MSS Guide to Fuel Reduction
Step 1: Drive Less
Don’t actually drive to meetings; use other resources such as the phone, Skype, and the Internet to conduct your business.
- Use public transport when possible.
- Plan and combine trips, and combine work and play.
For example, if you enjoy hill walking and find yourself away on business, start work early, finish work late for a few days and take an afternoon off as annual leave to go walking.
- Focus on results not activity.
- Be good rather than busy.
Step 2: Drive more efficiently
It's possible to drive the same distance in the same time, yet use considerably less fuel. You can chop up to 60% OFF your fuel costs. It’s simply about driving more smoothly to boost your fuel efficiency.
- Accelerate gradually without over-revving.
Speed up smoothly; when you press harder on the pedal more fuel flows, but you could get to the same speed using much less power – a good rule is to stay under 3,000 revs.
- Drive in the correct gear.
Always drive in the highest gear possible without labouring the engine.
Rather than brake all the time, let your car slow naturally and use its stored momentum.
- Obey the speed limit
- Minimise idling as fuel efficiency is 0% when idling
- Use cruise control
- Think about the road and route ahead.
To do all this takes road awareness, so the more alert you are, the better you can plan ahead and move gradually.
In many ways this all comes down to one little rule of thumb...
Every time you put your foot on the accelerator, remember the harder you press the more fuel you spend.
Step 3: Keep your vehicle in shape
- Replace blocked air filters. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 10%
- Regularly tune engine. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 4%
- Use correct grade of motor oil. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 2%
- Keep your tyres correctly inflated. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 3%
Lower tyre pressure increases the drag on a car meaning you need more fuel, so regularly check the pressures are correct and your car needs less power to keep it moving.
- Declutter your car. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 2%
The lighter your car is, the less effort it needs to make to accelerate. Therefore, by decluttering, clearing out junk from the boot, and not carrying unnecessary weight, you can make extra savings.
- Take your roof rack off. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 2%
A roof rack, even unused, adds massive wind resistance to a car, increasing drag and making the engine work harder. So if you don't need it, take it and anything else that's inefficient off. Even closing the windows will make the car run slightly more efficiently.
- Turn off the air con. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 8%
Air conditioning also uses an incredible amount of fuel, so make sure it's turned off unless you really need it. The exact savings depend on the type you've got, manual air conditioning is the worst, but even climate control can use up to 4% of fuel. Also, don’t keep the engine running; drive off as soon as you start up and switch off the engine as soon as you reach your destination.
- Don't fill it up. Efficiency Improvement: Up to 1%
Fuel is heavy, so by filling the car up you're adding quite a weight. The less fuel your car has in it, the more efficiently it drives. Thus filling up slightly more often and putting less in (to 1/2 or 3/4 full) will make the car run more efficiently.
Step 4: Use a more efficient vehicle
Taking the average cost of fuel per gallon as £4.70, and looking at cost per year based on 15,000 miles:
- A car that drives 20 miles to the gallon would cost £3525 to run
- A car that drives 30 miles to the gallon would cost £2350 to run. This is a 33% saving compared to a car that drives 20 miles to the gallon.
- A car that drives 40 miles to the gallon would cost £1763 to run. This is a 50% saving on a car that runs 20 miles to the gallon.
Step 5: Find the best buys in your area
Shop around. There are plenty of websites offering advice on where to find the cheapest fuel, such as www.petrolprices.com
A few minutes research before you start your journey could save you lots of money.
You can also reduce fuel costs by:
- Re-fuelling at least fifty miles before your tank is empty.
This ensures you have time to source the cheapest fuel and not simply fill up at the last minute at the nearest station. Of course this is slightly offset by the fact that a lighter car uses less fuel, but with 50 miles of fuel left, the difference is miniscule.
- Using ‘better fuel’ if your car can cope.
Many stations sell ‘high performance fuels’, yet there’s little or no performance difference for most non-performance cars; so only fill up with the super-fuels if you've a sports car that you've been specifically advised will actually utilise the petrol correctly.
- Fill up at night, but don’t overfill.
This is perhaps an urban myth, as the differences are tiny, pennies at most. Petrol pumps are calibrated by volume, so if you fill up at night when it’s colder you could get a little bit more for your money.
- Don't try and put more in after the clunk.
Don't keep going after the petrol nozzle 'clunks', because you're overfilling which means you are adding more weight to the car.
Step 6: Get cashback
Buying fuel is the biggest single regular expenditure that most people make by plastic or cash. This means that there are opportunities to increase the saving by the way it's paid for.
- Pay with a cashback/fuel credit card.
Credit card reward schemes pay you back each time you spend on the card; so set up a Direct Debit to pay it off in full, so there's no interest charge, and you gain. Each time you spend on a cashback you can get up to 5% of your outlay back, which quickly adds up.
- Grab supermarket petrol promotions.
Supermarkets commonly do petrol promotions, and as they're usually cheap for fuel anyway, utilising these schemes means you can save. Usually these take the form of "spend £20 and get 5p off voucher" deals. If this is the case, do ensure if you're spending more e.g. £60, that you pay for your shopping in three branches to get three vouchers.
Buying petrol is a regular outlay, and you spend more on it in a year than you think. As many petrol stations run some form of loyalty scheme, it's worth signing up for the schemes for the forecourts you'll use most regularly to get a little bit extra back.
To work out the initial rough cost of running your car, the Vehicle Certification Agency has a rough fuel cost calculator, which will work out roughly how much it'll cost you to run your car over the course of a year.
|
Fuel Cost Cutting (as at June 2008) |
|
Annual Mileage |
Average annual cost (1) |
Increase efficiency by 5% |
Increase efficiency by more than 20% |
Plus reduce fuel cost by 5% (2) |
Plus get 1% cashback |
Total Saving |
|
5,000 miles |
£725 |
£690 |
£580 |
£550 |
£545 |
£180 |
|
15,000 miles |
£2170 |
£2060 |
£1735 |
£1650 |
£1630 |
£535 |
|
30,000 miles |
£4335 |
£4120 |
£3470 |
£3300 |
£3265 |
£1070 |
|
(1) Cost At 35 miles per gallon at 111p/litre. (2) After increasing efficiency by 20%. |