Increase Your Fuel Mileage And Save Gas

Some of us do not have it so good as to walk out the front door and be at work or the bus is right on the corner a stones throw away and the closest business to my house is, you guessed it a GAS STATION. I have to drive to work and it is only 10 miles to work round trip. I wish I could ride a bike or motorcycle but i do not want to leave my family without a father. So since I do have to drive lets make the best of it and maintain our vehicles in tip top shape.

Did you know that 3 pounds of air loss in the tires equals about 1 mile per gallon loss?

Did you know that a bug deflector on the front of your car causes about 1 mile per gallon loss?

Did you know that jack rabbit starts and fast stopping can cause about 2 miles per gallon loss?

Did you know that your A/C uses about 10 horsepower to operate and can cost you 2 miles per gallon in the city, but will be better on the highway that not and having your windows down?

Did you know that keeping extra items in your trunk can cause loss of fuel mileage?

If you were aware of these things I have listed and heeding them you are helping your mileage, if not then check on them and see yours improve!

Did you know that your A/C uses about 10 horsepower to operate and can cost you 2 miles per gallon in the city, but will be better on the highway that not and having your windows down?

Does anybody know the real difference between the 2 grades of fuel? I have been in the repair field along time and all I know is there is no difference between the two except the octane rating. You ask what is octane rating? Well this is the way the petroleum industry rates the antiknock quality of gasoline, the higher the number on the rating the better the fuel is at stopping engine knock due to predetionation and has nothing to do with fuel economy or engine efficiency.

The reason the manufactures might recommend high octane fuel is because when they designed the motor they could not get the engine to stop predetionation with low octane fuel so they say premium fuel only on the fuel Gage and the gas cap. The difference between the low octane and the higher one is the higher the number is, the slower the fuel burns and this allows for the piston to get to top dead center or the top of it's travel before the fuel ignites pushing the piston down. If the fuel burns to fast as in lower octane fuel the fuel will ignite too soon and as the piston reaches the top of the travel the explosion from fuel will be pushing back at the piston on its way up and a knock is heard.

Regular gas will not knock if the engine was designed for it and the engine is not modified from factory specifications. If you put premium in a car designed for regular the computer of newer cars will advance the ignition and you may get better gas mileage or economy. This is due to the advanced timing and does not make the fuel any better or worse for your car.

You want to know why the gas prices are going up? Since we do not have any viable choice that can replace oil yet, we have to buy it to get where we have to and the mass transit in this country is poor compared to most other industrialized nations.
If we want prices to go down then we need to come up with some viable alternative fuels that will power our vehicles and make then just as easy as gas is to get and just as much or less to purchase.

We should not be using our feed stock like corn to power our vehicles when there are countries and people starving around the world. I think if we look toward the endless supplies of energy like the Sun and salt water or geothermal for a permanent fix to a dwindling supply of oil.
Everyday we hear a reason to stop using oil and the price goes up the next day. I think since the oil companies are so powerful that they are putting out the rumors and causing the price to rise. Why do they get Hugh profits yet have not fixed the refineries or built any more? I heard the last one built was in the 1970's and the oil spokesman says we can't keep up with the demand. Now let's see what they show as a profit this year?
I think that if we can build better batteries and solar panels can come down in price and hydrogen storage container sizes can be reduced then we can reduce our oil dependency to a level that maybe we could supply our own country and not have to get it from the middle east and elsewhere.
Let's figure out how to lower our dependency and you will see the prices go down,down,down and then you can breath easier and maybe there will be more peace in the world. When we look at the amount of fuel we burn in our vehicles there are several factors to look at and i will look at some of the more important one in my article here.

The first we will look at is driving habits. If we drive our vehicle mostly in the city then we first should look at the route to take that has the least amount of stops, since we burn most of the fuel on starts from a stop. When coming to a traffic stop we should coast our vehicles from a further distance to avoid having to coming to a complete stop before the light changes. The other thing is when we do stop and have to start from a complete stop we should start off slow with as little gas pedal as possible to get up to speed and when we do get to speed stay steady with the gas and you will burn less.
The next thing we will look at is tire pressure. Did you know that we can loose over 2 to 3 pounds of air every month in a good tire? Tire pressure of just 1 pound under inflation can cause us to loose 1 mile per gallon! When we get gas this is why it is important to check the air in our tires and I like to go to the high end of the recommended tire pressures. If we change to a different size tire than recommended by the manufacture we will change our speedometer readout and change our gas mileage also.

Now that we looked at the 2 things that cause the most dramatic change in mileage we now look at tuning up our vehicles. When do we change our air filter or spark plugs or other tune up items? If all is well then change them when the manufacture recommends for harsh conditions. If you do not keep your vehicle in tune you can cause your car to run either too lean or rich that will affect engine performance and gas mileage.
I want to mention also about this craze to modify our vehicles engines and removing the items you may deem unnecessary to have like a factory air filter system or exhaust system and lets not forget the suspension systems and rims and tires. All of these changes can cause gas mileage to deteriorate and some of the items like removing of emission components are illegal. We do not need to remove these items to get better performance! When we look at the amount of fuel we burn in our vehicles there are several factors to look at and i will look at some of the more important one in my article here.
The first we will look at is driving habits. If we drive our vehicle mostly in the city then we first should look at the route to take that has the least amount of stops, since we burn most of the fuel on starts from a stop. When coming to a traffic stop we should coast our vehicles from a further distance to avoid having to coming to a complete stop before the light changes. The other thing is when we do stop and have to start from a complete stop we should start off slow with as little gas pedal as possible to get up to speed and when we do get to speed stay steady with the gas and you will burn less.
The next thing we will look at is tire pressure. Did you know that we can loose over 2 to 3 pounds of air every month in a good tire? Tire pressure of just 1 pound under inflation can cause us to loose 1 mile per gallon! When we get gas this is why it is important to check the air in our tires and I like to go to the high end of the recommended tire pressures. If we change to a different size tire than recommended by the manufacture we will change our speedometer readout and change our gas mileage also.

Now that we looked at the 2 things that cause the most dramatic change in mileage we now look at tuning up our vehicles. When do we change our air filter or spark plugs or other tune up items? If all is well then change them when the manufacture recommends for harsh conditions. If you do not keep your vehicle in tune you can cause your car to run either too lean or rich that will affect engine performance and gas mileage.
I want to mention also about this craze to modify our vehicles engines and removing the items you may deem unnecessary to have like a factory air filter system or exhaust system and lets not forget the suspension systems and rims and tires. All of these changes can cause gas mileage to deteriorate and some of the items like removing of emission components are illegal. We do not need to remove these items to get better performance!