Increase Your Winter Fuel Economy By Driving A Cold Car!

Winter is a hard time for drivers and car owners

. It wreaks havoc on your fuel mileage. Chances are you are an unwitting ally to hurting your gas mileage. The wrong idea about warming your car up might be burning a hole in your pocket.

Drivers are in the habit of warming their vehicle up in winter temperatures. Drivers seem to be under the mistaken idea that they need to warm up their car for it to operate properly. By warming up they mean idling the car for a considerable amount of time before driving. This misnomer is costing you money.

A great many car owners idle their car for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to let their cars warm up in cold temperatures. The fact is,it takes no more than 30 seconds of idling to get oil circulating in the engine before you can drive away. Do not idle your car for more than 30 seconds. Anything beyond that is a complete waste.

Idling is by definition burning gas but not going anywhere. When you idle, you are getting zero miles per gallon. You can't get worse gas mileage than that. Most drivers think that idling a car for just a few minutes is no big deal, but they are wrong.

To illustrate how much fuel is being burned by letting your car idle for 5 to 10 minutes consider this. Let's assume you idle your car on the short side, only about 5 minutes to warm it in the morning. The likely scenario is that you idle your car for 5 minutes again, before you drive home.

Therefore your car is idling for a minimum of 10 minutes a day. For illustrative purposes we consider winter to be four months long, or 120 days long. If a car is idling for 10 minutes a day for 120 days then it is idling for 1200 minutes during the winter period.

1200 Minutes is 20 hours. Think about it, warming your car for only 5 minutes per start amounts to your car idling and burning gas going nowhere, for 20 hours. Can you visualize your car sitting and idling for 20 hours? Of course not. Then why warm it up for the equivalent of 20 hours of burning gas when it is completely unnecessary?

The correct way to warm your car and economize your gas is by driving it. Many drivers don't realize that other parts of the car need to warm up in order for it to operate efficiently. The transmission, the wheel bearings, the tires and other moving parts also need to warm up. The catalytic converter on the car doesn't operate at its optimum until it heats up to between 400 degrees C and 800 degrees C. The only way the other parts of the car can warm up is by driving. It turns out that the only way to completely warm up a car with all of it's parts is to drive it.

One of the easiest things you can do to prevent the loss of fuel economy in the winter is letting your car warm up efficiently. Warm it by driving it not by idling it. Changing the way you warm your car is also good for the environment. You end up burning less fuel which slows down burning a hole in the ozone and stops the burning of that hole in your pocket.

by: Scott Siegel

POST COMMENT

Holiday Stress Is Going On A Diet One Of Your New Years Resolutions? How To Reduce Stretch Marks Fighting High Cholesterol In Healthy Aging Cardiovascular Training For Excellent Health What Vitamins Do You Need For Healthy Aging? Healthy Aging Starts With Stress Reduction Hormones And All That Good Stuff In Healthy Aging How Working Promotes Healthy Aging New Adventures In Healthy Aging Replacing Hormones For Healthy Aging Do You Have Severe Anxiety Symptoms? How To Stop Worrying