Ready to Increase Your Gas Mileage?
Maximizing your Fuel Mileage
I’m sure you’ve heard the old story comes along about someone who invented a special carburetor. The story goes; the carburetor would allow any vehicle to get a hundred miles to the gallon.
As nice as thoughts of such a device might be, it is a myth. The reason why is that you have to have a certain amount of energy [fuel,] to move a given weight, at given speed, with based upon the engine that is in the vehicle. This is basic stuff, and you have to think both inside and outside the box to change your fuel economy.
In reality better fuel economy is a factor of many things. Cars are engineered with better and lighter engines, the vehicles are made with lighter materials, and cars are made “slippier” when they have less wind resistance.
When you’re considering the different things you can do to make your car more efficient, there are a few things that come to mind. When desired fuel mileage is not being obtained with a present vehicle, many times a new vehicle is considered as the only remedy. There are no changes that can be made to a vehicle to increase the mileage over that it was designed to deliver. The present vehicle can often deliver considerably better mileage than it currently does, however.
Other tips like keeping tires inflated, switching to an energy conserving engine oil and reducing unnecessary weight also help, but to a much smaller degree. Replacing a dirty air filter is always a good idea, but will not help mileage, just the longevity of a fuel injected vehicle.
Another factor would be to change your driving style, don’t race, and don’t rest your foot on the brake. I hear a lot of people say that they’ll trade their vehicle in, thereby moving from a vehicle that gets 20 MPG to one that gets 30 MPG. Driving 12,000 miles per year and with fuel cost of $4.00 per gallon, the savings is $800.00 per year. Paying $25,000 plus for a new vehicle will require over 31 years to break even, so this factor should not come into play for buying another vehicle.
So if we’re agreed that if you’re driving a non-efficient vehicle, but buying a more fuel efficient vehicle is not the answer, what can you do?
This is where you think outside the box. What are the Japanese working on now? Hybrids. Some of the Hybrids are gas/electric, and one of the prototypes is a pure hydrogen vehicle. Either way you go, buying one of these vehicles would be TENS of thousands of dollar more than a conventional vehicle.
What if you convert YOUR vehicle, yes, that gas guzzler, into a hybrid? That would do three things.
One, maximize the fuel efficiency by using the tips I mentioned.
Two, the satisfaction of beating those guys that are holding the high cost of gas over our heads.
Three, the feeling of controlling Your car, Your expenses, because converting your car doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money.
