By Michael D Cooper
You've read a lot of stories and seen a lot of products that are supposed to improve your gas mileage and save you money. Some seem to make sense, others seem too good to be true, and there are a few that are just plain ridiculous. Many of them find their basis in truth-enough that they can cite some study and gain legitimacy, but are still just so much wasted packaging. The validity of some are harder to discern, they could be legit, but they may not be.
Take for example the fuel line magnets. There is evidence that a high powered magnet can break up the clumps of molecules in gas, but they would need to be far stronger than small magnets you clip on the fuel line, and far closer to the fuel injector-most likely one on each injector. This is something that has some science behind it, but fails in practical application.
A lot of the products that you'll find online have sound science behind them, but to properly execute them you would have to significantly modify your vehicle's engine. The distilled, packaged versions that are easy to install lose all of their ability to be effective. It's important to note that many of the products that are available online create conditions in the engine that modern vehicle's computer systems will compensate, or even over compensate for.
However, there are some real products out there, but there are also some very simple things that you can do to improve your mileage-a lot. Anyone that has ever tracked their mileage against what their car is supposed to get will quickly find that they never see the advertised mileage. Part of that is because MPG ratings are created under ideal conditions. The 2008 EPA ratings have been altered to represent much more real driving conditions, but even with those updates John Q Public will be lucky to ever see those numbers. The first thing is to actually get that gas mileage your car was advertised as having.
Simple and Free (well, mostly free):
Fill up your tires! Believe it or not every 1psi that your tires are deflated from their recommended pressure is costing you money! The average rate is 0.4% decrease in mileage for every 1psi across all 4 tires. That means that if your recommended inflation pressure is supposed to be 40psi and they are all at 20psi, then you are down 8% in gas mileage. If your car is supposed to get 30mpg, then it now gets 27.6. Two years ago I would have said no big deal, but at $3.50/gallon, with my driving 1250 miles a month (the average in the US) that's $12.68/month. If my wife drives as much we're now at $25.36/month just because we're too lazy to pump up our tires.
It's estimated that every day Americans burn 2 billion extra barrels of oil due to under inflated tires. There are nations that could be sustained by that.
Clean that air filter. Well, don't clean it, buy a new one. The EPA estimates that a dirty air filter, aside from actually damaging your engine, can decrease your mileage by 10%. On my 30mpg car, that's 3mpg. With my underinflated tires I'm now down at 24.6mpg. If you're keeping track my negligence has now cost me (for both our two cars) $64/month.
So $64/month isn't that much, you're saying. Let's move to the tune-up.
Having a car that needs a tune-up/oil change can easily be another 5% in fuel mileage (though if your oil gets like mine has once or twice, you can count on it being higher). Let's stick with the conservative number. So we need a new air filter, our tires are low and we haven't had a tune-up for 6000 miles or so. That's another 1.5%, which knocks our once decent mileage car down to 23.1mpg. That means we are now burning 12.45 more gallons of fuel a month than we would if things were tuned up. For most cars that's another fill-up a month. At $3.50 a gallon we're now at over $87.15/month between my wife and me; if we dropped HBO that would be our cable bill.
Sure, some of that stuff isn't really free, but you're supposed to be doing it anyway; it's part of the cost of owning a car. If you do it regularly it will easily pay for itself.
So we've covered free stuff, what can you do to boost your mileage that costs a bit, but will certainly pay off?
Let's go back to the air filter. When your car burns its air fuel mixture, it wants a nice 14.7:1 air-fuel ratio (that's evaporated fuel, not liquid fuel). A car engine is really just a big air pump. It draws air in by suction. The air filter is a necessary evil when it comes to cars. They can suck in a lot more air if they don't have to do it through a bunch of paper/fiber filters, but without them you'll get a lot of gunk in there and your engine won't last a month.
There are a lot of air filters out there that claim to improve mileage. The folks over at K&N Air Filters have made it their business to be the best in the business. Many people claim 5mpg improvements in their mileage using a K&N filter. Let's tack that onto our 30mpg vehicle - sure it's an estimate, but all of these things do vary in the real world anyway. Going from 30 to 35mpg, is going to cause us to burn 5.95 fewer gallons of gas a month. Getting one of those bad boys for my wife and I has added $41.67 to our pocket book. We're good now and doing regular maintenance, so we're now up $128.82 a month!
So now we're getting excited, what else can we do to bump this up a bit more?
If you do a lot of highway driving, invest the time to find your car's sweet spot. What's that you ask? Every vehicle has a point where it is the most efficient. This is a factor of aerodynamics (largely whether or not it has any), gearing and engine size. Manufacturers often specifically engineer their cars for a certain sweet spot where it is the most efficient and gets the best mpg. Harley Davidson typically aims for about 75mph-most auto manufacturer's aim for around 55mph.
There are a few ways you can work this out. The first is to get a gauge that measures your fuel flow, and then drive consistently at different speeds. Most of us don't have that and you may just need to do some trial and error and figure it out. There are also a lot of articles on the Internet about where that sweet spot is for different cars, though it honestly can vary with each car. If you have a vehicle that reports your fuel consumption on its display you can of course use that. Testing showed that my 30mpg car gets 30mpg at 62mph, but 25mpg at 75mph. Interesting enough it gets 28mpg at 55mph. That's not that surprising; there are a lot of factors that play into mileage. So by modifying my behavior (and my wife too) we save another $41.67 and are now up over $170/month in savings.
Let's put that in perspective. That's $2045 a year. Put that in the bank at 5% and you'll have $14k in 5 years. I think I need to say that again. Do regular maintenance. Buy a good air filter and find where your car gets the best MPG and every 5 years you and your wife could buy a decent back from lease car.
I'm getting excited myself and I already know all this stuff. There's more ahead. There's no reason a car that gets 30mpg out of the gate can't move up over 40mpg, even close in on 50mpg depending on the vehicle and the engine.
Stay tuned for part two of this article where we'll be discussing new technologies that will revolutionize the automotive industry, and simpler, yet profound advances that you can take advantage of now.
Michael Cooper is an automotive enthusiast and he has been working on cars since he was 8. Visit his new site http://alternativefuelsupdate.com to see the products and technologies he recommends to get better gas mileage.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_D_Cooper
You've read a lot of stories and seen a lot of products that are supposed to improve your gas mileage and save you money. Some seem to make sense, others seem too good to be true, and there are a few that are just plain ridiculous. Many of them find their basis in truth-enough that they can cite some study and gain legitimacy, but are still just so much wasted packaging. The validity of some are harder to discern, they could be legit, but they may not be.
Take for example the fuel line magnets. There is evidence that a high powered magnet can break up the clumps of molecules in gas, but they would need to be far stronger than small magnets you clip on the fuel line, and far closer to the fuel injector-most likely one on each injector. This is something that has some science behind it, but fails in practical application.
A lot of the products that you'll find online have sound science behind them, but to properly execute them you would have to significantly modify your vehicle's engine. The distilled, packaged versions that are easy to install lose all of their ability to be effective. It's important to note that many of the products that are available online create conditions in the engine that modern vehicle's computer systems will compensate, or even over compensate for.
However, there are some real products out there, but there are also some very simple things that you can do to improve your mileage-a lot. Anyone that has ever tracked their mileage against what their car is supposed to get will quickly find that they never see the advertised mileage. Part of that is because MPG ratings are created under ideal conditions. The 2008 EPA ratings have been altered to represent much more real driving conditions, but even with those updates John Q Public will be lucky to ever see those numbers. The first thing is to actually get that gas mileage your car was advertised as having.
Simple and Free (well, mostly free):
Fill up your tires! Believe it or not every 1psi that your tires are deflated from their recommended pressure is costing you money! The average rate is 0.4% decrease in mileage for every 1psi across all 4 tires. That means that if your recommended inflation pressure is supposed to be 40psi and they are all at 20psi, then you are down 8% in gas mileage. If your car is supposed to get 30mpg, then it now gets 27.6. Two years ago I would have said no big deal, but at $3.50/gallon, with my driving 1250 miles a month (the average in the US) that's $12.68/month. If my wife drives as much we're now at $25.36/month just because we're too lazy to pump up our tires.
It's estimated that every day Americans burn 2 billion extra barrels of oil due to under inflated tires. There are nations that could be sustained by that.
Clean that air filter. Well, don't clean it, buy a new one. The EPA estimates that a dirty air filter, aside from actually damaging your engine, can decrease your mileage by 10%. On my 30mpg car, that's 3mpg. With my underinflated tires I'm now down at 24.6mpg. If you're keeping track my negligence has now cost me (for both our two cars) $64/month.
So $64/month isn't that much, you're saying. Let's move to the tune-up.
Having a car that needs a tune-up/oil change can easily be another 5% in fuel mileage (though if your oil gets like mine has once or twice, you can count on it being higher). Let's stick with the conservative number. So we need a new air filter, our tires are low and we haven't had a tune-up for 6000 miles or so. That's another 1.5%, which knocks our once decent mileage car down to 23.1mpg. That means we are now burning 12.45 more gallons of fuel a month than we would if things were tuned up. For most cars that's another fill-up a month. At $3.50 a gallon we're now at over $87.15/month between my wife and me; if we dropped HBO that would be our cable bill.
Sure, some of that stuff isn't really free, but you're supposed to be doing it anyway; it's part of the cost of owning a car. If you do it regularly it will easily pay for itself.
So we've covered free stuff, what can you do to boost your mileage that costs a bit, but will certainly pay off?
Let's go back to the air filter. When your car burns its air fuel mixture, it wants a nice 14.7:1 air-fuel ratio (that's evaporated fuel, not liquid fuel). A car engine is really just a big air pump. It draws air in by suction. The air filter is a necessary evil when it comes to cars. They can suck in a lot more air if they don't have to do it through a bunch of paper/fiber filters, but without them you'll get a lot of gunk in there and your engine won't last a month.
There are a lot of air filters out there that claim to improve mileage. The folks over at K&N Air Filters have made it their business to be the best in the business. Many people claim 5mpg improvements in their mileage using a K&N filter. Let's tack that onto our 30mpg vehicle - sure it's an estimate, but all of these things do vary in the real world anyway. Going from 30 to 35mpg, is going to cause us to burn 5.95 fewer gallons of gas a month. Getting one of those bad boys for my wife and I has added $41.67 to our pocket book. We're good now and doing regular maintenance, so we're now up $128.82 a month!
So now we're getting excited, what else can we do to bump this up a bit more?
If you do a lot of highway driving, invest the time to find your car's sweet spot. What's that you ask? Every vehicle has a point where it is the most efficient. This is a factor of aerodynamics (largely whether or not it has any), gearing and engine size. Manufacturers often specifically engineer their cars for a certain sweet spot where it is the most efficient and gets the best mpg. Harley Davidson typically aims for about 75mph-most auto manufacturer's aim for around 55mph.
There are a few ways you can work this out. The first is to get a gauge that measures your fuel flow, and then drive consistently at different speeds. Most of us don't have that and you may just need to do some trial and error and figure it out. There are also a lot of articles on the Internet about where that sweet spot is for different cars, though it honestly can vary with each car. If you have a vehicle that reports your fuel consumption on its display you can of course use that. Testing showed that my 30mpg car gets 30mpg at 62mph, but 25mpg at 75mph. Interesting enough it gets 28mpg at 55mph. That's not that surprising; there are a lot of factors that play into mileage. So by modifying my behavior (and my wife too) we save another $41.67 and are now up over $170/month in savings.
Let's put that in perspective. That's $2045 a year. Put that in the bank at 5% and you'll have $14k in 5 years. I think I need to say that again. Do regular maintenance. Buy a good air filter and find where your car gets the best MPG and every 5 years you and your wife could buy a decent back from lease car.
I'm getting excited myself and I already know all this stuff. There's more ahead. There's no reason a car that gets 30mpg out of the gate can't move up over 40mpg, even close in on 50mpg depending on the vehicle and the engine.
Stay tuned for part two of this article where we'll be discussing new technologies that will revolutionize the automotive industry, and simpler, yet profound advances that you can take advantage of now.
Michael Cooper is an automotive enthusiast and he has been working on cars since he was 8. Visit his new site http://alternativefuelsupdate.com to see the products and technologies he recommends to get better gas mileage.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_D_Cooper
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