Internet Tip - How to save money and gas


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By Jeff Baker

November 17, 2008

You can learn a lot from the illustration above. Notice that when the light turns green the red car is accelerating quickly. The blue car is accelerating more slowly. But they both arrive at the next red light at the same time. The blue car is using half as much gas as the red car. One gas saving tip is: Don't accelerate quickly from a dead stop. Watch your RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) meter. If your RPM meter goes up to 4000 or 5000 RPMs you are wasting a lot of gas. Think of it as a water faucet. When you turn the handle of a faucet, more and more water comes out as you keep turning. When you press hard on your gas pedal, your RPMs go up and your engine is letting more and more gas into the engine.

RPM Meter Gas being consumed per second

2500RPM

5000RPM

More Gasoline (petrol) and money saving tips

Avoid accelerating and braking hard. As we discussed above accelerating quickly wastes gas. Braking hard wears out your brakes and tires and then you have to spend money to replace them sooner then if you drove less aggressively.
Drive slower on the freeway (highway). According to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml the best speed to drive on the highway is 55 MPH. This is the speed limit that most highways had in the 1980's. According to the chart, you will get the best MPG (miles per gallon) for your car if you drive at 55 MPH. If you drive 65 MPH you will lose about 5 MPG (miles per gallon) in savings. If you drive at 75 MPH you will lose another 5 MPG. Notice: We do not recommend that you drive under the speed limit to save fuel. If on the freeway you want to save fuel, just drive the speed limit, but please make sure you are in the slow lane!

Fuel Savings Vs Speed Calculator

Use this calculator to find out how much you can save by driving slower.
Gas Price (Per Gallon): Highway Miles (Per Day):
Your Cars Highway MPG Rating:

Speed Total Travel Time Per Day Cost/Day Cost/Month Cost/Yr
55 MPH - - - -
60 MPH - - - -
65 MPH - - - -
70 MPH - - - -
75 MPH - - - -

* To find your cars MPG go to: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList or http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm. To find out how many miles to the gallon you are getting by the way you are driving use our MPG Calculator.
Aggressive City Driving Vs Relaxed City Driving

Gas Price (Per Gallon): City Miles (Per Day):
Your Cars City MPG Rating:

Type Total Travel Time Per Day Cost/Day Cost/Month Cost/Yr
Relaxed - - - -
Aggressive - - - -

* To find your cars MPG go to: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList or http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm. To find out how many miles to the gallon you are getting by the way you are driving use our MPG Calculator.

When a hill is approaching speed up just a little so that your car maintains momentum as you go up the hill. Otherwise, if you stay at the speed limit before the hill you will have to press down hard on your accelerator as you go up the hill, your RPMs will go up high and you will be using twice as much gasoline to go up the hill.
Maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you so that you are not contstantly braking and re-accelerating.
When you see that the traffic light ahead of you is red, slow down. Don't accelerate all the way up to a red light or up to another car's brake lights. That would be a waste of gas.
Take junk out of your trunk. The less weight in your car the better your car will drive and you will attain better gas mileage.
Use cruise control.
Use overdrive if your car has it. It causes your car to use less RPMs.
Keep the A/C off when possible. Using A/C (Air Conditioner) increases drag and lowers gas mileage.
Keep windows shut on the highway. Open windows increase drag on the highway.
Check your tire pressure. Keep it at the recommended pressure for better fuel economy.
Avoid idling the engine for long periods of time. It uses more gas to idle the engine for 2 to 3 minutes then it does to stop your engine and then turn it back on 2 to 3 minutes later.

MPG Calculator

To find out how well you are driving use our MPG calculator. Here are the steps to calculate how many miles to the gallon you are getting:

Fill your gas tank completey at the gas station.
If you have a trip odometer press the little button to reset it to all zeros. (If you do not have a trip odometer then write down the total miles of your vehicle from the regular odometer.)
When you are done driving, fill up your gas tank completely again at the gas station. When you get your receipt look for how many gallons you put in your car.
You can manually divide the amount of miles you drove by the amount of gallons you used or you can insert the numbers into the calculator below. Note: If you do not have a trip odometer, at this point you will need to write down the total miles of your vehicle from the regular odometer and then subtract the total number of miles you wrote down in step 2. The total will be how many miles you drove.

Note: If you are using a trip odometer and it has 3 white on black digits and 1 black on white digit, only write down the 3 white on black digits. So if it looks like:

Then you would write down just 330 because the 6 is only part of one mile, not a full 6 miles.

To find the lowest gas prices in your town go to: http://www.gaspricewatch.com

Back to www.seabreezecomputers.com

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User Comments

There are 13 comments.

Displaying first 25 comments.

1. Posted By: Mike - - July 12, 2007, 1:49 pm
Don't forget about combining trips where possible. Engines are more efficient when warmed up to operating temperature; making one longer trip with multiple stops will use less gas than a series of short trips.

Citation: http://www.jdpower.com/articles/article.aspx?ID=129

2. Posted By: Rodolfo - rodolfo49@gmail.com - October 27, 2007, 3:56 pm
i usually don`t leave comments, but i loved this info! i have never seen a place online where they explain it like this. keep up the good work!

3. Posted By: Carlo - - July 26, 2008, 11:17 pm
This is by far the best and most sensible FUEL saving tip I have read anywhere. Thanks so much for sharing this out. Wish every driver on the road is able to read this before every drop of gas gets wasted some more every minute and every second. More power.

Carlo of Vancouver British Columbia

4. Posted By: jenn - - November 7, 2008, 8:44 am
Great site; planning a trip and deciding which vehicle to take and whether or not to take the camper; if we take the camper, it is a larger vehicle. The mpg at a lower speed allows us to take the camper and not pay for a hotel. Nice to plan using this calculator!

5. Posted By: luciyahelan - - June 11, 2010, 2:50 am
planning a trip and deciding which vehicle to take and whether or not to take the camper; if we take the camper, it is a larger vehicle. The mpg at a lower speed allows us to take the camper and not pay for a hotel. Nice to plan using this calculator!The society is facing problems with such laws. This has to go legal
and it�s needed to be sorted at the earlier.

6. Posted By: williamgeorge - - July 7, 2010, 8:50 am
All ideas regarding driving are great and awesome. I really love this topic and its very useful for me. I am travelling down to Seattle. On that travel I will act according to your procedure.Thank you once again.
---------
george

7. Posted By: Tom - - April 11, 2011, 11:09 am
This is misleading. The "best" speed to drive is 60 on the highway, therefore your calculator of savings is wrong.

From the EPA website:

While each vehicle reaches its optimal fuel economy at a different speed (or range of speeds), gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph.

You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas.

8. Posted By: Jeff - - April 11, 2011, 6:43 pm
Thanks for the comment Tom. Most researchers including the Union of Concerned Scientists and those at drive55.org believe that 55 mph is the most economical speed to drive. Just because "gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph" that doesn't mean that 60 mph is the best speed to drive. It just means that the difference between 55 mph and 60 mph is very small compared to speeds over 60 mph. Links:

articles.sfgate.com/2005-10-19/news/17396345_1_aaa-of-northern-california-gas-slow-traffic

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/28/MN9H10BFRS.DTL

drive55.org/content/view/39/1/

Jeff
www.seabreezecomputers.com

9. Posted By: valerie - - May 12, 2011, 4:16 pm
This info should be made available on TV, Radio, newspapers,
magazines as I have had a friend trying to help me re RPM's and MPH and what/how the RPM's would save me money.

Gas prices are rising faster than we can absorb into our bidgets and these few tricks may help everyone a little, if they knew what to watch for and follow all tips.
Thank you for this info!

10. Posted By: driver - - September 10, 2011, 5:39 am
Thank you for this information, this is just awesome!!!!!!!!!!!1

11. Posted By: executive gifts - andersonsteve321@gmail.com - March 29, 2012, 10:11 pm
Find out if the gas price is going to increase or decrease the next day. To do this, visit www.680news.com and look for the Gas Prices icon near the bottom of the page. Gas price futures are usually posted after 4:30 PM on a daily basis. Their gas prices are provided by En-Pro, which is very accurate.

URL : http://www.addvalue.com.au

12. Posted By: executive gifts - - April 21, 2012, 3:04 am
If you are living in Canada, use the following resources to save a few cent per litre when buying gas.

Find out if the gas price is going to increase or decrease the next day. To do this, visit www.680news.com and look for the Gas Prices icon near the bottom of the page. Gas price futures are usually posted after 4:30 PM on a daily basis. Their gas prices are provided by En-Pro, which is very accurate.

URL: http://www.addvalue.com.au

13. Posted By: executive gifts - andersonsteve321@gmail.com - April 21, 2012, 3:09 am
You may also try http://tomorrowsgaspricetoday.com. This website also predicts gas price increases/decreases for cities accross the nation.

Download an app for your smartphone. The best app to find cheap gas prices is Gasbuddy, it�s available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Try signing up for MBNA Smartcash Mastercard. You can sign up for free online through http://www.mbna.ca/index.html. They offer 5% cash back on gas and grocery for 6 months and then 3% thereafter. It�s a pretty good pick for today�s costly oil purchases. It�s better than Petro Canada�s CIBC mastercard which let�s you save 2cents per litre.

URL: http://www.addvalue.com.au