Consumers' chronic pain at the pump is likely set to return with gas prices hovering near a dollar per litre and summer driving coming up. In fact, some regions are already much higher than a dollar. Vancouver's gas price has been $1.15 per litre for a couple of months already. There are a number of simple and inexpensive vehicle maintenance tips that can help alleviate the pain at the pump.
"You can't control the price of gas, but you can control how much gas you burn by performing proper maintenance and how you drive. Performing simple and inexpensive maintenance and proper driving care can save as much as $1,200 per year in gas costs," said racecar driver Kelly Williams, spokesperson for Car Care Canada's "Be Car Care Aware" consumer education program.
Below are nine easy tips to improve fuel economy, four maintenance tips and five driving tips:
Gas-saving maintenance tips:
Keep your car properly tuned to improve mileage by an average of four per cent. Keep tires properly inflated and improve mileage by three per cent.
Replace dirty or worn spark plugs as they causes misfiring, which wastes fuel and increases output of harmful emissions. Dirty and worn spark plugs can reduce mileage by .85 kilometres per litre.
Change oil regularly and gain another .45 kilometres per litre.
Driving behavior also impacts fuel consumption. Follow these driving tips will save gas: Observe the speed limit. Gas mileage decreases rapidly above 100 km/h.
Avoid excessive idling. Idling gets zero km/h. Warming up the vehicle for one or two minutes is sufficient.
Avoid quick starts and stops. Aggressive driving can lower mileage by 33 per cent on the highway and five per cent in the city.
Consolidate trips. Several short trips taken from a cold start can use twice as much gas as one longer multi-purpose trip.
Don't haul unneeded items in the trunk. An extra 45 kilograms in the trunk reduces fuel consumption by one-to-two per cent.
Motorists can't do much about the price of gas, but they can stop wasting gas by making sure their vehicles are getting maximum fuel economy.
Visit http://www.carcarecanada.ca for tips for saving gas, protecting the environment and ensuring safety, as well as in-car games for kids, meal planning and the "10-minute Road Trip Check-Up."
Source: Car Care Canada, Be Car Care Aware.
