driving efficiently

[ScottyB]

i know we're a motorsports club and its alot more fun to talk about tearing ass around the track but for many of us we spend 98% of our time just driving around like every othe Joe Blow trying to get from point A to B. especially in light of current gas prices, does anyone else try to consciously make their everyday drives pretty efficient? any cool tips? maybe we can learn something.

personally i actually enjoy the challenge of seeing how efficiently i can drive on my daily commute and on road trips, if not for the financial benefit too. i'll track my milage tank to tank and try to use a couple different tactics to boost my milage. that said, i still waste alot of my efforts by gunning it up any merge ramps that happen to be uninhabited

some things that i do that i've found help alot. i've verified much of this in my parent's car which has an instant-MPG feature on the dash display.

- coast in gear as long as possible before throwing it in neutral. when your engine is idling it's using fuel, when its coasting down in gear it doesn't use any...plus you get the braking effect.
- let your momentum carry going downhill if conditions permit. often i'll keep my foot in it after cresting a hill and gain 10mph or so going downhill, then instead of using more throttle going uphill i'll keep it steady and let my speed bleed off until i have to use more to maintain a minimal speed. then do it over again. hard to do in traffic because you're constantly gaining and losing speed.
- keep the AC off in traffic, and the windows up on the highway
- keep the toe-in as minimal as possible on your alignment. this helps your tire life too, at the cost of stability on the highway and in crosswinds.
- don't let your car warm up past about 30 seconds to a minute when you start it after sitting all night or day. i've found that my car especially will dump lots of fuel to warm up on a cold start if you let it sit. instead, drive it gently until the oil is warm, then drive normally.
- if nobody is behind me, i like to time the stoplights. instead of driving the speed limit right until the very last second, i'll start coasting as soon as i see a red light, even if it's very far ahead. usually it's green by the time i'm almost slowed down and at the car ahead of me. this will buy you a free couple hundred yards.
- i've never driven a car that's had good gas milage over 70 mph. if you can, keep it between 65-70, that tends to be a sweet spot.
- filters/tire pressure
- maintain your speed in corners if you can help it, instead of slowing down, speeding up. my favorite type of efficiency

things i've found that don't work as much or stupid advice:

- don't draft anything, for obvious reasons. keeping a good distance also allows you to keep a steady speed instead of speed up/slow down/speed up.
- shifting early....shift too early and you'll bog the engine and end up flooring it to keep up with traffic since you're out of the powerband of the engine. i just try to keep the thottle opening to a minimum
- oil changes may help but i think that's really really splitting hairs.