Petrol prices continuing rise has meant that driving has become very costly business. Although we aren’t able to tell you any magical ways to get the price of your fuel down to the prices we used to pay there are a few tips and tricks that can be done while you are driving to help save money by making your fuel go further.
Tips to be more fuel efficient with your car.
Efficient Car “set up” tips:
- Don’t fill your tank right to the top: A full tank of fuel in a car adds allot of weight to a car which in-turn requires the engine to work harder, the less a car weighs the more fuel efficient it will be. Providing you don’t have to drive way out of your way to fill up your car next time it is worth only filling your tank half full or three quarters if you really need to.
- Take out any un-necessary contents: Along the same thought process as putting in less fuel to save weight you should also look to remove any junk or excess clutter in your car that is just adding weight. All weight saving makes it easier for the car to accelerate and in turn makes the car more efficient.
- Keep your tyres pumped up: Make sure you check and keep your tyres on your car at their optimal PSI. If the tyre pressure on your car is low then that will create drag and mean you use more fuel when driving.
- Remove your roof rack: To go a bit “Formula 1″ on you all, making your car more aerodynamic by removing things such as the roof rack will help make fuel go further. A roof rack adds drag against the air (along with added weight) which in turn means more fuel is needed!
Efficient driving tips:
- Don’t have a heavy right foot: When you are accelerating in your car try not to have a heavy right foot and “stick the pedal to the metal”, the harder you accelerate the more fuel you will use. Try to accelerate in a controlled fashion so not to “over rev” the engine.
- Be space aware: By this we mean keep a good position in the road with what the cars in-front are likely to be doing. The more you accelerate and brake the more fuel you will be using, so if you are able to hang back a tiny bit further from the car in front or keep yourself a clear road so you can drive at a constant regular pace shoudl help you be more fuel efficient.
- Don’t brake at the last minute: If you can see you are going to be approaching some traffic lights that are going to require you to stop then instead of driving to them and having to press on the brakes make use of the cars current momentum and let the car gradually slow itself down before you have to apply on the brakes.
- Make sure you drive in the correct gear: Driving in the wrong gear is a sure fire way to use up more fuel than you need to, you want to be driving in the correct gear for your speed, if you are in too low a gear then you will be over revving the engine which means it will be using more fuel to run faster for that gear, if yo are in too high a gear then you will be laboring the engine which again will not be fuel efficient as the car will be struggling to accelerate and hence mean you use more fuel to get up to the speed or to maintain the speed you want.
Other ways to bring down your fuel bill:
- Lift Share: Do you work with others who also live near you then look at car sharing and instead of 2 or 3 of you driving the same journey to work every day, why not have 1 person drive and take it in turns each day or week and then you may get a week or more off using your own fuel. Read more about Lift Sharing.
- Don’t use premium fuels: At most petrol stations you will now see “Super” or “Premium” petrol and diesel, this is more expensive that normal fuel. For the majority of cars normal fuel is all your car needs, unless your car actually states that using the premium fuels with higher RON values is needed then stick to the standard fuel.
- Keep your eyes on Supermarket petrol money off offers: Plenty of times many of the big supermarkets offer 5p-12p off per litre of fuel once you have spent so much in store. If you are going to be doing your sohpping and know that you will usually go over the minimum spend allowance to get a money off voucher for fuel then this can be a great way to save money especially if you go into the petrol station with a nearing empty tank.
