10 Tips to Increase Your Fuel Economy

With gas and oil prices reaching all-time highs lately, many motorists are seeing their gas bills increase dramatically. And for many, it's beginning to affect their lifestyle.

Roadtrips, casual outings, vacations - even the everyday commutes to and from work - are all starting to take a significant bite out of the average person's paycheque, as they struggle to come to grips with the aggressive increase in the price of fuel.

With gas and oil prices expected to continue to rise, we've put together the following 10 tips to help you conserve as much fuel as possible:

1) Make sure your oil is changed regularly. Dirty oil causes the engine to work harder and with less efficiency, increasing your usage of fuel. Be sure to change your oil according to your car manufacturer's specs.

2) Replace a clogged or dirty air filter. When an air filter is clogged, the car will often run too rich due to the lack of air, which can kill your fuel efficiency by a massive 20%.

3) Remove unnecessary weight from the vehicle. A heavier vehicle burns more fuel. It's as simple as that. Removing 200 lbs, you will stand to increase your fuel efficiency by about 5%.

4) Reduce speed and rapid accelerations. The quicker you accelerate and the faster your car goes, the harder the engine has to work, which results in more fuel being consumed.

5) Grab some new sparkplugs. Changing your sparkplugs can save you a quick 2mpg. It's just that easy.

6) Make sure your tires are properly inflated. Improper tire pressure causes more strain on the car, again causing it to work harder with less efficiency.

7) Don't allow the vehicle to idle for too long. Do not pre-start, or pre-heat/cool your car before you plan to drive it. A vehicle left idling burns fuel unproductively.

8) Avoid stop and go traffic as much as possible. Idling, stopping and starting all wreak havoc on the gas mileage of your vehicle and stop and go traffic combines all three of these fuel killers.

9) Don't use the air conditioning. Whenever you use air conditioning in the vehicle, it causes the engine to work even harder to cool the air forced into the cabin of the car, lowering your gas mileage.

10) Use cruise control as much as possible to avoid variances in speed. Having to constantly speed up and then slow down only to have to speed up again drastically increases your vehicle's fuel consumption.

Following these 10 tips will increase your fuel economy, and effectively help to reduce your fuel bill.

Additional Tips:

With retail gas and diesel prices rising with no end in sight, you may also want to consider converting your car to using water for fuel.

Many people have already DOUBLED their gas mileage by doing just that. If you are interested, you can find out more about it here.

Another alternative that many people have been looking into has been converting their vehicle to run on biodiesel to improve fuel economy. If you'd like more information on that, you can follow the link here.