by Elizabeth Picard

Created on: July 30, 2008   Last Updated: January 24, 2011

With fuel prices going through the roof and no relief in sight, conserving gas and finding ways to improve gas mileage I'm sure is on every American's mind. Here are some valuable tips on increasing your gas mileage.

Maintenance should be your first priority. A properly maintained vehicle will run more efficiently as well as increase the life expectancy of your engine thus allowing you to keep it around a few more years. Keeping your filters and oil clean helps your engine do its job with a great deal more ease.

You second most effective way to increase your gas mileage is to slow down. Even just reducing your speed by 5 miles an hour will increase your gas mileage. Speed limits are not there as a requirement of how fast you "have" to go, just as a limit of how fast you should be safely able to go. The faster you go the more wind resistance you create and this is what makes your engine work harder to maintain your speed thus reducing your gas mileage. Slow down and you reduce your wind resistance which will increase your gas mileage.

Thirdly, you'll want to change your driving patterns. When accelerating, do so in a smooth manner allowing the car to gain speed gradually. Gunning your engine from a stopped position is one of the primary culprits of reduced gas mileage. The same goes for deceleration. Watch traffic and lights ahead of you. As soon as you know you'll be slowing down just take your foot off the accelerator. At this point you're coasting on the RPM of the engine without feeding further gas into your engine. Not only will this allow you to increase your gas mileage but it will also save wear and tear on your brakes. Using this technique, you'll begin to find that many times you won't have to come to a complete stop which also helps with gas mileage as the engine will not have to work to build up that extra speed. But using these techniques does require increasing your following distance. Tailgating is a huge culprit to reduced fuel mileage because it causes you to react in seconds to what's going on.

If you're in rush hour traffic, you don't need to stay on the bumper of the guy in front of you. There are always going to be those who have to weave in and out of the lanes. If you just take your foot off the brake and allow your vehicle to coast you'll use far less gas than the person who has to stay as close to the vehicle in front of him causing him to continually stop and go. This wastes not only your gas but puts unnecessary wear on your brakes

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