No one likes wasting money and avoiding these top 10 tips for how to get better gas mileage is a waste of gas money. Use these tips to learn how to save gas and how to save money on gas.
When you save gas, you save money on gas. When you save money on gas, you have more money for other areas of your budget. Take these proven steps to save more money on gas and watch your budget and savings grow.
What is Good Gas Mileage?
What is good gas mileage? Before you can pick a car with the best value, you need to know what the best gas mileage is so you can pick a car with good gas mileage. Gas mileage is measured by “miles per gallon” or “mpg” for short.
So what is good gas mileage for your car? Basically, you want your mpg number to be higher. The more miles you can drive per gallon of gas the better. The best mpg cars can get between 50 and 60 mpg. But non-hybrid cars can get an average of 30 mpg or less.
What Affects Gas Mileage?
There are many factors that affect gas mileage. Learning what is good gas mileage and how to get a good gas mileage can help you learn how to save on gas too! Getting a good gas mileage car will help the most, but even the best gas mileage car can benefit from these gas mileage saving tips.
- Speeding and rapid acceleration
- Sudden braking
- Idling
- Driving in cold weather
- Frequent and short trips
- Carrying excess weight with cargo racks, towing, or trailers
- Running the AC on high
- Driving with the windows down
- Driving on uneven or mountainous terrain
- Driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle
- Having a poorly tuned engine
- Improper vehicle alignment
- Improperly inflated car tires
- Using fuel that contains less energy
How to Save Money on Gas
If you drive a car, then you should learn how to save on gas. Saving on gas can help you have more room in your budget for leisurely travel and your savings account.
1. Don’t Speed Up or Brake Suddenly
Rapidly accelerating or decelerating your car can lower your gas mileage. Avoid speeding, suddenly speeding up, or suddenly breaking to save gas. Sudden acceleration and deceleration uses more gas to make your car go or stop quickly. Instead, drive the speed limit and try to speed up and slow down gradually.
2. Don’t Idle Your Vehicle
Idling uses up gas for essentially no reason. Instead of idling your car, always turn your car off when you are not driving. This way, your gas will only be going toward getting to where you need to go and not necessarily keeping your car’s engine running.
3. Avoid Driving in Cold Weather
Your car’s engine doesn’t operate at optimal levels until after it is warmed up. In cold weather, it takes much longer for your car’s engine to warm up and operate efficiently. Avoid using up gas just to warm up your engine by avoiding driving in cold weather whenever you can.
4. Choose an Alternative Method of Travel
Short trips use up a lot of wasted gas because it takes a while for your engine to warm up and use gas efficiently. Avoid driving when making short trips and choose an alternative method of travel instead. For instance, if your trip is only a mile away or less, that is only a 15 to 25 minute walk. Save on gas and walk for short trips like this instead. Your health will love the exercise! Biking and public transit are also great ways to save on gas and make short trips near you.
5. Avoid Overloading Your Car
Your car has a load capacity. This load capacity is how much your car can carry safely. How much your car can carry will primarily depend on your car, but the average can carry around 850 lbs. Avoid overloading your car with too much weight, and avoid adding extra items like cargo racks to your car for the most optimal gas mileage.
6. Don’t Run the AC or Heat on High
When it’s very cold or very hot outside it can be tempting to crank the AC or heat up all the way in your car. But this burns more gas. Instead, leave the AC or heat on low or medium and let the car warm up or cool down gradually.
7. Leave the Windows Up
Driving with the windows down and the wind in your face can be fun, but driving with your windows down actually puts more wind resistance on your car’s forward momentum. This makes your car have to burn more gas to go forward.
8. Maintain Your Car’s Upkeep
Your car’s maintenance can greatly impact your car’s gas efficiency. Save on gas when you stay up to date on regular car maintenance. Having a properly tuned engine, correct tire alignment, proper tire pressure, replacing bad spark plugs, and so much more can actually impact how well your car saves on gas.
9. Use Cruise Control
Using the cruise control systems in your car can actually result in great fuel savings. Adaptive cruise control cars can adjust speed moderately to maintain safe following distances. Both of these types of cruise control saves on gas by helping your car maintain a more steady speed.
10. Use a Rewards Program
Many gas stations and even grocery stores have rewards programs that can help you save money on gas. These programs might have to do with credit card points, earning gift cards, or saving a certain number of cents per gallon when you use your rewards ID.
The Best Gas Mileage Cars
When looking for the best gas mileage cars you really want to find the best fuel economy cars. Fuel economy refers to how many miles to the gallon a car can get. The best mpg cars are also the best fuel economy cars because they can go farther with less gas.
Finding the best fuel economy cars means finding the best cars on gas savings. These cars have higher fuel economy ratings than other vehicles and will help you go farther with less gas because their designs make them more fuel efficient. The following list are some of the cars with the best gas mileage.
- Toyota Prius Prime with 133 overall mpg
- Tesla Model 3 Long Range with 130 overall mpg
- Hyundai Kona Electric Limited with 120 overall mpg
- Chevrolet Bolt 2LT with 120 overall mpg
- Chevrolet Bolt EUV Premier with 115 overall mpg
In Conclusion,
Save on gas by investing in cars with the best gas mileage while following these tips for the best gas mileage. Saving on gas helps your wallet and will open up your budget to more things outside of travel costs. And if you need to take out a loan, you can consider getting a cosigner to help.
