Automotive Fuel Mileage

The vehicles we drive every day to and from work or around town shopping or on trips is getting to be expensive for the gasoline that we have to feed them. I personally try to control the things I can like; watching my driving habits and vehicle maintenance schedules. Let's take a look at a vehicles fuel mileage and see why we get whatever mileage we get When we go to the new car dealer to buy our vehicle there is a large sticker on the left rear window that gives all the standard and options the vehicle is equipt with and some other information that we really need to look at and that is the vehicles average mileage per gallon!

The sticker in the window shows the average miles per gallon the vehicle is supposed to get in the city and also on the highway. These numbers will be in large bold numbers and only show what the middle of what we should be getting is. If you look below these large numbers you will see in small print the low and the high numbers of what you may get also along with what other vehicles in the class of vehicles you are looking at may be getting. Now that we got this covered let's look at this number we see in big bold as our average and we wonder after we buy the vehicle and driven for 1 or 2 thousand miles that we are getting closer to the little number on the low side of average.

Why is this you may ask? Well, If you are like all the other drivers that have to buy the gas for these gusslers we will look as to why this happens. First of all we did not read the fine print under the big bold numbers and we need to under stand the number is under perfect conditions and weather conditions with only a driver and that person is less than 150 pounds. Next we should not have no assesories on like the A/C or even the heater blower or radio since these take power to run and will affect the mileage. These numbers the better they look and the better they test will be good for the manufacture and may look good to the consumer.

If you want to get the top of that scale of your mileage per gallon you just have to follow some basic driving habits and follow the maintenaince schedule of the vehichle. First the driving habits: we all have some sort of bad driving habit that is hard to break and I will list some of them for you.

. Do not let your engine idle for more that a minute without moving so shut the cat off if possible when sitting in a line or waiting for someone.

. There is no need to warm up your car before moving out of your driveway as with older cars since the computer will compensate for the cold startup.

. When accelerating from a start or a light you should do so slowly and bring the vehicle up to speed at an easy pace instead of jackrabbit fast.

. When coming to a stop minimize your need for braking of the car since this is lost power when we brake excessive.

. Plan your trips and outings so as to keep the miles you drive down and you will relize how much this saves both time and mileage.

. When driving try to keep the throttle pedal as steady as possible and us the cruise control when possible.
Now make sure to keep up on the maintenance and the driving habits and you should see an improvement in your mileage and your wallet!