Saving gas is always important. Whether you’re in your daily commute, running errands or you’re on a long road trip, you always want to get as much as you can from every drop of gas. Miles Per Gallon or MPG is the unit of measurement used to measured how far a car can go on a single tank of gas. For the most part, this is determined by the way the car is designed. However, one thing all cars have in common, tires, contribute to miles per gallon, albeit in small amounts. These small amounts add up to great future savings!
To get the most out of your tires, you want to start from a brand-new set. New car tires come with all the benefits of being filled with enough air and new threads. The threads on a car contributes to how well it can be controlled. Threads can be thought of as the grip a tire has on the ground. An interesting fact is that threads don’t really contribute to saving money on gas. Racing cars are equipped with ‘slick’ tires, or tires with no thread at all. The downside to this is control. Without threads, your car would be able to go a lot faster, but it would be much more dangerous to drive. This leads us to an important point. Better control over your car is better for gas mileage overall. When car functions such as starting, and stopping are done efficiently, it contributes to gas mileage as you don’t waste gas trying to correct a mistake. A good example are cars that have worn down their threads. When this happens, it is much harder to control the car, so you are using more gas to force the car to move the way you want. In addition, filling your tires with the appropriate amount of air contributes to gas mileage in a similar fashion. Full tires help grab the ground, allowing for better control.
When buying new tires, be sure to buy the right one. You want to get the most out of your tires, buying tires prematurely does nothing but waste money. The best type of tire to buy for gas mileage are low rolling resistance tires. The rubber in these tires are created with harder rubber, allowing it to stick more to the ground. Recently, hybrid cars have seen an increase in this type of tire as the high miles per gallon contributes to an eco-friendly mindset. Tests have shown that cars using low rolling resistance tires have an increased mpg by 1 or 2 mpg. On the surface this may not seem like much, but it can save you $300 dollars per year, depending on how often you drive. The only disadvantage to low rolling resistance tires is the noise factor. Low rolling resistance tires aren’t as elegant as their peers. The hard rubber causes a rougher ride than cars without this feature.
There are many ways to increase fuel economy, but none as easy as using brand new tires.
