With the current economy, many drivers are looking for effective ways to save money. Fortunately, there are several effective ways that drivers can save money at the pump.

Minimize Your Use of the Brakes

When driving a vehicle, it’s essential to make sure that one minimizes the use of the brakes. In many cases, excessive braking can reduce the gas efficiency of a vehicle. When you apply the brakes in your vehicle, you must press the accelerator to get back to a normal speed. The energy from braking and subsequent acceleration is wasted.

To avoid this, it’s very important to maintain a distance of at least 100 meters from the vehicle in front of your car. This will reduce the need to tap your brakes based on the driving style of the vehicle you are following. In addition, this can be a fantastic way to reduce the risk of a rear-end accident.

Tire Pressure Is Important

It’s also a essential to make sure that the tires on a vehicle are properly inflated. In many cases, under-inflated tires on a vehicle can have a very negative impact on gas mileage. When a tire is under-inflated, a vehicle has to use more power to turn a wheel. This reduces the total horsepower created by an engine.

Fuel Injector Cleaners

In addition, it’s essential to make sure that one uses a fuel injector cleaner at least every six months. Over time, the fuel injectors on a vehicle can become clogged with dirt and other debris. While an engine may still function, it will often function at a significantly reduced efficiency. This can make it difficult to achieve good gas mileage in a vehicle.

Get That Oil Changed!

It’s also important to make sure one gets the oil changed in a vehicle on a regular basis. If oil in a vehicle isn’t changed on a regular basis, it may lose its ability to lubricant the moving parts in an engine. This can increase the total amount of energy that an engine requires for proper operation. In many cases, this will also lead to a significant reduction in a vehicle’s expected gas mileage.

At Louetta Automotive, we can help assess the state of your vehicle and improve your gas mileage by performing regular maintenance. Stop in at one of our locations in Cypress, Houston, Spring, League City, or Atascocita TX.

When you fuel up, the gas pump automatically shuts off once it fills your gas tank.  At that point, should you stop or put another half a gallon in?  Does it make a difference either way?

Environmental Concerns

In much older cars, gas caps used to have holes in them so that the vapors caused by gasoline could escape.  These vapors caused air pollution, leading to a change in the way cars were made.  The EPA requires that all cars come with a vapor recovery system.  When you overfill your tank, you can spill or leak gas, which not only hurts your wallet, but also causes the vapors to pollute the air and is harmful for you to breathe.

Mechanical Problems

When you put gas in your tank, it expands and creates vapors.  The EPA required vapor recovery system absorbs these and are eventually burned by the engine during the combustion process.  However, when you top off your tank, you can force liquid gas into the chamber that holds the vapors and cause it to fail.  This will lead to a poorly running vehicle, higher emissions and eventually a costly repair bill.

Hard On Your Wallet

Besides the possible repair bill and money spent on spilled gas, the fuel you pump while topping off can be forced back into the gas station’s pump.  Put simply, you’re paying for gas that you’re not getting.

Save money and protect the environment by NOT topping off your gas tank.  However, if you have had the habit of topping off your gas tank, stop in at your local Louetta Automotive shop.  We’d be glad to check your vehicle’s vapor recovery system for possible damage to prevent a costly repair in the future.

Everyone does it.  The reasons are many: wanting to get into a cool car during summer, waiting on someone outside a home or store, sitting in a traffic jam, etc.  However, with gas prices continuing to rise, your fuel economy has become increasingly important.

Idling can use a quarter to a half gallon of fuel per hour, depending on engine size and air conditioner (AC) use. You may not think that is much, but idling just 5-10 minutes a day can waste up to 40 gallons of gas per year!

Idling Tips:

• Turn off your engine when your vehicle is parked. It only takes a few seconds worth of fuel to restart your vehicle.
• Letting the vehicle warm up for one to two minutes is sufficient.
• Unnecessary idling will consume fuel and produce emissions even while stationary.  During idling periods of several minutes or more, where it is safe to do so, switching off your engine will stop fuel consumption and emissions completely.

Word of caution: Turning your engine on and off excessively, however, may increase starter wear.

With record gas prices expected sooner rather than later, everyone is starting to dread pulling up to the gas station. As Americans drive more and more during the spring and summer months (exactly the time when gas prices normally peak for the year!) how can a car owner cope with these rising gas expenses without sacrificing dinner every night?

Simple Tips To Keep You More Fuel Efficient

There are a couple of steps that everyone can take to help maintain or improve fuel economy. Keeping your car clean is often overlooked but can contribute greatly to the fuel efficiency of your vehicle. Washing and waxing your vehicle will reduce wind resistance. At the same time removing those boxes from the trunk (you know, the ones you’ve been meaning to take out anyways) along with other non-essential items will lighten the weight of your vehicle also making it more fuel efficient. Lastly, stay on top of your tire pressure. If your tires are underinflated it takes more energy to move your car down the road.

Don’t Forget The Engine

Keeping your engine in tip top shape also contributes greatly to the performance of your vehicle, after all this is where fuel combustion happens! When your car is properly tuned it performs better, meaning fewer harmful emissions, longer lifespan and better gas mileage. A complete tune up service includes inspecting and adjusting all of the systems that are involved in the proper combustion of fuel. Things like air filters and spark plugs are routinely changed during a tune-up and help ensure that your vehicle is combusting gas at an efficient rate.

Invest A Little, Save A Lot

The steps listed above don’t take a lot of time or money (in some cases less than your next fill-up). As gas prices continue their march upward, keeping your car as fuel efficient as possible is more important than ever!

Your local automotive experts at Louetta Automotive are here to help keep you on the road and lessen the pain at the pump. Whether you need routine service or a complete car tune-up Louetta Automotive has ASE trained technicians armed with the latest equipment ready to work for you! Contact Louetta Automotive to schedule your service today!

Louetta Automotive proudly offers BG fluids and products. BG creates top of the line automotive fluids and automotive maintenance service products. These include completely synthetic engine oils, power steering fluid, brake fluid, transmission fluids and grease and gear lube.

Most automotive fluid companies make their products with crude oil base. BG Products, on the other hand, are manufactured in a lab as fully synthetic chemicals. For humans, synthetic products are bad news, but for a vehicle, synthetic fluids are the best they come. These fluids are capable of handling the higher temps better and for longer, without breaking down. This means longer periods between fluid changes and more longevity for the life of you vehicle.

BG Featured Services

• Fuel/Air Induction Service
• Lubrication & Fuel Service
• Diesel Injection Service
• Cooling System Service
• Transmission Service
• Drive Line Service
• Power Steering Service
• Brake Service
• Climate Control Service
• Battery Service
• Headlight Restoration

Other BG Products and Plans:

Lifetime BG Protection Plan

The Lifetime BG Protection Plan supports the seven majors systems included in BG’s Automotive Maintenance Services: fuel, engine, transmission, drive line, coolant, power steering and brakes.

BG On The Road

This complimentary roadside assistance program can get you back On The Road! BG On The Road roadside assistance is only available with the purchase of a BG fluid change service.

Under-inflated tires waste gas for lots of folks in the Houston area. Think how hard it is to walk in sand  you just have to work harder because of the resistance. When your tires don’t have enough air in them, their rolling resistance is dramatically increased and it simply takes more gas to get anywhere!

Always check your tire pressure when you gas up. If they’re low  even just a little bit bring them up to proper pressure. There’s a sticker on the inside of your driver’s door jam that gives the manufacturer’s recommended tire pressure.

Don’t rely on your tire pressure monitoring system to alert you to when you need more air. The TPMS system is set to warn you when pressure drops twenty percent below recommendations. That’s severely under inflated and you needed more air a long time ago. And if you have a slow leak  get it fixed right away at one of  Louetta Automotive’s convenient locations.

Get some air and save some gas!