I drive a lot for my job. I may be in north Denver in the morning, and then far south in the afternoon, and then back to the office before heading home. All in all, I end up putting close to 2000 miles on my car a month. With gas at well over $3.00 a gallon, that adds up. This has caused me to start really paying attention to my gas mileage. I have changed the way I do some things and I have started researching new ways to save gas.

One of the more well known ways to save gas is to keep your tires properly inflated. Low tire inflation can affect your cars mileage. It also can reduce your car’s handling and decrease the life span of your tires. One of the other things I would recommend is looking into the proper PSI to fill your tires too. Some manufacturers set the recommended tire pressure based primarily on ride comfort(Lower Pressure) and not necessarily based on handling, mileage, and/or tire wear. I would recomend you talk to the technician at the store where you got the tires or get them rotated at. They can help you figure out the correct pressure to use. You don’t want an overinflated tire either as that can reduce grip, cause more tire wear and even cause catastrophic failure of the tire.

Speaking of tires, there are 2 tires that have caught my eye recently. Yokohama is making some tires that look really promising. Their Decibel Super E-Spec Tire has a few unique qualities that make it very green. The tires are manufactured using a process involving citrus oils that requires 80 percent less petroleum in every tire. They also have a special lining that resists the loss of air so they maintain optimum tire pressure for longer periods, and they have 18% less rolling resistance. They are only selling them in Japan right now, but I hope they bring them to the US in the near future. The other tire I have been looking at is the Green Diamond Tire. These tires have thousands of diamond-hard green silicium carbide granules embedded evenly throughout the tire’s tread that give it great grip in the snow. The other green part of these tires is that they are made from remolded tires. They take an old tire with worn out tread, and put a new tread on it. That’s one tire that stays out of the landfill, and much less petroleum used. Pretty Sweet.

The next mileage enhancer I discovered was Mobile 1’s Advanced Fuel Economy Synthetic Motor Oil. If you haven’t looked into it yet, Synthetic motor oil is the way to go these days. It is a much better oil and it lasts a lot longer between oil changes than conventional motor oil. What makes the Advanced Fuel Economy Motor Oil different from other synthetic oils is that it is specifically designed to cause less drag and friction inside the motor and therefore enhance your fuel economy.

The other thing I want to try in my quest for the best gas mileage possible is a K&N Air Filter. There are 2 advantages to a K&N air filter. 1, They are designed to last a million miles, so you are not throwing away a paper and rubber air filter every 6 – 10,000 miles. 2, They provide much better air flow which theoretically allows your engine to run more efficiently. They sell drop-in replacement air filters for just about every vehicle/engine ever made, and for many vehicles they also sell another type of air filter that replaces your stock air filter and the air filter box with a much higher efficiency alternative. These have the added bonus of increasing the horsepower on most vehicles.

I have yet to try the K&N filter and the Mobil1 in a somewhat scientific experiment where I keep track of mileage before and after, but I plan to in the next couple of months. There will be a follow up post soon.

Nathan