Increase gas mileage with a driving strategy called hypermiling. Hypermiling is a way to lower your monthly gasoline bill without changing your car. Hypermiling makes more sense than buying a new Toyota Prius, buying fuel savers or even a hydrogen gas saver. To all the people buying cars right now, you may want to read this before you put your name on the dotted line.
Hypermiling - A Driving Style To Increase Gas Mileage
Hypermiling is a driving style that maximizes fuel economy or miles per gallon for the car you are already driving. No need to run out and buy a new car. You may want to wait until you read this article before you do anything. Hypermiling has become more popular among drivers around the world as the cost of gas keeps rising as well as environmental issues. Below are a few of the techniques of hypermiling. One caution - learn what these are and then only implement them as appropriate.
Stop Speeding And Jack Rabbit Starts
Stop speeding; the faster you drive the more gas you are going to use. You want to try and drive just below the actual speed limit. You might make the drivers behind you upset but they are not paying your gas bill. You also want to stop the jackrabbit starts. This burns up a lot of fuel unnecessarily. Just try pressing on the gas lightly.
Stop Signs and Red Lights Mean Stop
When you see a stop sign or a red light in front of you, take your foot off the gas and put your car in neutral to coast the rest of the way to the light or the stop sign. Most likely you will have enough energy in the motion of the car to get you there. Most cars will coast very well. Large objects with a lot of weight are hard to stop. Your car will keep rolling for a long distance without your foot on the gas pedal. This one tip can save you a lot of gas.
One caveat to this tip and tip 3 below – before trying this tip you may want to check with your state’s department of motor vehicles to see if there are any rules or regulations about driving your car while it is not in gear.
A Stick Shift Works Best For Hypermiling
A stick shift car gets better mileage than an automatic transmission car anyway. With a stick shift you can put it in neutral and coast a lot easier. You can also control the rpm of the car easier and save more gas. Putting your car in neutral and coasting takes the burden off your gas pedal and prevents you from wasting fuel. I would not try this in heavy traffic at first. Play with it when there is not much traffic around.
Use Your Cruise Control
Cruise control will help you avoid speeding up and wasting gas during normal driving conditions. The cruise control will force you to maintain a constant speed. You basically just want to start using it all the time on every street that you are driving on.
With this tip, check with your owner’s manual to see if there are any speed limitations for engaging your cruise control. If the manual says to not engage your cruise control under 40 mph then you should listen to your manual.
Avoid Left Hand Turns Whenever Possible
This strategy will require you to do some thinking about your route. Sitting in the left hand turn lane wastes a lot of gas. Corporate America has figured this out. UPS for example uses a computer to avoid left hand turns on all of their delivery routes. This strategy has saved the company millions in fuel costs.
Another example of this is that a friend of mine has a “honey do” list that he does every Saturday am from his wife. His wife is trained to the point of mapping out his list of places to go by only having to make right hand turns. Pretty amazing if you ask me. It saves him time to not have to wait to cross traffic and gas for not having to wait.
Turn Your Car Off When You Get Out Of It
Do not leave your car running when you run in the house for something you forgot or at the Circle K when you are getting yourself a fountain drink. This goes for red lights as well. If you just hit a red light, you may want to turn your car off. At a red light you are burning fuel and getting zero miles to the gallon. If you do this you need to be very aware of the light turning green in the direction that you are going. You do not want to try to accelerate your car only to forget that you have not turned the car back on. It is not only embarrassing but it is dangerous.
Hypermiling is not for the faint of heart. If you lack coordination or awareness, you may want to skip this strategy. I know for my own car, I am able to get an additional 2-3 miles per gallon on a 16 gallon gas tank. I will take what I can get at $4 per gallon.
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