I maintain a spreadsheet that keeps track of my mileage; I’m conscious of the gasoline I use, feeling guilty that I’m polluting the environment with my car. I drive a 2004 (though I bought it in the spring of 2003) Toyota Matrix: 2 wheel drive with manual transmission. For the type of car I wanted, it had the best fuel economy. I would’ve gotten a hybrid car, like the Toyota Primus, but I couldn’t afford it.
According to the Canadian Government’s Fuel Consumption Guide , I should be getting 37 MPG in the city, and 47 MPG with highway driving. (Note that American gallons are smaller than Canadian gallons.) I do more city than highway driving, but I’m still not getting what’s reported on that site; however, their city driving tests only averaged 32 km/h, and their highway testing averaged 77 km/h. I drive too fast.
I’ve decided to make a better effort (and I’ve always made some effort) at getting better mileage, so I’ve started to drive about 10% slower than the posted speed limit. I’m in no rush to get anywhere.
Here are some sites that offer tips on how to improve gas mileage:
- Driving and Maintaining Your Vehicle, from the Government of Canada
- Gas Mileage Tips, from the U.S. Government
- Reduce Vehicle Idling Campaign
- Tips from GM.
- What speed should I drive to get maximum fuel efficiency? They have useful links at the bottom of the page.
Thanks for the tip,
I guess I was doing pretty much everything wrong to conserve gas thinking I was doing the best I could :(
Keep up the good work
Thanks again.
So you were letting your car idle for hours, using low octane fuel, driving 400km/h and taking completely innefficient routes to anywhere you wanted to go? Yeah, I do that too, I dunno what’s wrong!
Who the hell let Danny post in here? Great! Now we all need to find some other place to conspire against him.
Anyone notice the price of gas this week? Drop to 73.9, then shot up to 93.9. Yikes!
good thing gas pumps only hold 2 digits… they can’t go much higher :)
Not sure where you’re pumping your gas, but at my regular station they’ve got space for loads of digits.