5 ways to save on car petrol
Owning a car is not as cheap as you think. The maintenance and ongoing costs to keep your car moving can be relatively significant in your monthly expenses. One of the unavoidable running costs is the cost of petrol consumption! Here’s some tips on how to keep the bill on petrol low!
1. Avoid long idling
The worst mileage a car can get is zero mpg, which happens when it idles. Idling for long periods of time, whether making periodic stops due to heavy traffic, or stopping by the roadside to make a phone call consumes petrol that could have been saved by turning off the car engine! Do note that reigniting the engine uses about the same amount of petrol as idling for 30 seconds. As a rule of thumb, turn off the engine if you are going to stay idle for more than 30 seconds!
However, turning off the engine disables car functions, including safety features like airbags. Best if you can drive all the way until you reach your destination without making stops by the roadside, if not, then make sure it is absolutely safe from collision if you really need to pull over!
2. Remove unnecessary weight
Many people have the habit of keeping loads of things in the car, whether it is in the car trunk or the backseat, as if it is their personal storage. Vehicles get much better mileage when they’re not loaded with unnecessary weight. Do you know that you can actually reduce petrol consumption by removing excess weight from your car?
Every 90 kilograms of additional weight trims about 1.6 kilometres off fuel efficiency. So go through your car trunk and remove all non-required things, such as unneeded tools or materials. Another thing to keep in mind is to avoid taking in too many passengers, especially in cases whereby the number of passengers exceeds that is legally acceptable!
3. Keep all tyres inflated at the right pressure
Most people don’t check their car tyres frequent enough to maintain the right air pressure within their car tyres. The surface area that’s in contact with the road increases when a car tyre is under-inflated. The more surface area in contact with the road, the more drag and friction there are on the tyres. According to a research, every 10 PSI under the recommended level in your car tyres can increase fuel consumption by 2.5%!
Whenever you inflate your car tyres, be sure not to over-inflate them as well! If you do not know the right pressure for your car tyres, you may simply just check the car’s doorpost sticker for minimum tire inflation pressure or the car manual.
4. Carpooling
Start talking to your colleagues and plan out a carpooling community at work! You may work out who lives closest to who and assign groups according to specific areas. Everyone can take turns to be the designated driver of the day. Alternatively, you may also consider coming up with a shared fund for the driver’s petrol, toll and parking expenses. Be sure that everyone contributes their fair share to the fund on a weekly or monthly basis!
Not only can we all save on petrol, we are also doing Mother Earth a favour by reducing carbon footprint by having less cars on the road! Roads will be less congested and cars can all move smoothly. A definite win-win for everyone!
5. Avoid aggressive driving
If you have not yet realised, speeding generally does not save your much time on the road. Not only that, you are accelerating the wear outs of important and expensive car components such as the brakes and car tyres!
By limiting quick accelerations and fast braking, you can increase your car’s fuel economy. Make sure to apply light and steady pressure on the accelerator to minimise the amount of fuel consumed and maintain a more moderate and steady speed. Doing so may save you up to 20% in fuel economy!