Improve your Car Fuel Efficiency for your Trip - Blog by Bosch

Improve your Car Fuel Efficiency for your Trip

Road trips are fun and exciting, leaving us with a memorable journey to our destination. This makes ensuring a smooth sailing journey by preparing your car for optimal functioning an important measure. Doing this, in turn, will improve your car's fuel efficiency, which can help save a great deal of traveling costs.

More fuel saving tips

Here are some car fuel-saving tips for a fuel-efficient journey:

1. Tyre Pressure

Maintaining the optimal tyre pressure plays a key role in improving your car’s fuel efficiency. Get the pressure levels as recommended by your manufacturer, and make your car 10-15% more fuel efficient.

2. Keep your windows shut

Driving with the windows down may not always be an efficient way to drive your car. Keeping them open while driving at speeds above 50kmph can impact the aerodynamics of your car. This, in turn, burns more fuel and increases the load on your engine. Keep your windows up, and in case you don’t want to use the air conditioner, you can use the car’s air blower set at ‘fresh air’ mode.

3. Don’t idle your car

Idling your car is burning your fuel at 0 kmpl. To avoid this, whenever you have a stop for more than 45 seconds, switch the ignition off. Using the air conditioner while idling your car can also affect your car’s fuel efficiency; it is hence advised to avoid doing so whenever possible.

4. Keep your Car Serviced

When your car is regularly serviced with a clean air filter and fuel filter, you’re bound to get better fuel efficiency. An air filter choked with dirt can affect the engine, which will result in more fuel being burnt. It is a small but important step in contributing towards an increased fuel efficiency of your car.

5. Gear Shifting

Accelerating with sudden bursts can have a drastic impact on your car’s fuel efficiency. It is, therefore, important to accelerate in a linear manner for a soothing maintenance of your car’s fuel efficiency. Another rule is the higher the gear, the better the average. For improved fuel efficiency, maintain your RPM needle in the 1500-2000 range, which is an estimate of around 80kmph at the 5th gear.

6. Coasting Technique

The coasting technique is a healthy and efficient way to preserve fuel and minimize brake wear. This technique involves using the kinetic energy of your car, when you’re not accelerating, to smoothly transition into a stop when you’re nearing a signal. E.g., instead of accelerating towards a red light, which will burn fuel and expose your brakes to extra wear and tear for stopping, letting your car come to a halt on its own can save on the fuel.

Apart from these, there are other important factors that have a great impact on your fuel efficiency. Let’s take an air conditioner for example. The AC fuel consumption of your vehicle is an extra 20%. However, there are ways to keep your vehicle cool and burn less fuel.

  • Use the air conditioner when really needed for cooling, and focus on regulating the temperature to a comfortable level.
  • When on the highway, use the flow-through ventilation, and when in the city, keep your windows and sunroof open.
  • Enable the re-circulation setting of your air conditioner. This consumes less energy as only the air inside the vehicle is being cooled, and the extra energy in bringing in warmer outside air and cooling it is saved.

A car oil change also contributes to optimal fuel efficiency. Getting a car engine oil change means having fresher oil moving through the engine. The lubrication of metal parts increases the engine’s performance and helps it run smoothly with lesser work. This makes the car more efficient and positively impacts its fuel efficiency.

Get your car serviced and prepared by a trusted and credible Car Service Center to get the best fuel efficiency from your car without any compromise. At Bosch Car Service, all your car’s requirements will be taken care of with a touch of world-class servicing standards throughout. Book an appointment with us and secure yourself a comfortable and stress-free journey!