Finances: Tips for Saving Fuel

Everybody will tell you that prices of fuel are going through the roof. Hence, for many car owners, their personal budgets are being negatively affected by having to spend a little more on fuel. However, there are some simple ways of reducing your fuel bill without more of hassle. From experience, you could have known that cars use more fuel in traffic jams than in smooth traffic. This is because the driver keeps accelerating and breaking numerous times. A car uses more fuel to accelerate than it needs to maintain the same speed. To put it into focus, a bicycle rider needs to peddle harder at first then if on flat ground, the momentum of the first push is enough to keep the bicycle moving. So it with the car. In traffic that is constantly varying in speed, the further back you are from the vehicle in front, the more you can average out the speed differences of the vehicle in front, and so reduce the need for braking. So for drivers who like driving very fast in the Kigali traffic, you realize that they are racing and breaking so many times and in fact begin to use fuel as if they are in a traffic jam. Also, to help one visualize it, if one accelerates to 50Km/hour, when he releases the fuel peddle or the accelerator, the car can moves on its own for perhaps the next two hundred meters. By braking suddenly the car loses that momentum or that energy that has already been burnt form the fuel into the movement of the car. So in urban environments you are cheaper driving at a relatively slow speed (again not very slow) than to keep racing and breaking. The same applies to making very many trips to town instead of making one trip and stopping at designated points instead of rotating aimlessly around. When driving an automatic car, accelerate moderately so the transmission can shift up into the higher gears Also, for every car, there is a speed when the fuel economy of the car is highest or in other words, at this speed the car uses the highest number of kilometers per liter. This fact is more useful on the highway where there is little human or car traffic, good roads, where if one drives very slowly or very fast they use more fuel. Each car has its own average and car dealers can usually give the best advice. However, drivers should note that traffic speed limits must be adhered to as a priority over speeds of most fuel economy even though these limits have such factors considered. Other factors that can affect your fuel economy are the wrong tyre pressure, a dirty air filter which restricts the flow of air into the engine, which harms performance and economy, over use of the car air conditioner. But more importantly, a well maintained car will be most effect in use of fuel. Numerous car fill ups with small quantities of fuel lead to increased trips to the fuel station, which should be avoided when one can afford. Some experts also advise that running a car with less than a quarter of the fuel tank can shorten the life of the electric fuel pump and running on empty will often destroy the pump. Ends

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Finances: Tips for Saving Fuel