12/10/2020
HOW SAVE FUEL AND KEEP MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKET.
This is the final money saving post in this mini-series and it’s all about driving style.
The way you drive can have a bigger effect on your fuel consumption that most people realise. The two killers of fuel consumption in this regard are getting the car moving from a dead stop and full throttle operation.
So, what can we do about this?
Avoiding full throttle driving should be fairly easy as there are not many occasions when you need full power. But why does it use so much fuel?
When you fully open the throttle plate and the engine ingests as much air as it can, it stands to reason that the combustion pressure and temperature in the engine will increase and even more so as the engine speed increases as there are more combustion events per second.
The way to control combustion temperature is to add extra fuel to the cylinder. This excess fuel will not be burnt in the combustion process as there is already more than enough fuel to react with all the oxygen molecules in the air in the cylinder.
This excess fuel will simply be used for cooling the cylinder head and piston crown as the heat of the engine causes the fuel to evaporate and evaporation requires energy, and that energy comes from the heat in the engine components.
This sounds very wasteful doesn’t it, but this is the only way to keep combustion temperatures in check and is a totally normal part of engine operation.
Car manufacturers tend to err on the side of caution in this regard and it is common for them program the ECU from the factory to add way more fuel for cooling than is really necessary at high throttle openings and high engine revs which hurts your fuel economy.
A remap can help with this aspect by optimising the extra fuel needed for cooling without being wasteful.
So, what about having to accelerate the car form a dead stop, obviously this is not completely avoidable. But with a bit of anticipation when driving it can be reduced.
For example if you look far enough up the road you could see in good time that a traffic light, for example, has turned red and instead of continuing to accelerate towards it and then having to brake significantly, simply ease off the throttle early.
Momentum will still get you there and if you time it right you might not even have to stop and be able to keep a higher gear.
Similarly, when approaching corners if you simply ease of the throttle a bit earlier and use engine braking to slow the car this will save fuel as well.
When you take your foot of the throttle while the car is in gear it uses no fuel whatsoever! So, the more you can do this the less fuel you use overall.
It may only be small amount of fuel, but if you add more efficient driving style to our previous tips of carrying less weight in the car and keeping tyres properly inflated, the effects accumulate and the difference WILL be noticeable. You should be able to get noticeably more miles to a tank of fuel!
I hope these tips have given you a bit of insight and save you a bit of cash along the way.
Post any questions below!
