How To Increase Miles Per Gallon On Your Car

If your gas mileage has started to take a decline in your vehicle or you just want to try to find out the best ways to get better gas mileage this article is for you.  I will outline the most common ways that you can increase your gas mileage on your vehicle and will show you ultimately how to get better gas mileage on almost any vehicle.  It really all comes down to how far you want to go on your quest to increase your gas mileage.

1. Check Your Tire Pressure

One of the main factors in how to get better gas mileage in your vehicle is the tire pressure of your tires.  If your tires are not inflated to the proper PSI then this will increase the rolling resistance of your tires and therefore decrease the miles per gallon that you will get out of your tank of gas.  

The harder your engine has to work to keep your tires rolling on the ground the more gas it will use in the process.  You should always check to make sure that your tires are inflated to the proper PSI specified by your vehicle manufacturer.  

If you are unsure of what PSI your tires should be inflated to you can check by looking in the door sill of your vehicle where you should see a sticker indicating what PSI the front and back tires should be inflated at, some vehicle manufacturers say that the front and back tires should be inflated to different tire pressures. 

To learn more about what PSI your tires should be inflated to and what can happen if your tires are not inflated properly check out my other article what should your car tire PSI be at?

The best way to know what PSI your tires are is to check the pressure with a digital tire pressure gauge.  If you wanted to check out the current prices of the digital tire pressure gauge that I went with on Amazon click here.    

2. Spark Plugs

If you have never replaced your spark plugs or if it has been a long time since they have been replaced you should go ahead and replace them to make sure that they are working efficiently.  

If you wanted to know more about which spark plugs are going to be the most efficient spark plugs and which spark plugs are going to be the best for your vehicle read this Iridium vs Platinum Spark Plug article I’ve written that details what the differences are and which type of spark plug that you should go with.

Iridium vs Platinum Spark Plugs

3. Air Filter

You would also want to inspect and possibly replace your engine air filter to make sure that your engine is able to breathe properly.  Most vehicle manufacturers will have a maintenance schedule for their engine air filters that you should follow.

If you remove your engine air filter and it is dirty it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace it.  They are fairly cheap and it only takes a few minutes to replace your engine air filter.

4. O2 Sensors

O2 sensors or oxygen sensors have the job of determining how much oxygen is flowing through your air intake to then adjust the air and fuel mixture going into your engine cylinders.  If you don’t have adequate air coming into your engine your engine computer would then reduce the amount of fuel that it is injecting into the cylinder walls to account for the reduced amount of air coming in from your air intake.  

If your oxygen sensors are going bad then this means that your engine can accurately tell how much air is coming into the engine.  Your engine would then in turn change it’s engine mapping to one designed to be used in the worst conditions to keep the engine running, this is not good for the efficiency of the engine as it will use more fuel during this process to try to keep the engine running.  

5. Fuel Injectors

If you believe that your fuel system may be getting old and not running to its full potential anymore it may be a good idea to go ahead and replace your fuel injectors on your engine. Your fuel injectors are responsible for injecting gasoline into your engine cylinders to help create the combustion process inside your cylinder walls.

Over time your fuel injectors can become gummed up due to sediments in your fuel or low-quality fuel which can cause the fuel injectors to not be able to inject as much fuel into your cylinder walls as they used to.  If you replace your old fuel injectors with new fuel injectors this should allow your engine to run as it did from the factory as long as everything else is running properly as well.

6. Become a Better Driver

If you are the type of driver that puts the pedal to the metal every time you see a green light you will likely need to adjust your driving habits to allow for an increase in gas mileage.  

If you want to get better gas mileage you would want to take off from a stop at a moderate pace, get up to speed, and then cruise at that same speed until you have to stop again. You don’t want to just floor it at every stoplight as this is going to cause you to waste gas.

One thing to note when using the accelerator of your car is that you don’t want to slam on the accelerator to get up to speed but you also don’t want to take 5 minutes to get up to speed either.  The longer it takes you to get up to your cruising speed on whatever road you are on the more fuel you will be using in the process.

You would want to use a moderate amount of pressure on the accelerator to get you up to whatever speed limit you want to drive at and then maintain that speed.  If you barely press the accelerator to get up to speed it’s actually going to take a longer time to get up to speed and in the process use more fuel than if you just got up to a cruising speed and then maintained that speed.

If you know that you will be coming up to a stoplight down the road you may want to choose to coast to the stoplight so that you don’t come to a complete stop before accelerating again.  

Anytime you have your vehicle come to a complete stop it’s going to take a lot of energy to get the vehicle moving forward again. It takes less momentum to get the vehicle going again if it never stops in the first place.

If you are going to be taking a long trip and want to maximize your gas mileage you would want to make sure that you are using the cruise control feature of your vehicle to allow you to maintain a certain speed for the majority of the trip.  

If your vehicle doesn’t have to keep adjusting the speed of the accelerator it will allow it to save fuel because it doesn’t have to keep feeding fuel into the engine.  Your vehicle will also do a better job of maintaining a constant speed than you as it has less things to focus on. When you are driving there are all kinds of things that can distract you from maintaining a constant speed.

Another way to save gas is to coast downhill when possible.  If you want to get the most out of your tank of gas and get better gas mileage you can coast your car downhill when possible to save on gas.  

Anytime you are coasting your vehicle and not on the accelerator you will be saving on gas compared to if you had your foot on the accelerator.  When your foot is off the accelerator your engine is essentially just idling and will use a minimal amount of fuel to keep the engine running.

7. Tire and Wheel Size

If you are like me and have replaced your factory wheels with aftermarket wheels you may be decreasing your gas mileage in the process.  What you may or may not know is that the more unsprung weight that is in your wheels and tires the harder your engine has to churn to get them moving from a stop.  

That means that if you upgrade the diameter of your wheels or the width of your wheels from what they were from the factory your aftermarket wheels will likely weigh more than your stock wheels.  

If you wanted to get better gas mileage you would want to swap your aftermarket wheels back to your stock wheels or make sure that your new wheels are going to be lighter overall when compared to your stock wheels and tires.

Another way to get better gas mileage is to replace your current wheels with skinnier wheels and tires.  The width of your tires will affect the rolling resistance of your tires on the road. If you go with a skinner wheel and tire combination for your vehicle this will mean that there is less tire surface to slow down the wheels as they roll over the ground.  

This is why on most high MPG vehicles like the Prius they will use really skinny tires to allow the vehicle to have a lower rolling resistance when compared to normal-sized wheels and tires.

Some aftermarket racing wheels are designed to be as light as possible so if you wanted to upgrade the look of your wheels with new wheels but didn’t want to increase the weight of your wheels and tires lightweight wheels would be an option for you.

8. Tire Tread and Rubber Compound

The design of your tires and the rubber compound used in them will also affect your gas mileage.  Tire manufacturers usually have a lot on their minds when they are creating their tires. New tires need to be comfortable, provide good handling, and most importantly provide grip in all weather conditions.  

While all-season tires have been around for a long time new tire trends are even creating tires that are designed to be used specifically in summer conditions or in winter conditions. When you design tires to be used in a limited window of time during a year there are usually some tradeoffs that occur.

To provide the least rolling resistance tires are designed to have a limited number of designs and sipes cut throughout them as a smoother tire provides less rolling resistance.  Snow tires, on the other hand, will typically have a lot of different grooves and sipes designed into the surface of the tires to be able to grip onto icy roads in bad weather conditions.  

If you want to get better gas mileage you will want to buy all-season tires that should work in all seasons of the year but may not be the best when it comes to tires designed specifically for one season.

If you want to focus on getting better gas mileage you would want to make sure that you went with tires that are designed to have low rolling resistance and have a harder rubber compound used to make the tires.  With tires, the rubber compound used will affect how much grip they have in turns.

Having grippy tires is useful on a race track but if you want to focus on increasing your gas mileage you would want to make sure that your tires are harder and less grippy.  Having a lower rolling resistance and harder rubber compound will make it easier for your tires to glide over the surface of the road which will make it easier on your engine, therefore, increasing your gas mileage.

9. Lose Some Weight

If you are really serious about getting better gas mileage you may want to look at decreasing the amount of weight that your vehicle is carrying around.  This can be as drastic as removing the backseat of your vehicle all the way to making sure that you don’t have a bunch of heavy stuff just laying around in your vehicle.  

If you are a traveling mechanic or a handyman it makes sense to have a bunch of tools that you would haul around to different job sites.  However, if you are carrying around a bunch of junk in your vehicle for no good reason this can definitely weigh down your vehicle and affect the gas mileage that you would get out of the vehicle.  

Some vehicles will also have aftermarket parts made for them that are made to be lighter weight than the original parts installed on the vehicle to help save weight as well.  Parts like this can include lightweight wheels, body panels, spoilers, and roofs to help you save as much weight as possible and help you get better gas mileage.

The downside to this method of weight reduction is that usually, these parts are going to be more expensive than the parts that originally came on your vehicle, this is usually because of the materials used to make the lightweight parts will usually be more exotic than what came with the vehicle from the factory.  

The bottom line is that it costs more to make a carbon-fiber roof or carbon fiber wheels than it would make a steel panel roof or even aluminum wheels.  

10. Check Engine Light

If your car ever has a check engine light you would want to make sure that gets taken care of as this will also cause your engine to run with its worst-case engine mapping.  

Anytime you have a check engine light on your car your engine will use it’s worse case scenario engine mapping to try to keep the engine running, this usually means that the engine will be running rich or injecting more fuel into the cylinder walls to keep the engine from dying because there is no fuel in the cylinder to combust.  

When the engine injects more fuel into the cylinder walls this gives the engine more of a chance to keep running but it makes the efficiency of your engine go down because of the amount of fuel used to keep the engine running.

11. Don’t Use Accessories

Anytime you use the accessories or electronics in your vehicle you will be affecting the amount of gas mileage that you will be getting overall.  While it may not make a huge impact on the overall gas mileage figures of your vehicle there is no question that using your AC of your vehicle or heated seats can impact your gas mileage negatively.  

Anytime you use your air conditioning in your vehicle your engine has to provide power to the different parts of the vehicle to allow the air conditioning to run.  Anytime your engine has to run the parts of the air conditioning system this will cause the engine to burn more fuel to be able to turn the parts of the air conditioning system.

12. Decrease Wind Drag

You would also want to try to reduce the drag on your vehicle as much as possible as the more drag that your vehicle has on it the tougher it will be for the vehicle to maintain a certain speed.  

If you have any flags attached to the side of your vehicle or coming out of your window you would want to go ahead and remove them.  As the flags will be blowing in the wind they will be increasing the drag of your vehicle and making your engine work harder to have you maintain speed, especially at high speed.  

If you are driving on the highway or above 60 miles per hour you would want to close your windows to decrease the drag on your vehicle.  If your windows are down while you are driving down the highway that will create a huge amount of air that will try to push into the back window of your car.  Your car at that point is essentially acting as a huge air brake slowing down your vehicle. Under 60 miles per hour, this does not affect your drag as much.

If you want to really get crazy you could try to apply tape to the door sills of your doors and other panels of your vehicle.  If air is able to get into any of the cracks between your body panels of your car this will increase the drag of the vehicle. If you apply tape to the cracks in the door panels of your car this will make it as slippery as possible and can increase your gas mileage over a long trip.  

On the same note, some people will apply tape to the front of their vehicle where their engine would typically suck in air.  You could experiment with applying tape to this area but you would want to keep an eye on your engine temps to make sure that you overheating your engine by blocking the air that would typically be flowing into your engine bay.

You may not know that your wheels actually affect how much drag is applied to your vehicle as well.  That is why on some newer teslas they have the option for low drag wheels on their cars. If you did enough research online you should be able to find a set online if you were trying to get the best gas mileage possible for your vehicle.

In Conclusion

Hopefully, this article was able to answer your question of how to get better gas mileage.  If your vehicle has started to decline in gas mileage you would want to first start replacing parts to see if your decrease in gas mileage is performance-related.  

If you are just wanting to increase your gas mileage on your already good gas mileage car it really comes down to how you drive it. You can always try the different methods listed here to see which ones will work the best for you.