Save on gas – 11 extreme tips
You may have read an unusual post I made recently on extreme ways to save money on insurance. In light of 4th of July road trips, this time I decided to reveal some rather innovative methods you can use to save money on gas.
- Go to fat camp. That’s right Chunky, for every 50 extra pounds carried around, your vehicle loses about 1% in fuel efficiency.
- Sweat a little. Turn off your A/C, it burns more fuel. And why not keep the windows rolled up…it will help with the first item and reduce drag at the same time.
- Bikini car wash! ….or just a regular car wash, whichever you prefer. Washing and waxing your car creates a smooth surface with less wind resistance and a resulting higher gas efficiency. Is that a stretch? Well ask a swimmer why they shave their legs.
- Call in sick, rent a movie, ride a bike, or figure out a reason to stay home and not drive for a day.
- Come in late. Skip rush hour. The stop and go traffic will cause you to consume more gas accelerating.
- Let a woman drive. Can you believe men are less likely to ask for directions? Well guess what, getting lost will gobble up gallons faster than anything else on this list.
- Plug that oil leak. With hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil flowing into the gulf of Mexico, you can bet it will hurt the price of gas.
- Move to Florida and pick a nice retirement community. But stay away from aggressive driving in the Northeast and the high speed limits in the Midwest. If you live in an area where you are likely to speed you’ll burn up gas quicker. Your engine has to work harder to overcome wind resistance and for every 5 mph you reduce highway speed, you can reduce fuel consumption by 7%.
- Set your alarm for 3am and go fill up the tank. Buy gas during the coolest time of the day. Gas gets denser as it cools, but you are charged at the pump based on volume, not density.
- Stop being pretentious. Switch from premium, most cars don’t really need it anyway. And while you’re at it, why don’t you ditch the fancy sports car for something with a little better mileage.
- Head to Vegas. There are plenty of auto-shops that will give you a lift to the airport and work on your car while you’re gone. You can improve gas mileage by up to 10% by replacing your air filter, tuning your engine, and keeping your tires properly inflated, balanced, and aligned.
Do you have any crazy gas saving tips to add?
When you’re going down a hill, shut the car off. You’ll still have enough speed for steering the car without much trouble and you won’t be burning any gas.
If you don’t want to be that extreme, you get almost the same results by shifting into the highest gear and not touching the gas. Whatever you do – avoid the brake pedal as much as possible. Simply roll out of the throttle with enough time to slow you for the corners. Braking kills gas mileage.
I’d definitely say ride a bike more often! But of course that only saves gas that wasn’t going to be used anyway. However, one can Hypermile! That means driving the same speed throughout town without stopping very often. Coast to a red light with the anticipation of it turning green, the less stop and go motion the better. My husband is really good at it, I’m horrible at timing the lights!
Hypermiling! Never heard that before but I love it!
“Coast to a red light with the anticipation of it turning green, the less stop and go motion the better.”
Good suggestion. I don’t understand the point of driving above the speed limit only to brake hard at a red light. If you see a light ahead turn red, just take your foot off the gas and let yourself slow down. Fine, don’t drive at 10 miles an hour either, but no need to drive 10 miles above the limit just to hit the brakes!