>Forget Cash for Clunkers. An easy (and much less expensive) way to increase your fuel economy by 5% is to get new Low Rolling Resistance (LRR) tires installed on your clunker. Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear all have new LRR tires on the market which, according to a report on thedailygreen website, can boost mileage on a new Prius to 53.8 mpg – www.thedailygreen.com. That’s almost as good as the diesel cars in Europe and Japan! Now, if you have a less efficient car your mileage will never be that good even with the tires but the potential monetary (and emissions) savings could be substantial nonetheless. Let’s do the numbers:
Your car gets 30mpg. Gas is at $3.00/gallon. You have a 10 gallon tank costing $30.00 to fill. Your car can go 300 miles on a tank of gas. If you drive 300 miles per week your total annual gas budget would be $1,560. 5% of 30 = 1.5. You now have a fuel economy of 31.5 mpg. You spend the same amount of money to fill the tank but you can now go 315 miles on a tank of gas. With the improved mileage you now spend $1,486 per year. That is an annual savings of $74. Over ten years that would be $740.
Of course the savings would increase as the price of oil goes up (which it will) not to mention the carbon emissions saved from the atmosphere. Just a practical way to give your mileage a boost without going into $15,000 of debt.