My Gas Saving Tips.

I know that there have been numerous articles, and news reports on how to cut back on gas consumption while driving. But I still have to do add a thing or two to the vast amount of tips myself. I'll first start at the pump.

Get your gas either in the morning or at night when the temperature is cooler. Gas pumps are set to measure the volume of gas and not the density so when it's cooler you're essentially getting more gas.

I can't stomach doing this anymore for fear of embarrassment and perhaps an angry gas station clerk, but here's an extra tidbit for the brave. When you first walk up to the pump, if there are three different nozzles, I have found that you can take each one, before they are turned on and squeeze out about a cup of gas into your tank. Then you pick which nozzle you're actually going to use and start pumping with it. You could also try doing it again after you've finished pumping to see if you can squeeze in a couple extra cups of fuel as well.

Once you have finished pumping and have turned off the pump, turn the nozzle and then pump the handle a few times, the first pump will release the pressure from the hose, which often results in quite a bit of extra gas.

Pumping the handle after the initial one sometimes will produce a slow drizzle so if you want to stand there until the drizzle stops then by all means do so, but I've experienced times when I haven't seen the end of it and just gave up. But I've found that some newer pumps won't allow a person to pump the handle any more once the pump has been turned off.

Here's my main driving tip. I'm sure you've heard most of the others I'll cover, but I have yet to see any other article cover this. If you live in a mountainous region, throw it in neutral when going down a hill. I feel that this at least offsets having to go up the hill, which takes more gas than going on the flat. I drive 65 miles every other weekend to see my girlfriend and I estimate that I can coast nearly 12 miles round trip. The benefit to doing this is saving RPMs. I go from 2000 RPMs while in gear to 700 while in neutral. That's gotta count for something.

Make sure you deactivate cruise control before you do throw it into neutral because some vehicles will freak out and accelerate to really high RPMs since it's not in gear. Also DO NOT slip past neutral, because you'll throw it into reverse, and that will fuck up your transmission. Then the whole saving money on gas thing is out the window because you'll have to buy a new transmission. I suppose these are the reasons why the media leaves this one out.

I often drive at night with no one near me on the roads on the way back from my girlfriend's house so I'll usually take the inside of every curve I can on the four lane highway as well. Doing so ever so slightly shortens the trip.