So You Think You've Heard All the Gas Savings Tips?

Or have you? More common tips are... - Check your tires. Odd sounds could mean poor wear, which might indicate you need to rotate or get new tires. - Maintain your car. - Drive smooth, keep a constant speed. - Don't drive faster than 50 MPH. - Buy a hybrid. - Blah, blah, blah. Well let me give you some unique gas savings tips that you won't hear anywhere else. Ha, okay that was a lie, but I haven't read it anywhere...just kind of thought of them on my own or maybe I heard them some place before. Wait, that means it would be common sense...well, yeah...and maybe they're wrong. ;) 1. Lose weight! That's right. Exercise, eat right, lose weight. The less weight your car has to carry around, the more miles per gallon you'll get. This could mean finally removing the unnecessary items sitting in your backseat. 2. Change to synthetic oils. Synthetics have better lubricating properties, meaning your engine works easier to generate the same power, which means more miles per gallon. Not to mention for an average increase of $15/per oil change, you get 1500-2500 more miles between oil changes! 3. Wax your car! That's right. The smoother your car, the less air resistance your car will generate, meaning your car will require less power to move, which means more miles per gallon! 4. Drive at night. The cooler the air, the more densly packed oxygen is, meaning more power from the same amount of gas. Not to mention there's less traffic at night, so less stop and go traffic. 5. Fill up in the late night or morning before the sun warms up the ground too much. The cooler it is, the more dense gas is as well. Okay, this one doesn't help increase miles per gallon, but you'll get more gas per dollar which means you can buy more gas to travel more miles. Did I confuse you? haha... 6. Roll the windows up on the freeway! Either drive with just the vents open or turn on the AC. AC will mean a little bit more gas used per mile, but it's impact on miles per gallon is less than rolling the windows down. I read this somewhere before...supposedly the resistance generated by having your windows open uses up more gas than turning on the AC and having the windows rolled up. City driving, windows down is a better idea. 7. Buy a "cool air intake (CAI)." Yeah, this is a performance increasing modification for your car, but it does increase miles per gallon. Why? Well, it draws cooler air from outside of the engine bay and allows your engine to breath easier. There are also "warm air intakes (WAI)," which allow easier breathing but have a shorter tube and still pulls air from inside of the engine bay. You're results from a WAI will not be as good as a CAI. I've heard reports of gaining 1-2 mpg by adding a CAI. You'll get more power and more miles per gallon. Right on! If you suddenly have the urge for even more power, then some other improvements that might help gas mileage would be an upgraded ECU (brain) for your car, exhaust system, better tires, headers. I'm not sure if any of these others will really gain you more miles like the CAI though. 8. Plan your trips so that you can hit as many locations in one trip as possible! I heard this idea from a write up at the Paranoid Brain. It's a good one. 9. Don't drive. Walk, catch the bus, ride a bike...carpool, preferrably in someone else's car or the car with the most miles per gallon rating. Although in this case you should help out with gas. Whatever it is, if you don't drive, you have infinite miles per gallon. Good luck saving gas! That's it. I have no idea how many miles you'll save by following these 9 tips, but hey, if each of them gets you .25 miles more per gallon, then that's 2.25 miles more per gallon. That's not too shabby! EDIT: Immediately after writing this post, I found this article in my local newspaper...some of the tips are pretty similar. Enjoy.