Although I have a short commute, the rising cost of gas still hurts. A recent post at Blunt Money pointed me indirectly to an article at Edmunds.com on saving gas from a couple of years ago that tested six tips for saving gas to see if they really worked.
The tips were:
- Driving less aggressively
- Driving slower
- Using cruise control
- Driving with the windows up and AC on
- Checking tire pressure
- Avoiding excessive idling
The biggest savings came from driving less aggressively (not speeding up quickly and braking hard). They measured an average savings of 31%. I know that I have room to improve in this area and figure that at an average of 12,000 miles/yr on my 2001 Camry, if I got 31% better gas mileage, I'd save over $500 a year. I'm currently getting about 21-22 miles/gallon with my current driving habits, so I'm going to apply these tips and see if I can really get much better mileage over the next couple of weeks. I'll report the results back here.
Given my short commute, I don't have a chance to drive at highway speeds much, but for those of you who have longer highway commutes, Edmunds reported a 7% savings from using cruise control and a 12% savings from driving 65mph instead of 75mph.
Another tip that they didn't examine is keeping your car tuned up. I didn't think much of that until I recently had my spark plugs changed and got almost 10% better mileage. Even that 10% improvement saves me more than $150/yr.
Just remember, you're not really saving $500 a year if you end up spending that savings on something else.
