Tip 2: Choosing the Right Car

There are a lot of ways that you can save fuel but in most cases the most effective means is by choosing the right car. There is a huge variation in the amount of fuel burned from one car to another so there is no way that you will get maximum fuel efficiency out of a large gas guzzler regardless of how well you maintain it or how you drive it. Choosing the right vehicle when it comes to gas usage is fairly straightforward but it does have to be considered in conjunction with all the other factors that go into buying a car. There is no use in getting the most fuel efficient vehicle possible only to find that it doesn't, meet your other needs.

One of the easiest ways to find a more fuel efficient car is to simply choose a smaller vehicle. A smaller car with a smaller engine will burn less fuel than a large car with a large engine. Vehicle and engine size are the primary factors in determining fuel efficiency. There have been great strides in making larger vehicles more fuel efficient but since all of these things can also be applied to smaller engine meaning they will always be more fuel efficient. The less your vehicle weighs the less fuel it will require so this is another way that you can reduce the amount of gas that you use.

There have been great strides made in building cars that burn less fuel, with hybrids being the most successful option. A hybrid combines a car that runs on gas with a car that runs on batteries in order to maximize fuel efficiency. It is important to keep in mind that just because a car is a hybrid doesn't mean that it is necessarily the option that is going to use the least amount of gas. All things being equal a hybrid will use less gas but things are rarely equal. For example a hybrid SUV will likely still burn more fuel than a regular compact car just because the fuel saving of a hybrid won't be enough to offset the larger size. The great thing about these fuel-efficient vehicles comes when you go to compare car insurance policies. These cars mean a saving of over 35% compared to the average non-efficient car, and that's worth cash in your pocket!

The easiest way to make sure that you choose the right vehicle for saving gas use to do some research when you are buying a car. There is lots of information available on sites like EFCars.net and there are a number of different agencies that will independently be able to tell you the amount of fuel that each type of car uses. The thing to keep in mind is that you need to consider fuel efficiency as just one of many factors that you think about when you are buying a car. It is all well and good to determine that a particular compact car is the most fuel efficient option but if you have a family of seven that needs to get around in that car it probably won't be a good option for you.