Wednesday, September 24, 2008

How to Increase Fuel Mileage and Extend the Life of Your Vehicle

This is a list of do-it-yourself things you can do to increase your fuel mileage and extend the life of your vehicle.

Use a fuel injector cleaner additive each time you top off your tank. Lucas Fuel Treatment is a leading recommended additive you can use to increase your mileage by 3-4 mpg as quickly as the first tank; it also helps to extend the life of your injectors and fuel pump.

A K & N air filter, instead of a generic one off the shelf, will increase your mileage by 2-4 mpg; it will also increase your horsepower by about 1-4 horses. The K & N filter also never has to be replaced, it is washable and reusable, saving you money from future yearly air filter replacements!

Synthetic oil, like Royal Purple or Castrol Syntec, will increase your mpg by 1-2 mpg, but more importantly you will reduce your engine wear by about 50%. Royal Purple is not recommended if you have less than 20,000 miles on your vehicle, but it is considered the best oil on the market. Because of the better blend the oil does not breakdown as quickly as traditional oils, so you can go three times longer (9,000 miles) before an oil change is needed. Persons who do not do a lot of stop and go driving can extend that out to 12,000 miles, or four oil changes for the price of one. To go along with the better oil, instead of going with the cheap oil filter, use a factory filter (varies by make of vehicle), a Wix filter is a really good filter, or K & N also makes oil filters and claim to increase oil life by 50%...meaning if you go with a K & N filter and the K & N oil you only have to get your oil changed every 15-18,000 miles...and spend an average of $50 for that year’s worth of oil changes, doing it yourself.

Something else to increase mileage is to have your differentials and transmission serviced (front wheel drive vehicles do not have separate differentials) Royal Purple makes transmission fluid and gear oil for this. You could see an increase in your mpg by 5mpg and will increase your horsepower. The Royal Purple fluids and oil will decrease the wear of the internal transmission parts, if the servicing is done on a regular basis of every 35-40,000 miles you should never have transmission problems due to wear, it is still possible to have transmission problems due to the electronic components of it, but that is electronics, oil can’t prevent those problems.

Finally, the simplest, easiest thing that absolutely anyone can do to help increase their gas mileage and reduce the wear on his or her vehicles is to clean it out. If it is not absolutely necessary, do not haul it!

These few things can increase your MPG by an average of 10mpg. These few things will also help extend the life of your engine and transmission allowing you to get longer use out of your vehicle and save money on repairs or replacement.

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