Recently a family member bought themselves a fancy new car. Very pretty, very spacious, plenty of power. They asked what the wheel covers on my car were for (my usual response to strangers is "It's what's in style now") and I told them it helps with gas. She asked what gas mileage I get, and I told her average is 33 highway and about 25 around town. She was shocked as are cars were similarly sized. She said her computer says it gets about
19 MPG, but she thinks it's less than that. (Typical of most on board read outs.) Plus she wasn't happy the manual recommended premium gasoline.
I explained to her that the mods are only a little part of why the gas is good, that in the city the biggest change can be had by just taking it easy, and on the highway the biggest change would be just slowing down a bit. She didn't believe I could do much better in her car as "She drives real careful."
So on the next trip out, I asked if I could drive. I reset the trip computer (I would take my scangauge out, but it's semi permanently installed at this point.) And drove to our destination. The trip computer readout was:
36 MPG
I had nearly doubled her numbers. She was amazed that it could make that big of a difference. How true the readout was I'm not sure, but it seemed like 30 was possible because the car is equipped with a CVT transmission and most of the time I had it just barely turning over. I actually gave her this sites address and told her to read some of the tips, and if she had any questions to give me a ring.
Long story short, your car doesn't have to look weird to save on gas (although it helps), you just have to get yourself out of the rat race!
