Gas Saving Handbook

Gentlemen-
I'm posting my gas saving handbook here as a service to everyone and to our country. I realize it isn't directly related to detailing but mobile detailers are suffering from high gas prices. I have asked the Webmaster to remove it after everyone has had a chance to read and print it .
Hope everyone likes it.
Doug
THE GAS SAVING HANDBOOK
-by Doug Delmont-

Introduction


If you apply my techniques, you will get better gas mileage .

Checking your gas consumption

To find out how well you are doing at the game of fuel conservation, you must be able to measure your miles per gallon. The best way to do it is to use a pocket calculator and a note pad . Fill your tank and zero the trip meter or write down the odometer reading . Drive until you are down to about an eighth of a tank of gas and fill the tank again . This time, check the odometer or trip meter . Divide the gallons purchased into the miles driven to calculate the miles per gallon . Zero the trip meter again so you can check your mileage next fill-up . You may wish to average the figures for three fill-ups to get as accurate a picture of your average gas mileage as you can .
Note : variables such as filling the tank while parked on an incline or different temperatures can skew the calculations some .

EPA Gas Mileage Ratings :

The EPA ratings are universally vilified as optimistic and unrealistic . Regardless, if you follow the advice in this book, you should be able to actually beat the EPA ratings .
New, revised EPA ratings will be easier to beat.

Accessories

Mud guards, deer catchers, bug deflectors, roof racks, bicycle racks, clam shells and countless other bolt-on accessories cause aerodynamic drag. It is like making your car pull a small parachute behind it . If you are out to get the best possible gas mileage, I advise stripping the car of all gas-eating add-ons .
Some accessories may actually reduce drag . The jury is still out on whether a cap or cover over a pick-up truck’s bed reduces drag enough to save gas since these items add weight too .
Trailer hitches , step bumpers and so forth add weight and extra weight always increases fuel consumption . If you don’t use or need an accessory, consider removing it .

Transmissions

Manual transmissions have an edge in fuel efficiency but this is not usually enough to cause anyone to forego the benefits of an automatic transmission .
An automatic transmission will be most fuel-stingy if it has a tall top gear with ratio that makes it an overdrive .
When buying a vehicle, see what transmissions and gear ratio choices there are for each model .

Final Drive Ratio

On many trucks, you are given a choice of final drive ratios in addition to transmission choices . The taller the ratio, the likelier the truck is to get good mileage .

Front Wheel Drive

Front Wheel Drive is the most efficient system out there . Front drive makes the car lighter and the short drive train soaks up less energy before it can reach the drive wheels .

Four Wheel Drive

If you buy a 4x4, expect to pay a penalty of about one mile per gallon over what a front or rear wheel drive set-up would burn in the same vehicle . The 4x4 mechanism adds weight and saps mileage even when it isn’t in use .

Rear Wheel Drive

Some rear wheel drive cars are very fuel efficient so it should not be ruled out .

Tires

Passenger car tires are now rated for fuel economy . Expect to pay a price in some other characteristic if a tire excels in the fuel economy department .
Knobby all-terrain tires generally offer more road resistance than all-season tires and snow tires yield the worst mileage of all .
Some people consider removing the spare tire and tools to save weight. This might be a worthwhile risk if you only drive near home.

Air Conditioning

It is almost unheard of to buy a car today without air conditioning, although doing so would reduce weight . The air conditioning puts a load on the engine any time you turn it on and it will make you burn more gas. At high speeds, the penalty for using the air conditioning is lessened by the fact that rolling down the windows instead will increase drag .
The best mileage is achieved by driving with the air conditioning off , windows closed and air vents shut off .

Now that we have explored the equipment aspects of saving gas, let’s look at some ways to avoid using the car altogether, effectively cutting fuel consumption to zero . That will be the subject of the next section .

Reducing the miles traveled

• Cease all joy riding, cruising, Sunday pleasure drives and such. Make it a policy that the car will not be used for recreation . Substitute activities at home or within walking distance or drive a short distance to a park or shopping center and use the destination for recreation .
• Combine trips so that all errands are done in one “great circle route”.
• Carpool to work and shopping .
• Use public transportation .
• Use computer maps and regular street maps to find the shortest routes .
• Drive at times when the roads are least crowded to avoid stop-and-start driving as well as idling the engine in traffic .
• Mail order or phone order merchandise . You may pay a shipping charge but you may save on tax as well as the gas you would have used to drive to a store .
• Eat at home instead of driving to restaurants .
• If you have a freezer, you can store food and reduce the number of grocery shopping trips .
• Sleep over at work .
• Take vacations near home .
• Use public transportation .

Setting Up Your Car For Top Gas Mileage

Some of the ideas presented here cost money . It is up to the reader to weigh the benefits against the monetary cost .

Motor Oil

The type and viscosity of the oil you use can affect gas mileage . Oils are labeled for their energy conserving properties . Read the labels .
Generally speaking, you should use only the types of oil specified by your car’s manufacturer but there may be room for a little cheating here depending on what model of car you own .
Oils today come on multi-grades that adjust their viscosity to the temperature . The lower the viscosity numbers, the thinner the oil is likely to be and the less it will resist the movement of the internal engine parts . This means that lower viscosity oil will normally improve gas mileage .
Synthetic oils such as Mobil One are slipperier so they reduce fuel consumption . Mobil One is available in lower viscosities than the conventional oil specified for some cars. You can improve the gas mileage of new cars that use 5w-30 by installing Mobil One 0w-30 instead . There is also a 0w-20 for cars that take 5w-20 .

Spark Plugs

Many older cars will run better if you replace the conventional spark plugs with platinum plugs or any of several other designer-type plugs . The gas mileage goes up a little too .

Tire Pressure

If you stop somewhere to air up your tires, you have heated them up at least a little by driving on them . If you air them up to specs, they’ll cool off later and you’ll notice that the pressure drops below specs. Here is a way to solve this problem and minimize rolling resistance :
Air the tires to four pounds higher than spec . Next morning, check them before driving and let enough air out so that they are one or two pounds over-inflated .
If you want to play it safe and set them exactly to specs , that’s O.K. too .


Rear Axle Lube

There is synthetic rear axle oil available from Mobil One . Like their motor oil, it will improve fuel economy . I suspect that synthetic transmission fluid will also help.

Air Filters

K & N and Green brand air filters are lifetime filters that must be cleaned and oiled periodically. They are reputed to allow better air flow and improve gas mileage.

Exterior Care

Keeping your car washed and waxed reduces aerodynamic drag .
Body damage will increase air resistance so it should be repaired promptly .

Mechanical Problems

Many mechanical troubles can eat into gas mileage . Dragging brakes, poor alignment , out-of-round tires, unbalanced wheels and a host of other things that go wrong cost you gas . Keep the car maintained .

Engine Heaters

They say that engines use about four times as much gas while they get up to operating temperature as they do after warm-up. If you park in a garage, especially a heated one, warm-up time will be reduced as will fuel consumption. Not everyone has access to a garage though, so you may wish to use a device to heat the engine while the car is parked.
The simplest method is to drape an electric blanket over the engine and plug it in to household current. There are engine block heaters made for some engines, often consisting of a heating element that replaces a head bolt or the oil dipstick. An old trick aimed at keeping the ignition dry is to place a mechanic’s trouble light under the hood. I’m not sure how much the trouble light heats the engine but it might help.



Excess Weight

Remove any unneeded junk, tools, books and other cargo from the car. It takes gas to move weight. In fact, obese motorists pay a slight price in gas for being heavy. More passengers also means fewer miles per gallon.


Driving to Save



Up until now, we’ve focused on the vehicle and its equipment and on avoiding use of that vehicle. Now let’s look at driving techniques and habits that can move the car the farthest on the least gas possible.
Never use the tricks I outline here when doing so will compromise safety or impede traffic. Be courteous to other motorists even if this means burning extra fuel to get out of someone’s way.

• Automobile electricity is not free. It comes from the alternator which is spun by the engine which runs on ( you guessed it ) gas. This means that if you keep your headlights on all of the time, you will use a bit more gas. Take that into consideration.
• Idling an engine to warm it up wastes gas because it takes longer to reach operating temperature at idle than it does while underway. Worse yet, if the car is sitting still, you are getting zero miles per gallon. You should let the car warm for maybe thirty seconds before driving off and no more unless there is a special reason, as may occur on cold icy mornings. Drive it gently until the engine warms to operating temperature as this minimizes engine wear. In fact, driving gently causes less wear than idling.
• Using cruise control can save gas but will have a reverse effect in hilly areas. In most cases, a skillful driver, using the techniques provided here, can beat the cruise control at its own game. If you are trying to set a record for miserliness, shut off the cruise control. Otherwise, use it as it saves gas for most drivers.
• Avoid use of the brakes because the brakes convert mechanical energy to heat energy and get rid of it. The mechanical energy in question came from chemical energy in the form of gasoline. Every time you brake, you are, in effect dumping a little gas that could have moved the car farther. If you become familiar with the terrain and traffic lights where you normally drive, you’ll be able to coast for a good while before stops. In heavy traffic, leave a sufficient following distance to coast awhile when the traffic ahead jams up. Try to replace braking with coasting.
• Jackrabbit starts waste gas. Accelerate gradually, as if you had an egg between your foot and the gas pedal. Try to avoid uphill accelerations.
• If you let the car pick up speed down hills and lose a little speed up hills, you can save gas.
• Make sure you understand synchronized traffic lights and use them to your advantage by driving at the optimum speed to hit all of the lights when they are green.
• Lower speeds mean less wind resistance. Above 60 MPH , probably half the fuel being burned is used just to overcome air resistance. Speeds over 60 MPH are where speed seriously comes into play.
• You can plan your commute or a long vacation drive taking fuel efficiency into consideration. It makes economic sense to avoid plowing through cities during rush hour. You may see a road that looks fine on a map but turns out to have a lot of traffic lights so investigate thoroughly. You may be able to plan your route to steer around construction delays too. It goes without saying that you should find the most direct route and consider it first.
• If there is an accident on a superhighway, traffic can be backed up for hours and miles. This is a time when skillful use of a map or a GPS system can save the day. Sometimes you will be able to jump off at the next exit and pick up an alternate route. Listen to radio traffic reports as you decide about your options. If you have a C.B. radio, you may be able to get information from other motorists. If you have a cellular phone, you may be able to phone a friend with access to T.V. traffic news. In some cases, you may decide that the best option is to stop at the next exit and take a break until the traffic eases. Sitting in the jam gives you zero MPG.
• Drafting isn’t a safe technique and following close behind a truck can result in numerous paint chips from gravel and pebbles kicked up by the truck’s wheels. Keep an ample following distance.
• Don’t get compulsive about topping up your tank. If you wait to buy gas until you have used at least half a tank, your car will have less gas to cart around on average. That means less weight that you pay to power over the road.
• Minimize distractions such as talking on a cell phone and you’ll be better able to focus on your economic driving techniques.
• You can post a note on the dash to remind anyone driving the car to conserve gas .
• When starting out from a parking space, you can put the car into gear and let it pull itself slowly to the parking lot exit, where you must stop before entering the roadway. You can sometimes choose a parking space that will allow you to coast downhill to the parking lot exit.
• Take care of all mirror and seat adjustments, buckling of seat belts, seating of passengers and other chores before starting the engine. That way you can get underway immediately and minimize idling.

Saving Money on The Gas Itself

The Internet offers several web sites that track current gasoline prices. Here are some other ways to slash the price.
• Use a credit card for all gas purchases and make sure it is one that pays some kind of bonus or rebate on purchases. Credit card records let you see exactly what you are spending on gas.
• Resist the temptation to fill the tank to the top. Stop with the automatic shut-off to avoid spillage and leave room for expansion.
• Pay attention to quality. Not all brands of gas are equal in performance. If a particular brand causes your car to ping on hills, that is spark knock and causes poor gas mileage.
• Avoid running low on gas and having to buy from whatever gas station you come to next. Otherwise you could be forced to buy from a price gouger just off the interstate or in a turnpike plaza.
• Gas up a few days before a holiday weekend, when prices are likely to go up.
• Don’t buy a higher grade of gas than you need. If your engine doesn’t require a higher octane rating, you will be throwing money away by using more expensive gas. Modern cars have computerized engine controls and can get used to a particular grade of gas so it is best not to switch around and experiment too much.

Hybrids

• These cars are subsidized in some ways and are fraught with serious disadvantages. These downsides vary with the design of the particular hybrid but can include less reliability, hazards to untrained accident responders, expensive replacement batteries and more.
• A conventional car of equal size can often yield surprisingly good mileage, while selling for thousands of dollars less.
• EPA estimates have sometimes been wildly optimistic because of unrealistic city driving test conditions.
• Hybrid drivers can save gas with some special techniques unique to hybrids.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2008 06:31PM by Doug Delmont.

Doug, wonderful information, the same and most everyone who watches any news channels, have been seeing.

How about as asked in another thread, the person/person's, who you tout as having all the answers,providing some answers, from his point of view, to "protecting and shining paint", coming in and answering the many questions that which you have brought to their considerations.

Where is the "participation" by the owner and chemist, of the one line of products, you "have tested", "you have chosen to tell all who would read", "what is the greatest" of all products for paint, trim, etc?

Ketch

Doug, wonderful information, the same and most everyone who watches any news channels, have been seeing.

How about as asked in another thread, the person/person's, who you tout as having all the answers,providing some answers, from his point of view, to "protecting and shining paint", coming in and answering the many questions that which you have brought to their considerations.

Where is the "participation" by the owner and chemist, of the one line of products, you "have tested", "you have chosen to tell all who would read", "what is the greatest" of all products for paint, trim, etc?

Ketch

Gas?. what about diesel. The prices here in canada are skyrocketing everyday for both. Gas is 1.23 a litre 4.5 litres to a gallon equals $5.53 a gallon and diesel is even more. I feel sorry for some of my trucking friends the future isn,t a pretty one as ketch stated long ago even back in the delhi forums everything will be going up.Did you notice the price increases at your local food store lately?

Ketch-
Cheap shot. You know full well that no one has yet compiled this complete a gas saving manual, least of all the T.V. news . You are looking for something negative to say about anything I produce and your falsehoods are transparent. Glad to see you were unable to cite one error in the whole 7-page document !
Some of stuff you post is so poorly worded that I can't decipher it, much less form an answer.
Wonder if you ever read an MSDS on whatever you are smoking ? ( I mean the tobacco ! ) ... LOL


A good slogan for you: " I'm not a chemist but I play one on the Internet ".

Pro Mobile-
Most of the ideas I cited will work for Diesels too. There is a " Truckin' Radio Network " featuring talk shows . Much of the discussion is about the high price of Diesel fuel, alternative fuels, and EPA rules that increase fuel consumption . Perhaps there is an efficient way to move more freight by rail to reduce overall consumption. Who knows ?
You are right that everything is going up in price, if not right now-soon . The causes are many : Wars are fought on credit and paid off in cheaper, inflated dollars / when fuel costs more, so does everything transported by it etc.
I suspect it will become harder to sell detailing services because people see them as a luxury. It may pay to concentrate on offering " car sanitation and allergen removal " instead of " Interior Detail " because it sounds more like a necessity . Just a random thought.

Hoping you prosper in the coming difficult times-

Doug

Doug,
In no way was I doing what you just accused me of.

I was saying that you presented valid and needed information.

You took it "wrong", the point I was hoping readers whould understand is this.

"There is more to TV than "American Idol", that if people really wish to gain knowledge, there are shows on TV which are presenting valuable information, such as you posted."

I was complimenting you, regarding your "bringing to those who visit", some valid and important, information.

Ketch

Pro Mobile-
Regarding Diesels :
Truckers waste a lot of fuel by idling the engine so they can run the heater while they sleep. There is now a special auxilliary heater that they can install. It allows the engine to be shut off and the heater itself runs by burning a small amount of Diesel fuel .

Many trucking companies are installing governors to restrict their trucks to 65 or 63 MPH .

I notice a lot of trucks wasting energy by braking on downhill grades simply to avoid radar tickets. If they were allowed to coast up to a higher speed and cook it off on the next uphill grade, they'd save a lot of fuel .
I wonder if it would help for the trucks to form a line to reduce air resistance .
I also wonder whether a lightweight trailer could be built and used only to haul light loads, such as mattresses, while heavier-duty trailers are used for heavy stuff like steel pipes .
Perhaps a modular trailer could be built, one that could be kept light and heavied up with additional frame parts only when necessary.
By filling the truck tires with pure nitrogen, you could avoid fluctuations in tire pressure that can cost fuel.
Doug

Pro Mobile-
Good news on the Diesel fuel cost problem !

Volvo/Mack Trucks is hoping to release a Hybrid Garbage truck in a year or two . Garbage trucks do a lot of stop and start driving as they lurch from one house to another. An electric motor will reduce noise and fuel consumption . One advantage is regenerative braking .

Eventually, the company may produce hybrid semis. The driver will be able to run his air conditioning or heater while he sleeps without having to idle the Diesel engine .

( Sorry to depart from our "all Bud all the time" format on this forum . We now return you to the IDA press releases ) LOL
Doug

Everyone-
High gas prices have triggered gas thefts. Pickups and SUVs are especially vulnerable to attack by criminals who punch or drill the gas tank. The tanks are up higher than in cars. Thieves like to target plastic tanks because they are easier to drill .

Old-fashioned syphoning is on the increase too.

Locking gas caps, alarms, surveillance cameras and locked parking garages are defenses . Report any suspicious persons or cars, of course .

Doug

Mr Delmont:

Thank you for the post and clarification.

What I suggest you do is visit the IDA Forum on www.mobileworks.com to get a picture of what the associations is trying to accomplish.

That you also vist the IDA website www.the-ida.com and read some of the blogs and the forum to get a feel for where the IDA is going, and how they are going to get there.

Regards
Marnie Joseph
IDA