about 10% better gas milage.
Thanks, spelling check isn’t going to find that one.
@ Ron – If you’re getting 10% better mileage with 100 gas vs. a 90/10 blend, something is wrong. You should only lose about 3% (more about ethanol and fuel economy here -> http://www.thesoapboxers.com/ethanol/ )
My experience seems to be in line with this – about 1 MPG worse with a 90/10 blend that straight gas (I can get 31 mpg from the Taurus on gasoline and 30 mpg from 90/10 on long, straight stretches), although I’ve heard some anecdotes about people getting horrible mileage with a 90/10 blend, for whatever reason.
In my state (Iowa) the subsidy on ethanol drops the price anywhere from 3-5% less than the straight gasoline (it seems to always be 10 cents lower, regardless of the price of gas), so from a cost perspective, it’s a wash.
Tire pressure matters more than most drivers expect. That’s easy to do (but know that some automated machines at gas stations can and do over-inflate, which I say from experience) So carrying your own gauge is best.
The other major thing we can do to conserve gas made from oil is support alternative solutions. Seek out synthetic lubricants, and products made of substitutes. Don’t buy photographic film. Go digital.
Thanks for the great tips! As I recall, the original post mentioned using an oil ETF or index fund to hedge against the rising cost for both fuel and agricultural prices in response to rising food costs. Can you please provide the names of those again and if we had done it then instead of now what the impact would have been. I know it was a good idea to have done it then but procrastination was costly for many that did not do this. Thanks!
I don’t think I removed that tip in the original post, but I have written about it a couple of times since. The latest being here: http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/hedge-rising-food-and-gas-prices-with-etfs/.
I invested in PowerShares DB Oil Fund (Ticker DBO: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:DBO). At the time that I wrote this article, it was trading near it’s all-time high of around $50. That makes sense because I wrote the article in response to high gas prices. If you waited until late March of 2009 (when the gas prices went back down), you could have gotten in at around $20. It has been trading between $31-32 recently.
It doesn’t track gas prices perfectly because there are a lot of other factors that play into the final gas price, but it can be used as a partial hedge, which along with the other tips mentioned can help with the high cost of gas.
Thanks! It probably is not too late to do it at the current price because if we hit 125-150 oil it should move with it. I am not wishing for 150 oil but if we get punished at the pump we might as well make some of it up here.
You could short the ETF if you though gas prices were going down in the long term. I think that’s a dangerous game to play.
I would probably look for something else that’s undervalued to invest in now.
I sometimes wonder why my Mum bothers to save all the drink cans, magazines and the newspapers just to resell them. It’s not like me and my siblings don’t give any money to her to spend. She doesn’t seem to owe anyone money or even addicted to shopping and spending money. After being laid off by my company last year, I began to understand the need of live frugal life even when we are not lack of anything at the moment. Nobody can predict the future. I now love to learn how to live frugally from the websites online and then write them down on my own website. That’s how the search engine brought me to your website. Thank you for sharing all of these valuable tips and thoughts. I will keep an eye on your website updates in future for more tips and information. Keep it up!
Wow, what a great article. So extensive – and while most articles like this only give you obvious ideas (like coasting to a stop), this one gives you some really out of the box suggestions. I never knew to buy gas before a holiday before!
There are a couple of other great resources on the web about saving gas that you might like –
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
http://www.shopautoweek.com/topics/fuel-efficiency.html
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/17-tips.htm
Thanks Matt. There are some articles that I don’t put a lot of time into and others that I spend days on. This would be one of the later. Hopefully, it is helpful given the rising gas prices environment that we are seeing.
Wow! There sure are a lot of different ways you can save on gas! This is undoubtedly a good thing, but we’d all be kidding ourselves if we said we were going to adopt all of these changes. After all, most of us are pretty stuck in our ways and aren’t going to find it easy to fundamentally change our driving habits, such as when we brake or where we turn. Most people aren’t going to just run out and buy a new car either.
That’s why I think the most important money-saving tips are definitely using a gas rewards credit card and using comparison shopping to determine where you’re going to fill up.
For a long time, the credit cards offering the best gas rewards required you to get gas only at one particular station or the other. Now the best gas credit card on the market offers the same rewards no matter which station you choose (as long as you pay at the pump). I’m talking about the Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum Rewards Card. It gives you 5 points per $1 spent on gas purchased anywhere (the equivalent of 5% cash back), 3 points per $1 spent at supermarkets, and 1 point on everything else. It doesn’t even charge an annual fee, but you do have to join the credit union, which you can do with a one-time payment of around $15. It’s definitely worth it though because if you spend $150 on gas per month, the PenFed Pla1tinum Card will save you $90 per year.
You can add to these savings by doing some of that comparison shopping I was talking about before. I have the GasBuddy App and it allows you to find the cheapest gas in your area.
All in all, yeah gas is expensive, but there are a lot of easy ways to make it less so during peak season without requiring a major expenditure (such as a hybrid) that will leave a dent in your bank account all year long!