When choosing a car, you should make sure that it is completely efficient. You will use your car on the day to day basis, so you need to make sure that the overall consumption of fuel is reasonably lower. This could result in significant annual saving, which you can use to better maintain your car. Unfortunately, there are things that cause your car to burn more fuel than necessary. One thing that you need to consider is that you may have poor driving habit. It is a common fact that the speed of your car has direct correlation to the fuel consumption. In general, a car starts to lose fuel efficiency once it goes higher than 55 mph. If you drive faster, you will burn more fuel. As an example, if you drive 75mph consistently, you may burn 20 percent more fuel.
Depending on the price of gasoline in your areas, you may spend up to $10 extra each hour. So, it is important to drive prudently and during long distance trips, you should keep your speed between 50 and 55 mph. At this speed, it is also easier for you to control the car and the chance of an accident will be much lower. Another poor driving habit that may burn more fuel is if you do rapid acceleration or braking too often. Hitting the accelerator hard could burn more fuel. You should also brake the car more calmly. Slamming on brakes until the last minutes will cause you to burn more fuel. You need to predict what will happen in front of you. If you see potential obstructions in front of you, you should start to slowly brake your car.
Another factor that determines fuel efficiency is your tires. You should make sure that tires are inflated properly. If your tires are under inflated, the friction will be higher. It will take more energy to rotate the wheel and keep the wheels going at certain speed. You will need to step on the accelerator deeper. This will cause the engine to work harder and consume more fuel. Due to the increased friction, the lifetime of the wheel will be reduced as well. The next problem is that you don’t use the right gears for specific speed. This is particularly true if your car has manual transmission. Using too low gear could cause to engine to work harder to reach the desired speed. If possible, you should maintain your speed longer, so you don’t need to change gear too often.
If possible, you shouldn’t turn on the air conditioning. It takes more energy to operate the air conditioning unit and keeps the cabin of your car cool. It is debatable that whether driving with windows down is more efficiency, because the overall drag becomes higher and your car is no longer aerodynamic. If the temperature outside is cool, you don’t have to turn on the air conditioning and open the window just a little bit to let some air in.
