5 Tips To Save Gas
Here are some tips from EcoMedia for saving energy on the road, which in turn could help you spend less on gas.
1. Keep your car in good condition. Get your engine tuned up regularly, change the oil and keep your tires inflated properly. A tune-up could boost your miles per gallon anywhere from four to 40 percent. A new air filter could get you 10 percent more miles per gallon. When replacing your wheels, opt for the new fuel-efficient tires. Due to new materials in these tires, they use less energy when rolling along the road but maintain excellent wear and traction characteristics. Major tire makers, including Michelin, Goodyear and Bridgestone, all offer fuel-efficient models.
2. Commute smarter. Share a ride to work, telecommute or use public transit. If your daily commute is just 10 miles each way (the national average) and you normally drive a 20 mpg vehicle, you would save 236 gallons of gas each year by opting to carpool, telecommute or use transit. If each commuter car carried just one more passenger once a week, we would cut America's gasoline consumption by about 7.7 million gallons.
Learn how to save on your electricity bill.
3. Drive smarter (known as hypermiling). Drive more smoothly, avoid heavy breaking or accelerating, and coast to a stop in order to improve your vehicle's fuel efficiency and save on gas by maximizing miles per gallon. Avoid idling by shutting off the engine for prolonged waits (for the kids at school or a train crossing). Remove roof racks whenever possible as they can create significant drag. When carrying clamshell storage containers, bikes or other burdens, you reduce your fuel efficiency by as much as five percent, so take them off the car roof when not needed.
4. Slow down. Ease up on the pedal. Slowing down from 75 to 65 miles per hour will drop your highway gasoline consumption by about 15 percent. That's money in your pocket.
5. Use good motor oil. Choose fuel-efficient motor oil marked with an "Energy Conserving" label by the American Petroleum Institute. Motor oils with additives that reduce friction can increase a vehicle's fuel economy by three percent or more.
Check out the Autos section at CBS Local for more car news.
Visit the Earth Day section at CBS Local.
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The content above was provided by EcoMedia.
About CBS EcoMedia Inc.
At EcoMedia, we're propelled by the desire to create positive social change; that's been our mission since we founded the company in 2002. In 2010, after successfully partnering with CBS on a wide-range of environmental projects, EcoMedia became the newest addition to the CBS Corporation portfolio, exponentially scaling our reach across television, radio, interactive, publishing and outdoor media.
Through our patent-pending EcoAd program, an innovative twist on traditional advertising, advertisers are able to support much-needed local environmental projects which aim to improve quality of life. In the process, we're fundamentally altering the advertising landscape, elevating the ordinary, traditional commercial — and media, in general — into a catalyst for tangible, quantifiable social change. In recognition of this, the internationally known Edison Awards recently announced that EcoMedia has been named a finalist for the 2012 Edison Best New Product Awards(TM).
We invite you to visit ecomediacbs.com to learn more about the improvements EcoMedia is making in communities across the country.
