With fuel prices on the rise, it is getting
taxing on the common man’s pocket. Here are few Driving Tips to help you get the best mileage out of your car,
thereby helping you economize the expenditure on fuel.
1. Coasting and slip streaming:
Drag or wind resistance is the main cause of high fuel
consumption. Learn how to save fuel by driving behind a larger vehicle and
using your vehicle's inertia to move ahead without using fuel. There are
two methods to improve fuel efficiency, a good method and a dangerous method –
the first is coasting and the other is slip-streaming. Let’s take a look at
coasting first.
Coasting: When you aren’t accelerating and the kinetic energy developed
already by the car is taking you forward, it’s called coasting. Coasting
dissipates energy to counter drag and rolling resistance by dropping speed in
the process. It can be used smartly instead of braking at times. When you can
see a red light from a distance or slow moving traffic in front of you, and you
know that you will have to brake to stop as you near it, ease off the
accelerator and let the car come to a halt by shedding speed on its own. What’s
important is to stay in gear when you are coasting. When you slot the car in neutral,
the engine RPMs reduce to idling speed and this is the most ideal setting to
get best fuel economy out of your car but it also can put you in a dangerous
position when you need to react by accelerating. It is best to coast in a high
gear when the engine revolutions are low are high speeds. Another method
of coasting is coast and burn or the other way around. You accelerate to gain
momentum and use the energy generated to coast till you lose a bit of speed.
This is a common technique used by cabs in India to eke out fuel at the least
possible rate. Be an attentive driver by not just reacting to what the vehicles
do in front but by anticipating what the vehicle will do. This requires
concentration and getting into a rhythm. When you are not dissipating energy
often and regenerating it again, your fuel efficiency is improving so start
spotting openings in traffic before you come closer to the vehicle in front of
you and carry your momentum into the gaps as you overtake.
Slipstreaming: Slipstreaming is driving
behind a vehicle that is as large as or larger than yours. What the vehicle in
front of you does is creates an air pocket behind itself. When you are close
enough, you are passing through less resistant air and so consuming lesser
fuel. The closer you stick to the vehicle in front of you, more the efficiency.
First and foremost, this isn’t a method we recommend. Slipstreaming can get
dangerous if you react late to the movements of the vehicle in front of you. If
you are really committed to it, then spot a large tractor trailer or bus that
creates a large enough wind tunnel behind it. In such a case, you can keep your
braking distance intact and enjoy the benefits of slipstreaming.
2.
Avoiding
unnecessary idling:
Idling
is the idle speed or RPM at which an engine runs without applying any gas. The
engine is thus staying on by being fed fuel to do no work when the car is in
neutral. Once you change gears to first and step on the accelerator, the engine
speed increases and you get going.
We have grown up with
the knowledge that idling your car for a few minutes on a cold winter morning
is good for your car. It is not. In the good old days, it was fine as it
prolonged the life of the engine but present day fuel injection systems have
eliminated the need to idle your car. At idling speed, the engine doesn’t
completely burn fuel leaving fuel residue on cylinder walls. This contaminates
engine oil over time and will require sooner oil top-ups. Unnecessary idling
also makes spark plugs dirtier and as a result fuel consumption increases.
There is no need to warm
up a car these days by just idling. Once you get going, the car comes to an
optimum operating temperature soon enough. In fact car engines can run for days
without a need to stop as the engine oil and coolant keep it in optimum working
condition all the time.
When you are driving on
the highway, the need to idle doesn’t arise. In stop-go city traffic when you
are stuck in a traffic jam or waiting at a signal, you tend to subject the
engine to unnecessary idling at several occasions on a daily commute. Best
thing to do is staying attentive of the time taken while your engine is idling.
You cannot be turning your car on and off every time you come to a halt. It
gets quite annoying, we know, but on occasions the car is going to be
stationary for more than a few seconds, the engine can be turned off.
Now-a-days, most signals come with timers giving you a good idea of the time
you can turn the engine off. We also tend to keep the engine on when we are
waiting at the side of the road for someone. It is better to turn the car off
and get out and stand in the shade.
India experiences
extreme driving conditions. The summers are too hot and the winters can get
nippy. During these times, we know that air conditioning gives immense comfort.
A minute of turning the engine off can make it a bit uncomfortable in the
cabin but it is worth it if you are prolonging the life of your engine’s parts
and consuming lesser fuel in the process. Remember that an idling car returns
zero kilometers to a litre, much lesser than your average supercar.
3.
Clutching
it right
Every
car has a clutch, whether a manual or an automatic. You don’t physically use
one in an automatic but you can’t do away with it. That’s because a car’s engine
runs all the time once you start a car but the wheels don’t. At times when they
don’t, the two need to be disconnected from each other and here, the clutch
coupled with the gearbox act as the disconnecting tool. It also helps in
changing engine speeds as you upshift or downshift but that’s another topic
altogether. Let’s focus on the clutch, its usage and its effects on fuel
economy.
The most absurd way of
getting better fuel efficiency is disengaging the clutch often. When you
disengage the clutch, the engine is not doing any work and so you are only
using momentum to move forward, so logically, you are saving fuel. But that is
not the right way of saving fuel. You are wearing the clutch out by constantly
disengaging which will cost you in the long run.
Of the several parts a
clutch assembly is made of, the ones with a direct relation to fuel economy are
the clutch disc and the flywheel. When you press the clutch fully, the clutch
disc disengages from the flywheel thus cutting off the connection between the
engine and the wheels. In that short time, you are changing gears to stay in
the right speed to gear balance. At slow speeds though, especially when you are
crawling or on an incline, you tend to ride the clutch, which is a common
mistake committed by inexperienced drivers. Riding the clutch means only
partly disengaging it to prevent the car from stalling. A clutch disc has
frictional material similar to ones found on brake discs. When the clutch is
fully engaged or disengaged, the material doesn’t wear. But when you ride the
clutch it wears and eventually starts slipping. When the disc and the flywheel
are spinning at same speeds, engine power is transmitted to the wheels. When
they aren’t, that is when the disc is worn, the engine is working hard but the
wheels aren’t receiving the entire power developed by the engine. In other
words, the car is working harder to do the same amount of work and so consuming
more fuel besides wearing the clutch faster than it actually should.
Start concentrating on
your gearshifts and don’t be in a hurry to get off the block to close the gap
in front of you in traffic. When you are on an incline, use the hand brake to
prevent your car from rolling back instead of riding the clutch too much. If
you are driving an automatic, be sure of your throttle response. If you keep
fluctuating throttle pressure, the gearbox is constantly working to keep you in
the right gear.
Follow
the above tips and you will improve your fuel economy figures and start driving
smoother at the same time.
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