Fuel Economy Tip - What To Look For When Buying a New Car

Today's tip will hopefully give you some things to look for when you're out looking to buy yourself a new car and are trying to find something that is relatively fuel efficient.

While this is by no means an all inclusive list, the items I list below should be a good place to get started:

• Look for something that is light weight: As you know from one of my previous posts, for every extra 100 pounds on your car, your fuel economy is reduced between 1 and 2%. So, by buying a car that weighs 2,200 pounds versus a car that weighs 2,000 pounds, you'll be getting between 2 and 4% worse gas mileage, which over time will definitely add up.
• Get a manual transmission car: Manual transmission cars tend to get better gas mileage than their automatic counterparts. A lot of the reason is because with a manual transmission vehicle, the driver is able to shift to anticipate driving conditions and is able to keep the transmission in the highest possible gear.
• The lower to the ground, the better: Cars that are higher off the ground (especially ones that are augmented from the way they should be) tend to get worse gas mileage than cars that sit lower to the ground. This is because cars that sit lower tend to be a little more aerodynamic.
• Get a light colored car: I know this is a bit picky, but light colored cars do a much better job reflecting sunlight, thus they tend to be a little bit cooler. And, since we know that air conditioning wastes a lot of gas, the cooler you can keep your car without the use of AC, the better.
• Avoid a car with a sunroof: While a sunroof may be a nice luxury to have, driving with the sunroof open greatly increases the amount of drag on your vehicle, thus reducing gas mileage.
• Get a car with a smaller engine: This is sort of a double-edged sword. Cars that have smaller engines naturally tend to use less gas, but in addition to that, if you have an engine that really can't speed, you're probably less likely to speed. And, since the engine has less "get up and go," you're probably going to take it easy when you accelerate.
• Find something that is two-wheel drive: Unless you live in the mountains or in an area that snows a ton, you probably don't need to have a four-wheel drive vehicle. And, since four-wheel drive vehicles tend to use more gas than their two-wheel counterparts, it's probably worth it to skip the option.

In addition to these items, I would obviously not recommend getting any sort of truck or SUV, and I think it goes without saying that if you're really in to saving gas, you probably should look at some sort of hybrid vehicle.

Other than that, I hope this has been of some help, and if you can think of anything else, please feel free to leave a comment.