Transcripts

Lauren Fix:
The first thing you can do actually costs nothing and that is tighten down your gas cap. Last year 147 million gallons of gas evaporated because of broken, missing or loose gas caps.

Lauren Fix, Spokesperson for the non-profit Car Care Council, says checking your tire pressure once a month is really important.

But there are a few secrets to that - the first thing is you always want to check your tire pressure when it's cold. So in the morning give yourself an extra five minutes to check your tire pressure. The second part of the secret is to use the number that's inside your driver's door. The reason you don't want to use the number that's on the tire is because that tire may fit a dozen different vehicles that all have different handling characteristics.

You can really save money on gasoline by not waiting in drive-through lines for food and drink. Instead turn off the car and go inside because when you're sitting in that line you're getting zero miles to the gallon.

And if you're sitting in line for longer than two minutes (which many of us do when we're going through those drive-throughs), you'll watch your fuel economy gauge (if you have one) drop by half a mile to the gallon every two minutes. Unless you've got a hybrid, you're better off pulling into a parking spot.

And Lauren says using your cruise control will save you money.

It is a great way to maintain the proper speed. When your vehicle maintains a consistent speed rather than speeding up and slowing down, it'll absolutely improve your fuel economy especially on the highways. Not as easy to use on the streets but on the highways it'll definitely make a difference.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.