Friday, May 23, 2008

Ways to Save on Gasoline Expenses

Here are 5-Quick-Ways-to-Cut-Your-Gas-Bill- Yahoo! Autos Article Page, and there are more:

  • Gas up early in the morning — avoid times when the underground tanks are hot. You will be ripped off by fueling in the afternoon or evening.
  • Fill your tank when it is about the half-full level — you cut down on the vaporization of gas in the tank.
  • Fill the gas tank slowly! The faster you fill the tank the more gas vaporizes out of the tank.
  • Slow down! Drive between 45 and 65 for your best gas mileage!
How much of a difference can it make? By following the above recommendations I have gone from getting just 150 miles to over 210 miles per half-tank. That is a 40% improvement in my gas use!

Footnotes

In the page: Water4gas Scam Reviewed it is explained that …
… it is commonly recommended that when you fill your fuel tank you do so in the morning, when the gas stations in ground fuel tank is cooler providing a denser fuel per gallon.

If you were to purchase the fuel at the end of a hot summer's day, you would actually receive less fuel for your dollar due to the expansion of the fuel from heat.

2 comments:

Wendylicious said...

Gassing up in the morning has been proven to be a myth.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/105077/6-Gas-Saving-Myths

Also, filling your tank when it is half full and filling it slowly; most experts agree that the amount of gas saved is so microscopic, it's not worth the time it takes you to do it.
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/gastips.asp

Just throwing it out there

JediVictor said...

Thanks Wendy! I read the articles mentioned in your comment. I have not done conclusive testing to validate each recommendation's impact on gas mileage. I can, however, tell you that the combined effort has produced drastic results in my gas mileage. I tend to think that slowing down and being ultra conservative with the gas pedal has made the biggest impact. But even if one considers the 1 to 2% savings possible (per each trick) mentioned in the articles you noted, I rather put those extra $100 per year to better use than to waste them on gasoline that I am not using efficiently.

I really appreciate you commenting on this! I hope all is well with you all on that side of the country!