Fuel Economy Tip - Fill Your Tires With Nitrogen?

Today's tip will hopefully help you increase your car's fuel economy by 1 to 2%. While that may not seem like much, over time, it'll definitely add up (assuming this theory is correct).

Fill your tires with pure nitrogen as opposed to filling them up with "regular air."

The last time I had the tires changed on my car (which was a week or two ago), when I got the receipt back, I noticed a small additional charge for filling my tires with pure nitrogen. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but a few days later I decided to do some "internet investigation" and find out why I was driving around on nitrogen filled tires.

As a side note, yes, I realize I could have just called the tire place, but that would have been too easy.

Anyway, what I found out through my research (here's one site I found) is there is a belief that tires filled with pure nitrogen tend to hold proper tire pressure longer than tires filled with regular air. The theory behind this is because nitrogen molecules are bigger than oxygen molecules, thus less likely to escape the tire.

To be honest, I haven't really noticed much of a difference, but maybe a month down the road when I go to check my tires, I'll be pleasantly surprised to see that my tires have held their pressure.

So, for the time being, I would recommend that if you go out and get a new set of tires in the near future, go ahead and spend the couple extra bucks to try it out. If it doesn't work out, you're not going to be out much, but if it does work out, you stand to save some gas and money.

Fuel Economy Log - Week 13

This past week I drove 314.5 miles, used 10.28 gallons of gas and paid $3.00, all of which equates to an average of 30.6 mpg or 5.5% above my car's average fuel economy.

This 5.5% increase in fuel economy equates to a "savings" of roughly $.17 per gallon, which saved me $1.75 on this particular fill up. Not too good, but I'll take it.

This $1.75 combined with my previous 12 week savings amounts to a total savings of $64.29, or roughly two fill ups.

Not bad for just paying better attention to my driving habits.

Fuel Economy Tip - Reduce the Use of "Electrical Devices"

Today's tip is along the same idea as the headlights tip, only it's a little more broad.

Minimize the use of your car's "electrical devices."

Here's what I mean by "electrical devices":

• Rear window defrost
• Radio
• Navigational systems
• Dome lights
• Power locks and windows
• Plug-in DVD players

While this certainly isn't an all-inclusive list, I think you catch my drift.

Anyway, the reason behind minimizing the use of these devices is when you use your car's electrical systems, in a round about way you are using more gas.

This is because your car's electrical systems are powered by it's alternator (while the car is running), and the alternator gets it's energy from the car's engine. If you need the alternator to produce more power for the electrical systems, it's going to sap more energy from the engine, meaning worse fuel economy.

Obviously, having a failing alternator will only exacerbate the problem.

So, long story short, if you can minimize the use of your car's electrical systems, you should see a slight increase in your vehicle's gas mileage.

New Transmission Could Increase Gas Mileage by 20 to 30 MPG

It's amazing what you can find on the internet.

Today, I came across an article about a lifelong inventor who has come up with a transmission that would improve gas mileage by 20 to 30 mpg. For a technical explanation of how the new transmission works in comparison to current transmissions, I highly recommend clicking the link - I'd love to explain it, but most of this stuff is beyond me.

Anyway, aside from wanting to bring the new transmission to your attention, I also wanted to show that there are a lot of people out there that are trying to find new ways to make cars more fuel efficient.

Whether it's improving transmissions, finding out how to change a hybrid to get 100 mpg or finding newer, cleaner and (most importantly) renewable sources of energy, people are out there working hard to make these things a reality.

While many of these inventions or ideas never get past the drawing board, the fact remains that we much continue to explore every option, no matter how silly or impossible they may seem at the time.

Teacher Rides Horse to Work to Save Money on Gas

While I've had some pretty off the wall suggestions for ways to save gas (wash and wax your car, lose weight, and don't get new rims), nothing compares to what a Wisconsin high school teacher has done to help offset the rise in gas prices:

He bought a horse and rides it to and from work.

According to the article, the teacher has decided to ride a horse instead of his car for two reasons:

1. To save $40 per week on gas
2. To make a statement and show that people can conserve gas

While I think this may be a bit excessive considering it now takes the teacher two and a half hours to commute round trip, it does prove a point that we can conserve gas - and you don't even need to go out and buy a horse to do so!

Simple things like watching your speed or checking your tire pressure can help you save a lot of gas and a lot of money.

So, unless things get much worse, I'd recommend making simple changes to your driving habits - not going out and buying a horse!

Fuel Economy Tip - Don't Use Your Headlights During the Day

Today's tip will hopefully help you save a bit of money on your car's gas as well as help your headlights last a little bit longer.

Don't use your headlights when it's sunny out.

I got this idea from an article on HowStuffWorks.com, which was about how much gas Americans would waste per year if the Government required all new cars to utilize daytime running lights. According to the article, if every car on the road had daytime running lights, we (Americans) would waste over 406 MILLION GALLONS OF GAS each year!

With gas being roughly $3 per gallon, that would be a loss of $1.2 billion.

While I'm not going to go into how exactly the people at HowStuffWorks.com went about calculating how much gas would be wasted, the logic behind their numbers certainly makes plenty of sense.

With that being said, if you don't want to add to the amount of gas wasted each year, I would strongly recommend keeping your headlights off during the day, unless it's raining, you're driving through a tunnel, etc.

I certainly don't think that the savings will amount to much for each individual driver (on average, it's probably less than $10 per year), but like I've said many times before, all those little savings will add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars each year.

Is It Time to Tax Big Oil's Windfall Profits?

Earlier this week, ExxonMobil recorded a second quarter profit of $10.6 BILLION amid record highs in the price of crude oil. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the exception to the rule, as most all big oil companies are recording quarterly profits in the billions of dollars.

This doesn't exactly seem fair when the price of gas is up 50% on the year.

With that being said, there has been a growing movement for a one time tax on big oil's windfall profits. The purpose of levying an extra tax on these profits is to attempt to return much of the collected money to drivers, helping to offset the increase in the price of gas.

While in theory this may be a great idea, in practice this would be ridiculously dumb. Here's why:

1. If these big oil companies have found ways to pass the cost of higher oil on to the consumer, don't you think they'll find creative ways to recoup the hundreds of millions (or billions) they stand to lose in this windfall tax? My bet is they'll find a way to get that money back.
2. Much of the reason for the higher price in gas isn't due to an increase in the cost of crude oil, but it's due to the lack of refinery capacity. Big oil companies have been reluctant to increase refinery capacity (a.k.a. building additional refineries) because it takes a long time to see a return on the investment. Maybe instead of forcing the big oil companies to return money to consumers it might be a better idea to force them to use the money to increase refinery capacity.
3. Here's the greatest idea of all - MAKE BIG OIL COMPANIES TAKE THE MONEY THEY WOULD REPAY TO CONSUMERS AND MAKE THEM INVEST IT IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATIVE FUEL SOURCES.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this windfall tax is like trying to use a band aid to treat a gunshot wound. This tax completely ignores the fact we need to use big oil's money to find ways to reduce our dependence on oil.