Smart shifting and more cruising: How to cut your fuel costs
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With fuel now hovering near the €1.90-litre mark in petrol stations across the country, pressure is on motorists who use their cars for the daily commute to save on usage wherever possible.
And the advice from experts is to coast more, do more cruising, and start smart shifting.
AA Ireland says when accelerating, drivers should do so gently and don’t take too long to move into higher gears.
The advice is that motorists should become a so-called “Smart Shifter” and avoid taking too long to move into the higher gears.
Driving fast in a low gear makes the engine work harder and thus uses more fuel.
Once your journey is underway, a Canadian Government website advises motorists to maintain a steady speed and consider using the cruise control function for motorway driving.
Tests have shown that varying your speed up and down between 75km/h and 85km/h every 18 seconds can increase your fuel usage by as much as 20%.
AA Ireland also says you should also ease off the accelerator and move down the gears in plenty of time before you start using your breaks.
The Canadian Government’s Fuel-efficient driving techniques advise motorists to “coast” to decelerate, making the point that every time you use your brakes, you waste your forward momentum.
They point out that by looking ahead at how traffic is behaving, you can see in advance when to start slowing down and motorists will conserve fuel by taking their feet off the accelerator and just coasting to slow down instead of using their brakes.
The UK’s Energy Saving Trust recommends drivers should change up a gear before their car reaches 2,500 revs in a petrol car and 2,000 in a diesel car. Following these guidelines can save up to 15% in fuel, according to UK Road Safety,
The Canadian government website also urges drivers to turn off their engine when stopped for more than 60 seconds, except when in traffic, pointing out the average vehicle with a 3-litre engine wastes over one cup of fuel for every 10 minutes it idles.
You should also take a leaf out of the advanced driver’s handbook by training yourself to look to the end of the road as far as you can see so as to anticipate what is up ahead, rather than jamming on the breaks at the last minute.
The Canadian government website says a vehicle uses about 20% more fuel when driven at 120km/h than at 100km/h and on a 25km trip, this spike in speed and fuel consumption only actually cuts two minutes from your journey time.
Emptying your boot is also advised, with the Canadian government site pointing out that fuel consumption of a mid-size car increases by about 1% for every 25kg of weight it carries.
AA Ireland also urges you to use air conditioning sparingly as using it can increase fuel consumption by as much as 20%.
They also suggest you should ditch your roof racks, roof boxes and cycle racks when you aren’t using them, as they 'drag' on the car, and force the engine to burn more fuel.
And the advice from all the experts is that you should never travel - unless you have to - on a full tank of fuel. It just weighs the car down and increases consumption.