You can reduce fuel consumption in various ways. Some of them are legal and safe, but some involve a certain risk, which must be borne in mind.
Experienced motorists recommend using these savings opportunities:
- participation in special programs from gas stations. All existing gas station chains offer attractive bonus programs. They consist in providing customers with discounts in the amount of 1-3% of the amount spent on gas station services. By purchasing the company's bonus card, the client will be able to save a small amount each month, which is about 2-3 thousand rubles in year,
- the use of oils and additives that reduce gas mileage. These tools are sold to specialized stores and reduce fuel consumption by reducing friction parts. This way you can save up to 10% in gas costs. For the year, the amount of savings here will be about 4 thousand rubles,
- use of tires with maximum pressure. To reduce gasoline consumption, it is better to choose summer tires with a pressure of 2.5 atmospheres and winter tires with an indicator of 2.2. By simply replacing tires, especially when there are flat roads, you can save money thousand rubles per year,
- improvement of own driving style. As you know, at a smoother ride and with a soft start, significantly less fuel is consumed. The same applies to braking - the less jerking occurs at these moments, the lower the cost of gasoline will be. Longer warming up of the car will also help to reduce gasoline consumption at the moment the movement starts. In the cold season, warming up a car is at least 3-5 minutes. By constantly adhering to this rule, you can save about 7 thousand rubles.
Using these methods, you can achieve annual savings in the range of 10 thousand rubles. Compliance with these rules does not entail any risks and is available to any car owner.
Keep the car technically sound
The advice is commonplace, but nonetheless. Faults affecting consumption, a great many. A very common option: some kind of "buggy" sensor (for example, an oxygen content sensor in the exhaust) that misinforms the engine control unit and makes it inject too much fuel in vain.
It is worth paying attention to the oil and changing it in a timely manner. Too dirty and viscous oil makes you spend more fuel. It is designed to facilitate friction between the working parts of the engine, but the higher the viscosity, the more difficult it is for the pistons and shafts to move.
Keep track of speed
The engine spends the least fuel, operating at minimum speed with the highest gear possible. You won’t be able to save money in the city, but keep the speed in the region of 80 km / h outside the city and use the fifth (or sixth, if any) gear.
Why is that? Let's try to explain "on the fingers." Remember your mountain bike experience with multiple gears. It is easiest to pedal when the front drive gear is smaller and the driven gear on the rear wheel is larger. This is how a car’s transmission works when a downshift is engaged (first, second, third and sometimes fourth). On the other hand, in this case, you will literally have to “kick” your feet so that the bike goes faster. That is, increase the speed.
And it’s most convenient to drive when you are coasting, and at the same time the drive gear is much larger than the driven gear (this will already be an overdrive - fifth and sixth in a car with manual transmission). Feet do not bother with effort, but you don’t need to “twitch” either - we pedal smoothly and gently.
Imagine this picture whenever you drive. The motor lives best when the speed is low and the speed is constant. But at high speeds there is such an unpleasant thing as drag, which the automaker designates as Cx. So, at speeds above 80 km / h, “getting through” the air masses is becoming difficult for an average car. So, fuel consumption is growing.
Use additives
This method is highly controversial. Let's briefly see how fuel is generally dosed into cylinders. On modern cars, portions are measured by a "computer", that is, an engine control unit. No “drugs” will force him to inject more or less. The ECU focuses on how much air is supplied to the cylinders and how efficiently the gasoline-air mixture burns.
Therefore, provided that you do not buy gasoline from the underground from the tank on the sidelines, but from normal gas stations with a quality control system, then you do not need any additives. What is now on the market removes moisture from the gas tank, corrects the octane rating and cleans the nozzles. If you manage to spoil the engine with bad fuel and it burns unevenly in the cylinders, additives will help you partially eliminate the consequences of your mistakes. But pouring them into the tank for fuel economy in normal conditions is pointless.
Include in the cigarette lighter "a unique device for saving fuel"
Now this is pure deception. Manufacturers promise an increase in engine efficiency "due to charge and release of energy." Such a mechanism is used by hybrid cars, charging batteries when coasting. This is called regenerative braking. The system is complex, it is installed at the factory, and a box with a blue diode, inserted into the cigarette lighter, can do nothing of the kind.
Do not ride a cold engine
When the engine is not warm, it consumes more fuel. The reason for this is the oil, which is very thick in frost and the low temperature of the air supplied to the cylinders. In cold weather, the gas-air mixture should be more concentrated so that the engine runs smoothly. As a result, during heating, fuel consumption can reach a liter per hour or even more. Now calculate how long your car should stand in the cold, idling to warm up to the optimum temperature? For each such morning warm-up, at least 200 grams of fuel is consumed. It seems to be a little, but if you estimate the costs per week, per month and for the whole winter, then the amount is already serious.
So, maybe not to warm the engine at all? So the manufacturers recommend: start the engine - and go. Do you think that modern machines do not need to be heated? This is a very dangerous misconception. Modern cars differ from non-modern ones in this respect only in that the fuel supply system has become automatic - you no longer need to pull the “suction” and carry out other tricky manipulations. Oil, even if synthetic, still thickens and poorly lubricates the cold engine. Therefore, immediately moving on the road, you doom the engine to oil starvation, albeit short-term. And this means that over time, the surface of parts rubbing without lubrication will begin to collapse. Here and to overhaul close ...
It turns out that ideally it is necessary to ensure that the engine is not supercooled in principle. But is it possible?
How to save on gasoline: additional tricks
Not too reliable, but a popular way to reduce the cost of using a car is to buy the so-called “left fuel”. It is offered for sale illegally: the gas allocated for work needs is drained and then sold by truckers, truck drivers and other people who have access to fuel. Buying such a product, car owners save up to half the cost - a year you can cut costs by 30-40 thousand rubles. In this case, the risk will be very high, since by purchasing gasoline from your hands, you can get low-quality or diluted fuel, which is very harmful for the car. At the same time, only the owner will be responsible for possible breakdowns.
If the cost of refueling a car is getting bigger, it might be worth checking its technical condition. Increased fuel consumption is often the result of a malfunction of one or more parts.
It helps to reduce the cost of replacing candles or gaskets, installing new meters or repairing the chassis. Of course, savings can only be achieved if a breakdown has occurred. The main risk in this situation is the high costs of inspection and maintenance, which will override the resulting savings.
Reducing the mass of the transport itself by ridding the machine of junk of any order will also help to slightly reduce costs. The passive saving function will also be provided by refueling at a certain time of the day - filling the tank with fuel in the coldest time of the day will provide a slightly lower fuel consumption.
Savings for legal entities
For legal entities, accounting for fuel used is not a matter of economy, but of principle. A company with a large or small fleet may well face the fact that employees "save" in the way from the previous section. Automate the accounting of costs for gasoline, while receiving special conditions from fuel companies, you can use fuel cards.
A fuel card is a plastic card, according to the principle of operation it does not differ from a debit card, but gasoline, calculated in liters, is used as payment units. Like a credit card, the fuel card has a PIN code to confirm transactions.
A fuel card, as a tool for controlling gas costs, allows you to get rid of the execution of individual documents - the card operations will be displayed in the Client’s personal account on the fuel program supplier’s website, there you can also find the addresses of gas stations where drivers refueled cars.
Total savings on fuel costs when using fuel programs (in our case, from leasing companies) can reach one third of their amount.
- Up to 6 rubles per liter can be saved thanks to a VAT refund.
- Up to 5% savings thanks to fuel control.
- Up to 3% can be saved by searching among the nearest gas stations with the lowest price.
- 2-3% discounts are provided by partner gas stations.
When registering leasing for a car, any leasing company will offer you to use the fuel program.
