How to Get Better Mileage Out of Your Car

Dustin Hoffman’s Charlie Babbitt claimed to be an “excellent driver.” Most Americans believe they’re good, if not excellent drivers. But they’re wrong. Whether they’re changing lanes without turn signals or texting behind the wheel, most drivers, using the ones driving around me as a sample, are awful. And using this as a guideline, it has to be assumed that most American drivers haven’t got a clue how not to waste gas.

Sure, Charlie Babbitt’s father’s Buick Roadmaster wasn’t sipping gas but even Charlie and Raymond could get better mileage if only they were “excellent” drivers. There are a number of simple things to do to increase fuel economy on every car and truck, however most people don’t practice many of them.

To compare bad and good practices, we drove a minivan up and down the east coast. Toyota provided a Sienna as we traveled from Pennsylvania to where our whole family gathers annually in Outer Banks of North Carolina. The trip south would give a base measurement before returning and adapting all of the techniques we missed in order to improve our fuel economy.

On the southbound trip through five states, poor driving habits of the other drivers became so annoying. We’re trying to use as little gas as possible while the people around us are needlessly burning petroleum. One particular driver was not only buying her own Valdez tanker but she was encouraging me to buy my own.

This driver, we’re going to simply call her Ms Lexus RX450h, shadowed me for about half an hour though Delaware. On the upside, Ms RX450h was saving fuel by having the hybrid SUV. On the downside, she thought she was Shirley Muldowney. At each red light, Ms RX450h would mash the gas pedal and accelerate up to 50 or so.

In this part of Delaware, we hit a series of lights where every other one was red…it’s just the way we roll at 8am on a Saturday. Thinking as an optimist, half of the lights were green, right?

But Ms RX450h was drawing me into her web of misdeeds. As she pulled away from our minivan loaded with kids anxious to get on the beach, the one-passenger SUV lured me to go faster. With every fiber of my being, I fought that urge and was rewarded light after light by catching up to her. Karma was on my side, but I can only hope that she noticed how little she was gaining by racing and how much she was wasting in terms of fuel. Because of her jack rabbit ways, her virtually empty hybrid was probably getting about the same actual fuel economy as our wagon, its five riders, boogie boards, sand castle-making paraphernalia, and all of the other necessities for an enjoyable week at the beach.

Now I consider myself to be an “excellent” driver. Yes, many of those bad drivers we see every day think the same thing and I have little to defend my claim other than my simple statement. Ms RX450h and Mr ’96 Taurus, who came across three lanes to make the exit in front of me, and Mr Ram 1500, who blocked two lanes of traffic trying to make a left lane exit from the right lane, definitely rank behind me somewhere.

Driving safer and more courteously are topics for another article. We can only devote so many pages to each article and we’ll leave that information for a future issue. In the meantime, let’s waste less gas.

The rules to better fuel economy are very simple.

Maintenance: Even the Shell Answer Man wants you to maintain your vehicle, granted because you’ll theoretically come to a service station to do much of it; his monetary reasons aside, it’s a great idea. Keep the car in proper tune by following regular schedules for tune ups and oil changes. A clean engine runs more efficiently than a dirty one. But you knew that because you’re an “excellent driver” as well. Your tires are inflated to proper levels, right?

Drive Smoothly: Unless you’re Ms RX450h, you know that slow and smooth acceleration trumps quarter-mile races for fuel efficiency. Sadly, her competitive nature is contagious and I’m sure my speed increased in her presence. She did, however, beat me to every traffic light and yet we usually caught up to her at the next red light. Her wasted fuel did little or nothing to lessen the time she was on the road.

Pre-plan your Route: Another one of Ms RX450h’s mis-steps was not choose the most direct route. As we played bumper tag, she turned right and left the main drag. Thinking she was running a local errand, I figured that I was rid of her. Lo and behold, ten minutes later she pulled up alongside us at another red light. While she could have stopped somewhere, it seemed unlikely that she would have caught up with us so quickly had that happened. If she had remained on our road, she should have been a few miles further ahead, thus wasting fewer miles and probably a couple of bucks of gas not to mention a few minutes of her life, the most precious resource of all.

Keep your Speed in Check: As vehicle speed increases, the aerodynamic resistance works harder to slow the car. All of those forces rob your car’s efficiency; doubling a vehicle’s speed increases the power need eight-fold. Balancing the need to get to your destination as quickly as possible with the legal speed limit helps you find a sweet spot on your speedometer. After picking a speed, stick with it by using a steady right foot or, better yet, cruise control. If you need to get there at a particular time, leave earlier and slow down.

Using my usual methodology of driving, our drive south returned reasonable fuel economy. With a Toyota Sienna loaded with two adults, three children, and all of the things we would need for a few days away, the minivan turned in a respectable 20.9 mpg on mostly highway use. Having driven this route with a number of vehicles, this was about average for the trip. For the return trip, we looked to improve this number.

Since Toyota had provided an excellently maintained vehicle, nothing physical needed adjusting. My driving style is fairly smooth, bad drivers’ encouragement aside. And our route was exactly the same so that we could measure other changes in my driving style. It all came down to speed.

Reducing the vehicle’s speed by just a few miles per hour cost us very little. In this particular trip, we used about a tank and a half and added about 45 minutes of road time. Aside from a few drivers who found our rate of speed too slow, nobody was significantly bothered by our changes. We did, however, gain one big bonus which didn’t become evident until we were home. Simply using the cruise control as much as possible and taking a few miles per hour from our velocity, our fuel economy improved to 24.7 mpg. That’s an improvement of 18%!

Now your mileage will vary, but we bested the EPA’s estimate by 2 mpg simply by slowing down. Legally, I have to tell you that you should obey all posted speed limit signs, but (between you and me) we didn’t. At no time were we a burden to traffic by driving 50 in a 65 mph zone. However, there were a number of miles were we didn’t pass a single vehicle and the flow of traffic was 5 to 10 mph faster than us…it goes without saying that traffic was flowing at more than the posted speeds.

Yes, three-quarters of an hour is significant but when measured over a whole day-long trip, it can tend to get overlooked. On the other hand, nearly $10 of saved gas is very significant. Taken over time, that can really add up. The reduced wear-and-tear on your vehicle as well as the wear-and-tear on your wallet and bank account are the chief benefactors of following a few simple rules.

Sure, we’re all excellent drivers, just some are more excellent than others. Most of us ignore the simplest of rules of the road. We tailgate and speed and ignore our mirrors and fail to use turn signals. On top of all that, we waste gallons of gas by not paying attention to the generic fuel saving lessons touted everywhere.