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| 30-Nov-2008 | Text by Andy Hum, Photos by Marcus Dejakaisaya | Category: Car Ownership Advice |
Viewed : 101,633 times |
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Thankfully, just before they told us to stop dreaming and get into the cars, they handed us a list of tips to help everyone save on fuel.
| 1. |
Resisting rubbers
This is very crucial as a tyre which is under inflated by just 1psi will result in fuel efficiency being reduced by 3%. When Michelin conducted free tyre checks earlier this year, they found that a whopping 71 percent of Singaporeans had incorrect tyre pressure, with 67 percent of the cars here running on under-inflated rubbers.
Even an incorrect inflation pressure by 6-7 psi shaves 8,000 to 10,000 of the tyre’s life span, as resistance to the road goes up quite a bit. A good number of those surveyed didn’t even know how to pump their tyres up.
Apart from significantly reducing the life span of the tyres, it also adds to the cost in extra petrol needed to propel the car against the increased levels of friction. More importantly, having flabby tyres also raises the risk of an accident due to the less than optimised grip.
Interestingly, John and Helen are well familiar with setting world records and they told us that nine out of ten of their records were set when they used Michelin tyres.
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| 2. |
Keeping calm
Ok, we’ve all heard about how rude some drivers can be and how frustrating it is to drive a car around Singapore. Add lots of road works, lane closures, more ERP, more traffic police watching you and the ever-increasing costs of car ownership and you can be certain that our local drivers must be an angsty bunch.
But “bo pian what. Gahmen make ery-ting so ass-penseev”!
Well, this may sound like an absolutely unrelated idea, but keeping yourself calm actually does help to reduce the money you spend on petrol and tyres.
Remember the last time you got so agitated, you decided to express it by flooring the accelerator, aggressively raising the engine revs (and also the finger)? That’s not good
Note: We tested out raising different fingers but none of them had any recordable impact on the fuel consumption. Revving up the engine, however, did have that effect. However, we were told that it was illegal in Singapore to “raise your finger at other drivers”. We’re not sure why, but we probably won’t recommend it.
When you’re less than calm, you actually use a little more force on the throttle than you would realise. Adding up all the tiny increments will result in a significant rise in the consumption level. So the next time you get agitated on the road and immediately want to rev your engine up and gesticulate wildly, don’t. Consider the pros and cons of each action. And pick the one which has no negative effect on your fuel.
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| Gallery (click picture to enlarge) |
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