Five Green Driving Tips That Will Save Money and Gas

Five Green Driving Tips That Will Save Money and Gas

4/22/2011 4:45:37 PM

By Brenna Long

Tags: save money, save gas, save energy, green driving, hypermiling, mpg, gas milage, miles per gallon

With these five tips from the Car Care Council you can “green your routine” and help the environment. Presented in honor of Earth Day, these tips can save you gas and money every day of the year!

1. Drive Green: How you drive directly correlates with your fuel economy. Aggressive driving decreases your mpg, and harms your vehicle. So avoid quick starts and stops, go the speed limit, and try to take fewer trips in the first place. For more driving tips read Every Gallon Counts: Save Gas With Hypermiling.
2. Get a Tune-Up: Regular maintenance and tune-ups help your care perform better and pollute less. Just by changing the air filter, your car’s efficiency will improve by 10 percent.
3. Lighten the Load: Only keep emergency items in your car, such as the spare tire and first-aid kit. Any extra pounds will weigh down your vehicle and ultimately use more gas —and money — to move it down the road.
4. Tire Checks: If every American car had properly inflated tires, the Car Care Council says we could save around two billion gallons of gas each year. To make sure your tires are at an optimal air pressure level, check the tire pressure listed for your car in the driver’s manual or on the inside of the driver’s door.
5. Gas Caps and Fill-Ups:  Go check your gas cap. Each year, 147 million gallons of gas vaporize because of loose, damaged or missing gas caps. Avoid topping off your tank when you fill up to prevent the release of harmful vapors into the environment.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/energy-matters/five-green-driving-tips-zb0z11zblon.aspx#ixzz1QE5Lpybq

Daytime Running Lights Use Gas!

It's true.

Unnecessary technology in automobiles hurts fuel economy greatly!!!

Just like running your A/C, other electronic devices pull hard on your car's alternator.  Thus, reducing your car's overall miles per gallon.

I have made a hobby out of improving my car's efficiency by eliminating some of these would-be leaches of power.  For instance, Daytime Running Lights.  While required in some areas, many view them as only necessary during near-dark conditions.  To respond to the requirement, many auto manufacturers have made their cars and trucks to utilize them constantly while they're running.  Daytime running lights can use up to 2% of your overall fuel economy.  Keep in mind, the fact that they aren't always necessary or an addition to safety.

I live in Florida, one of the sunniest places in the US.  I rarely drive at night and thus was in a pickle about DRLs.  Because my volkswagen was programmed to run them constantly, I did some in-dash tweaking to my car and saw a gain of nearly 1/2 a mile per gallon!!!

According to a research study, if every car in America shut off their DRLs, millions of gallons of gas would be saved.

Check out this article: 

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-economy/drl-gas-consumption.htm

Windows as a source of environmental and monetary woes.

Windows as a source of environmental and monetary woes.

I am not a homeowner.  I am a renter.  However, I know the benefits of living in a home that is energy efficient by means of structural soundness.  In this case, I'm talking about windows.

Re-caulk all your windows.  Not only are caulking guns useful for just about every room in the house, you will more than likely only buy one in your lifetime.  Not good for the environment?  Not so fast, they make an entire line of environmentally-friendly caulking product.

Here. 

Windows are a source of concern over A/C usage.  The more curtainage you have, the better.  It's ok to have dark colors on the inside, but the curtains nearest to the window DEFINITELY should be white or off white at least.  this will certainly help to block out the hot rays of the sun and help to keep heat in during the colder times. 

Another good window trick is to buy some tinting.  This is easily applied and quite effective at blocking A/C killing sun rays!!!

If you can afford to, but new energy efficient windows.

I'll be hitting this subject more in the formative days.

Green Living on Answers

I recently discovered that Answers.Yahoo.com has an excellent Green living forum open to a really neat Q & A format.  Users are able to ask questions about the environment and green living as well as hundreds of other topics.

The possibilities are endless!!!  I have rarely encountered the same question more than once.  Excellent learning tool.

Check it out here.