Cruel And Unusual Tips For Getting Better Gas Mileage

Given current gas prices, you’ve probably heard people all around you harping on their tips for saving gas and improving fuel economy. Some of them are obvious (like coasting whenever possible), and some of them are quite illogical (like driving the speed limit… if 65 is bad for MPG in a 55 zone, why would 65 be good for MPG in a 65 zone?). But you know what, all those tips are for wusses. DealerDex is going to arm you with some MPG improvement tips that throw practicality and legal repercussions to the wind… we’ll leave the discretion up to you.

1. Run yellow lights no matter what. You don’t need a calculator to figure out the gas mileage of a car that’s sitting at a red light. So make sure to speed through every light you can, and you’ll keep that average MPG nice and high.

2. If you get pulled over for implementing Tip #1, shut your car off. Just a reminder. Make a note of it for the rest of the tips as well.

3. Strip your car down like you’re about to go street racing. Weight is the enemy of everything we love about cars - speed, handling, and MPG. The typical car has to push 15 - 20 pounds per single unit of horsepower, so emptying everything you can out of your car means the engine has to do less work to keep things moving, and less work means better MPG and performance. But why stop at emptying out your trunk? If you’re always driving by yourself, why not take out the seats? Or, you could really roll the dice and ditch the spare tire. Feelin’ lucky?

4. Swap out those big, sexy rims for some skinny rubber. Every manufacturer is pushing big fat rims and tires on their cars as options nowadays, and as cool as that may look, it’s bad for gas mileage. If you’re rolling on some of these wide tires, put those puppies up on eBay and go pick up the skinnier, downgraded versions that came as standard equipment. And don’t worry about losing your visual appeal, because nothing looks sexier than 35MPG on the dashboard display, right?

5. Drive in the left lane at all times. Smoother roads make for better gas mileage, and on almost any road in the country, the smoothest section of a road is the one less traveled: the left lane. 18-wheelers are usually forbidden from driving in the left lane, and as you hopefully know from driving school, the left lane is only for passing, not for cruising - which means less cars eat up that lane’s pavement. So go ahead and ignore what I just said about not cruising in the left lane, and cruise in it all day long.

6. Quit your job and work from home. If you’re like me, you watch most of your TV at 4am, therefore you’ve surely seen all the millionaires who quit their jobs to make money on this new fad called the Internet. Why not do that? Then you wouldn’t even have to buy gas in the first place. You’re welcome.