Fuel Efficiency Super Tip!
By Ken Hoyt
Happy accident? What if doing the environment a favor saved you money? There's a pretty fair argument for turning off your car's engine when you're not actually moving:
For every two minutes a car is idling, it uses about the same amount of fuel it takes to go about one mile.
But you're not going anywhere. Idling gets zero miles per gallon.
Restarting the modern engine doesn't use more gas. That thinking is a leftover from the era of carborators.
If you travel outside of rush hour you can avoid idling.
Warming up your car for more than 30 seconds is unnecessary and wastes fuel.
It's no fun to breathe CO2, at any rate.
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Ken Hoyt's blog (89 posts)
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Member since: 07/03/07
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My small business, Interior Advocate, provides design solutions for interiors. And I write about living...
aulaire
Two EMTs were sitting at a picnic bench in the park where I walk my dog. A few feet away, their ambulance had its motor running. When I got back to the spot half an hour later, they were still sitting and the motor was still running. I went over and asked why they didn't turn it off, and they told me that leaving it on was standard operating procedure, so if they got a call, they'd be set to go. Following this logic, wouldn't they also leave the ambulance motors running at all the ambulance stations, all the time?
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