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Gas prices fluctuate constantly. When gas prices are low the idea of taking the scenic route home doesn’t seem like such a bad one. However, when gas prices rise, taking the extra step to ensure we use our gas efficiently goes a long way to keep our wallet beefed up for the weekend. There are various ways to conserve your car’s fuel so that you don’t need to fill up all the time and can feel better about being eco-friendly.
Avoid Traffic
Obviously, the most known fact about driving a car is that traffic isn’t fun to be in. Not only is it dreadful, but standing “still” in traffic will consume your fuel because although you’re not moving, your car engine is still running. The best thing to do is to completely avoid traffic. We live in an era ran by technology; use your favorite map application to find the least congested route while driving. If you cannot avoid traffic altogether, a little work around is to ride the “waves and jams” caused by congestion. This technique minimizes the time spent accelerating, decelerating and time spent stopped. If you live in large metropolitan areas, avoiding traffic may be impossible, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t conserve fuel by driving wiser. Driving wiser clearly has the added bonus of helping to prevent a car accident.
Track Your Habits
Keeping track of your gas mileage, and watching your driving habits can go a long way in fuel conservation. Just like how business use analytics to keep track of and study data, you should use your odometer to track how much your car gets in miles per gallon. The ability to develop a sense of your fuel consumption over a period of time will help you make adjustments to your driving habits. This can help you to maximize your fuel. Newer car models, such as the Toyota Corolla 2015 and the Toyota Camry 2015, have built-in systems that gauge how eco-friendly your driving habits are. Every time you accelerate, your car will track if you either stay within the eco-friendly meter or not.
Tip: If your car does not have a feature that gauges your “eco-friendliness”, you can simply accelerate gradually over a longer distance and time. You may not be able to keep track of it visually, but just know that the longer it takes you to achieve faster speeds, the less fuel will be required to travel that distance.
Tire Pressure and A/C
Ensuring that your tires have the correct amount of air pressure can also help you maximize your fuel. When tired are filled with too much air it reduces the amount of rubber that touches the road. This reduces resistance and makes it so your car has to work harder to get from point A to point B. Turning off your vehicle’s air conditioning unit has long been thought to help save fuel. Truth is, it will save you a miniscule amount, so do what feels comfortable. A better way to save is to remove excess weight from your vehicle. This can keep that fuel marker closer to the full than the empty.
Lastly, make sure that you maintenance your vehicle regularly. Just like all machines, a car requires maintenance that will keep it running, and also allow it to run more efficiently. The luxury of having a car is slowly becoming less and less a luxury because of how ridiculous gas prices can be. Taking extra little steps to maximize our fuel will go a long way in keeping our wallets full and helping the environment out.
Nik Donovic believes that what may be good for business today may negatively impact the environment tomorrow. He believes it's time to stop being selfish with the environment and start being sustainable.
