Cut the cost of driving
March 04, 2013
We hear it on the news almost every week, petrol prices are continuing to rise and we’re all suffering. It’s astonishing when you look back at the price of petrol 10 years ago and the staggering increase compared to other commodities.
Apart from petitioning there’s not much that can be done to get retailers to cut the prices, so we’ve put together our top tips to cut the cost of your weekly petrol bill, leaving you more to enjoy the finer things in life. So here it goes:
It’s likely you’ll already be familiar with the tips above but it’s always useful to have a reminder, especially with things like tyres which are easy to forget about or rely on a partner to do. By combining these aspects together you should easily get up to a 5mpg increase which is an extra 50 miles per fill up based on a small family car.
Apart from petitioning there’s not much that can be done to get retailers to cut the prices, so we’ve put together our top tips to cut the cost of your weekly petrol bill, leaving you more to enjoy the finer things in life. So here it goes:
- Compare prices. It sounds obvious but do we all do it? PetrolPrices.com is a real nifty tool (our favourite online by far) that displays the cost of petrol and diesel at your local pumps. You just need to enter your postcode and it does the rest – with prices regularly updated it saves driving around (and using fuel in the process) trying to get the best deal. This also gets you into the habit of planning ahead, so you aren’t caught out with a low tank and then forced to fill up whatever the cost.
- Pump up your tyres. You can increase the miles per gallon that you get the next time you fill up by keeping your tyres inflated to the optimum pressure. The reason is because this results in less drag and in turn eeking out a bit more MPG in the process which adds up over the course of a year.
- Turn off the aircon/climate control. Most cars now come with climate control but you often have the option to turn off the aircon part (which still works even when you have the heating on). This is a separate pump unit which runs off the battery, using up some fuel in the process and is used for the humidity in the car. Just check your manual to find instructions on how it can be turned off.
- Check your driving style. If you’re a bit of a hard braker or gear revver try and tone it down a couple of notches. By running in higher gears (4 or 5) the engine is running at a lower speed (reduced revs) which means you’ll conserve more fuel. This is the reason town/city urban driving uses up so much petrol as it’s a constant stop/start in low gears.
It’s likely you’ll already be familiar with the tips above but it’s always useful to have a reminder, especially with things like tyres which are easy to forget about or rely on a partner to do. By combining these aspects together you should easily get up to a 5mpg increase which is an extra 50 miles per fill up based on a small family car.
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