Hypermiling: Fight Rising Gas Prices by Increasing Your Fuel Efficiency

Rising gas prices have created a lot of attention for hypermilers: people who use driving techniques to make their cars exceed the EPA fuel efficiency. Hypermiling is becoming very popular with gas prices rising over $4 per gallon. Many of the techniques used by hypermilers can actually be dangerous and in some place may even be illegal. However, there are number of driving habits you can learn from hypermilers that will greatly improve your fuel efficiency.

Keep a record of your car's gas mileage. The first step to improving your fuel efficiency is to understand what your gas mileage is in the beginning. Every time you fill up, you'll want to track somewhere how many gallons of fuel you purchased. If your car has a trip odometer, you can reset it at every fill up. Otherwise, you'll need to record the mileage at every fill up. Take the current odometer reading and subtract the reading from your last fill up to get the miles you've traveled between fueling. Divide that number by the number of gallons you last purchased and you'll have the miles per gallon for that tank of gas.

Keep your car well-maintained. Poor maintenance on your vehicle will reduce your fuel efficiency. With rising gas prices, maintenance will actually help you save money in the long run. Keep your oil changed and based on your mechanics recommendations, use the lightest weight oil for your car. Keep your tires inflated to the recommended level. A reduction of just 1 psi in your tires can decrease your fuel efficiency by approximately 1.4%. Keeping your tires balanced and wheels aligned will also help improve fuel efficiency. One item that usually doesn't get checked unless there's a problem is your car's oxygen sensor. The oxygen sensor controls the air and fuel mixture in your vehicle. If it's out of whack, you may be burning more fuel than your car needs.

Stay close to the white line. One hypermiler driving technique is to drive closer to the white line on the left side of your lane. Riding the line keeps your car out of grooves made by other drivers, potholes and puddles. In addition, avoiding potholes will help preserve your wheel alignment which helps your fuel efficiency.

Reduce your car's mass. Unnecessary weight or drag will reduce your fuel efficiency greatly. Remove things like roof racks or bike racks when not in use. These items add weight and air resistance to a vehicle and reduce gas mileage. Don't carry extra tools, luggage or other weight in your car if you don't need it. Those of you that keep a messy car-empty it out to reduce the vehicle's mass. This will help improve your gas mileage.

Slow down. This is a hard one for many of us. Very vehicle has a range of speeds at which it is most efficient. This speed range is typically around 35 miles per hour to 55 miles per hour. Cruising in this speed range will greatly improve your gas mileage. This is one of the best kept secrets of hypermilers.

Don't drive aggressively. Hypermilers know that the best way to increase gas mileage is to avoid full stops and hard acceleration. Both of these are the hallmarks of aggressive driving. To maximize your gas mileage, try to keep your car moving as much as possible and accelerate more slowly over a greater distance. Try braking further back from stop signs and stoplights. If you can coast further, you'll lose less energy stopping and increase your fuel efficiency. And watch your acceleration. Hard acceleration uses more fuel. Also avoid following too close in traffic. Following the car in front of you too closely may cause you to need to step on the brake. This wastes energy and reduces your gas mileage. Allow more space so you can coast to slow down or stop.

Avoid sitting with the engine running. Consider whether you should keep your engine running. Long traffic lights or stopped traffic jams are great opportunities to turn your engine off. By not idling your engine you can increase your fuel efficiency even more. This is another technique used by many hypermilers. When you're parked waiting on someone, turn your engine off.

Roll up the windows and cut down on the air conditioning. There's a lot of debate over which is more efficient air conditioning or rolling down the window. At slower speeds, the window option is most efficient but at highway speeds, rolling down the window creates more drag. This makes the air conditioner your most efficient option on the highway. Of course, rolling up the windows and not using the air conditioner is the most fuel saving option.

Hypermilers are finding a lot of techniques for saving fuel and fighting rising gas prices. Many of the techniques used by hypermilers are easy for any driver to adopt and just involve making small changes to your driving habits. After all, the easiest way to fight rising gas prices is to use less of it.