ride a bike, dont floor it, keep your car serviced, keep your tyre pressures checked, use cruise control on open road
intrade,
Jun 11, 8:23am
service your car correctly with new aircleaner oil filter fuel filter and change brake fluid on time. all can affect economy. plus check tyre pressure every 14 days and dont carry stuff in your car that is not needed to be inside it.
m16d,
Jun 11, 8:35am
Yer. easiest one is don't use the car unless you have to.
gunhand,
Jun 11, 8:36am
Use the wifes car.
johnf_456,
Jun 11, 8:37am
Remove rubbish from the car if you don't need it, out it goes don't cart around crap like the kitchen sink lol.
clark20,
Jun 11, 9:07am
Make sure it's running on all 8 cylinders
pieman33h,
Jun 11, 9:08am
use someone elses car!
unclejake,
Jun 11, 9:35am
CC doesn't anticipate like a driver can so it would only help on a straight, flat road with no slower traffic up ahead.
High tyre pressures certainly help with fuel economy, but perhaps at the expense of comfort, and in extreme cases, adhesion.
Roofracks are a fuel user at open road speeds too, as is air conditioning
grangies,
Jun 11, 9:49am
Buy a small car with a small engine and drive it slowly.
doug207,
Jun 11, 12:57pm
This man speaks wise words.
lugee,
Jun 11, 1:25pm
Avoid using cruise control on winding or hilly roads, cruise control wastes a lot of fuel in those scenarios.
dazza318,
Jun 11, 1:42pm
Look out for when Pak N Save are giving 30 cents off a litre off petrol of course you might have to spent $200 to $250 on weekly shopping items, but will worth getting i always take my car in empty and fill it up, this week I got petrol for $1.75 a litre instead of $2.05 a litre.
antwerp87,
Jun 11, 1:45pm
Turn your Stereo off. You will get 5 more MPG :P lol that was a funny post.
berg,
Jun 11, 7:00pm
Tyre pressures, tyre pressures and tyre pressures plus learning to drive knowing what is happening way ahead rather than just in front of your car. Looking ahead saves both fuel and brakes as does leaving a good gap to the car in front rather than the obligatory "NZ driver" tailgating.
Buy a diesel they get much better economy, the diesel engine is more efficient, diesel fuel is higher calorific value diesel is much cheaper than petrol per litre
johnn,
Jun 11, 10:24pm
Diesel vehicles are very cheap to run, that is until you go to pay road user charges, then they are not worth it unless you do high KM's. Best is to import a diesel car & register it as petrol.
intrade,
Jun 11, 10:32pm
not a smart idea you be up for frawd big time. this way way more then cheating a bit here and there. but in general i agree its not worth it to own a diesel the roaduser charges would kill any potential savings unlessyou make your own fuel and save 1.5$ per liter that way on cost. new diesel however dont like homebrew fuel to much. They are a bit like gluten intolerant so to speake to self brewed stuff. Also keep in mind you cant cheat on roaduser charges on new diesel as they use the speed you travel to calculate what amount of fuel to inject and to what gear to select on automatics. just in case one thinks that everyone with diesel cheats on ruc .
_peas,
Jun 11, 10:33pm
If you can see a hill coming up accelerate gently on the flat or even better on the downhill to use your momentum to help get up the hill.Of course this is illegal (need to be doing over 100 if you want to maintain a sensible speed up the hill) and there will be some idiot that insists on braking all the way down the road before the climb but it's always nice to try.
Time your run on slower traffic at passing lanes to avoid accelerating harder from directly behind them so you arrive at the slow car, truck, usually caravan at the beginning of the passing lane or soon after.
mopeds,
Jun 11, 10:42pm
RUC for most cars are less than 2 cents per km, some bigger vans and suvs pay slightly higher but if you reason that a petrol car gets 10 km per litre and the RUC component being the difference in price between petrol and diesel of 60 cents means the petrol car is paying 10 cents per km in RUC whereas the diesel only pays 2 cents, ontop of that the diesel will get far better economy in all condition the only downside being noise, diesels a no brainer.
johnf_456,
Jun 11, 10:49pm
So you are suggesting its ok to rip off the system at the expensive of people that pay by the book.
pollymay,
Jun 11, 10:56pm
Accelerate as hard as you can to the next set of lights then jam on the brakes, rev your engine out in every gear, make sure it's full of spares and junk, use old oil, nice low pressures, ride the brakes even on the straights, take the twistiest route and speed all the way
If you wanna skip the effort of having to think of all these choice tips just buy a CR-V or Rav4
bmwnz,
Jun 11, 11:05pm
Using cruise control normally gives me about 80+km extra from a tank of fuel, so there is some saving to be had. I use it in town for maintaining 50 and 70kph zones (I live in a small town where there's naff all traffic - might not be so good in a city). On the open road, I just ramp the CC up or down to keep in a good place in any traffic. I'm never in a hurry these days. There's naff all hills or windy roads around these parts.
bmwnz,
Jun 11, 11:11pm
About a hundred years ago (it seems like), I met Stirling Moss. He told me the key to good driving lies in soft hands and smoothness. Never grip the steering wheel or the gear shift too tightly and squeeze the accelerator through corners, rather than brake late and accelerate hard out of them. There is seldom an actual NEED to floor the accelerator in normal driving, nor is there usually an NEED to floor the brakes. (all that barring emergencies, of course)
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