Fuel-efficient driving and being mindful of how much fuel your vehicle uses is more significant than ever with fuel prices rising.
We’ll cover the best ways to achieve fuel-efficient driving and what fuel efficient driving achieves to help you save money on fuel costs, save your fuel usage and help the environment. It’s a win-win situation.
What is Fuel-Efficient Driving?
Fuel-efficient driving, also referred to as eco-safe driving, contributes to road safety whilst also being environmentally friendly. Driving with fuel-efficiency in mind reduces exhaust emissions and pollutants in the air whilst helping you use less fuel.
10 Ways to Help Achieve Fuel-Efficient Driving
Now more than ever, it’s crucial to squeeze as many miles out of your tank as possible and give eco-safe driving a go. There are several things you can do to make your drives more fuel-efficient.
1. Drive Sensibly
Driving sensibly is a certified way to be more fuel-efficient in your driving. Smooth steering, gently braking, changing gear and accelerating will be less strenuous on your vehicle and will make your fuel last that bit longer.
If your car has an eco setting, utilise it as much as possible because this setting adjusts engine output to maximise fuel economy – saving you money in the long run.
2. Drive With a Light Load
The amount of weight your vehicle is carrying contributes to the amount of fuel you’re using. Having a good declutter in your vehicle and getting rid of unnecessary weight can be a great step towards being more fuel-efficient.
Remove any roof bars, roof boxes or cycle racks from your vehicle whenever you’re not using them. These can be quite hefty and will cost you to drive them around everywhere, and they also add extra wind resistance.
Another great tip, if you only tend to drive short distances, is to only fill your tank around halfway, otherwise you’re adding extra weight to cart around.
3. Plan Ahead
Knowing where you’re going before you set off can make all the difference. Getting lost and aimlessly driving around wastes a lot of fuel. Planning your journey ahead can be really handy at reducing the chances of this.
It’s also useful to check and listen for any traffic alerts before you make any journeys. Sitting in traffic with the engine running can waste a lot of fuel – it’s worth keeping your ears open for any incidents, so you can react appropriately and take an alternate route.
4. Don’t Coast
Coasting was often thought of as a fuel saving technique, however coasting in modern cars makes no difference to fuel levels. Coasting is not recommended and is actually quite dangerous because of the little control you have over your vehicle when it’s in neutral.
5. Be Mindful Of Your Air Conditioning Usage
Using your vehicle’s air conditioning can eat up your fuel considerably. If you’re driving at a slower speed, it would be more fuel efficient to open the windows instead.
Be mindful of when’s appropriate to use the air conditioning, like on hot days or when driving on faster roads where you can’t open the window.
6. Only Have the Engine Running When You Need To
Leaving your vehicle’s engine idle while it’s stationary for long periods of time pollutes the air and wastes fuel. If you can help it, try turning off your engine if you predict that your vehicle is going to be stationary for a while.
7. Keep Your Vehicle Maintained
For your vehicle to be the most fuel efficient, make sure that it’s regularly maintained. You should check on smaller aspects of the vehicle through the year (oil and coolant fluid levels, tyre pressure, etc.) and book your vehicle in for a full service annually.
8. Watch Your Speed
Be cautious of speed limits and how fast you're going because the faster you go, the more fuel you’ll use.
9. Change Gear Earlier
If you drive a manual vehicle, listen and change gear a little earlier than you would normally. Alternatively, if you drive an automatic, gentle acceleration has the same effect.
10. Be Mindful of Your Surroundings
Pay attention to the road and be well aware of your surroundings. This allows for plenty of time for you to slow down as you approach traffic lights and junctions and avoids any stop-starting.
Driving Styles That Affect the Environment
Different driving styles affect the environment in different ways, and it’s important to be aware of the driving styles that have the most impact on the environment.
1. Impatient Driving
Harsh acceleration and harsh braking with a lot of stopping and starting burns more fuel, and driving like this can be dangerous.
2. Short Journeys
Lots of short journeys will burn more fuel than only using your car for necessary journeys or doing everything in one trip.
3. Heavy Loads
Driving with a heavy load burns more fuel and if you have a roof rack or anything similar this will also burn more fuel because of the added wind resistance.
Affordable Leasing with Pendle Leasing
If you’re on the lookout for a new economical car that cuts costs, look no further. Pendle Leasing are specialist car leasing experts with a large range of economical cars to lease to make eco-safe driving a breeze.
If you’d like to find out more about what we do and how you can get involved, simply get in touch or call us on 01277 549500 to speak to one of our personal advisors.
