Changing Your Parking Habits to improve Gas Mileage

You can improve your gas mileage just by changing the way you park your car. It is one of the many easy and simple things you can do to increase your fuel mileage.

Is this what you do when enter a parking lot? You enter the lot and the first thing you do is head for the parking area nearest to the entrance to the mall or the store where you are going. There are not any spaces available at the entrance because everyone, like you, tries to find the closest spaces.

Now you do one of two things, you either sit and wait for a few minutes to see if anyone will be pulling out of spaces near the entrance, or you drive up and down the closest rows to see if you can find a spot that is still fairly close to the entrance.

These parking behaviors will cost you gas mileage. That also means it will cost you money. When you wait to see if any parking spaces will become available you are sitting and idling your engine. When you idle, you are getting zero miles per gallon. Zero miles per gallon is the worst fuel economy you can get.

Alternatively if you are slowly cruising along the parking rows still hoping to find a close spot, you are burning fuel at a tremendous rate relative to the speed you are going. Inevitably you have to stop behind another car that is waiting or you stop at spaces that you think are opening up. Once again this causes you to idle and again you end up getting zero miles per gallon fuel economy.

If you spend just 60 seconds in any given day waiting for or cruising for a parking space, think how much gas you will use in a year. For a quick calculation, if we assume an average month of 30 days and you are wasting gas for 60 seconds or one minute each day that means that you would be burning gas for 30 minutes each month.

At a half hour per month, you would be burning fuel the equivalent of an extra 6 hours per year. Now, think about that, would you ever think about leaving your car to sit and idle for six hours doing nothing but burning fuel? Of course not. But that is exactly what is happening if you park the way I have just described.

In what way can you change your habits to prevent this wasteful burning of gas? You can improve gas mileage and stop burning extra fuel with this very simple and very easy solution. Your goal should be to park far away from the store or mall instead of trying to park as close as you can. The farther away from the entrance you go, the more empty parking spaces you will find. If you head to the parking rows far from the entrance, as soon as you enter the parking lot, you should find a parking place right away.

By parking far away, you save all the gas you would have burned waiting and looking for a close in parking space. Not only will you improve gas mileage and save money but you will get a little extra exercise by walking the extra distance to the store entrance. It's a win for your pocket book and a win for your body.

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Scott Siegel has written a 143 page manual of automotive industry insider information on saving gas and dollars at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to discover how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to improve gas mileage.

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