Don’t Let the Dealership Fool You

The story I’m about to recount isn’t directly related to hypermiling, but it might shed some light for people who want to be more aware of what they spend on maintenance.

On Saturday I took Elaine’s car (a ‘99 Civic) into the dealership (Coggin Honda) for an oil change. I’m not sure why I thought I needed to take it there, but once I got in they wanted to charge me an extra $300 to do 4 things:

• Replace the engine air filter: $45
• Replace the a/c air filter: $90
• Drain and fill transmission fluid
• Drain and fill brake fluid

Now, when I heard them suggest the transmission and brake fluid I thought I probably needed a 15k service and just hadn’t paid attention. Still, I wasn’t going to let the dealership do it. So I went home and researched the other two items.

Replacing the Air Filter
As it turns out replacing an air filter doesn’t require any tools or even a knowledge of how your car works. The steps to doing this are:

1. Open up the hood.
2. Find the squarish plastic box around the middle somewhere.
3. Unhook the clips holding it together.
4. Lift the lid and remove the filter.
5. Take filter to the auto parts store to match up to a new one (you can drive short distances without the air filter in).
6. Set the new air filter in the box.
7. Fasten the box back together using the clips.
8. Total Cost: $15 (and I think I even got ripped off at NAPA).

So I saved $30 there. Next.

A/C or “Cabin” Filters
When I saw they wanted to charge me $90 for a cabin filter, I thought to myself that it must just be hard to get to. I had no idea that the ‘99 Civic doesn’t even have this a/c filter they wanted to replace. Honda didn’t start making Civics with cabin filters until 2001. I don’t know which venue the employees over at Coggin Honda planned on visiting Saturday night, but they were going to go on my tab. Not so fast.

Lesson Learned
Remember the next time you take your car in to scrutinize all the things they want to do to your car. It won’t hurt you to drive the car another week or so until you have time to research what they say you need to determine whether you truly need that service done.

Even better, start keeping a maintenance log and schedule for each of your cars. You can usually find the suggested maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual. You can use the pages they provide to log your maintenance work done on the car, or you can find some other way. I have an Excel file with both of our cars in it that I just keep up to date. Either way, you can save some real cash just by being an informed customer.

Elpis International Celebration

Last night Elaine and I attended an Elpis International celebration. We were privileged to experience the presentation of information about problems in Ethiopia. We also got to try some authentic Ethiopian cooking, which was interesting! Needless to say I felt like a big baby when I saw these kids scarfing the stuff down while I pushed it around my plate.

Anyway, Elpis International is an organization that provides meals and education to children in Ethiopia who don’t have food to eat or parents to provide for them. It also shares hope with these children by teaching them about Jesus.

Some interesting facts about Ethiopia:

• Only 3 out of 10 children under the age of 15 in Ethiopia have an opportunity to be educated.
• The average income in Ethiopia is $0.43 per day (about $160 per year).
• Only 1 in 5 people in Ethiopia have access to clean, safe water.

As an aside, I find it interesting how the starving people of Ethiopia eat up the Word of God, yet people in the US say they won’t believe in a God who lets bad things happen to good people.

Timing Traffic Lights (and other traffic events)

I’m going to go ahead and dive into some of the more difficult hypermiling techniques. The things I have gone over so far require more an act of the will than any skill set. The next few entries are going to cover some topics that take more brain power and understanding of how your car operates. Furthermore, these techniques are going to require some extra judgment and wisdom in regard to the best time to use them.

I’ll start with the simplest of things, which is timing. We’ve already covered letting off the brake as soon as you see a light turn red, a stop sign ahead, slow traffic, etc. You can save a lot more gas if you can let off the gas earlier. This can be done by using timing.

Stop Lights
If you drive the same route often you can probably predict when the light is going to change (especially if it’s a short light). So when you approach a green light let off early if you know it’s going to turn red. Trying to beat the light is about the most fuel-costly thing you can do. For red lights, try to slow down early and keep rolling until it turns green. If you hit the brake early your average speed will be reduced, which means when you reach the line you can be moving faster having taken more time to get to it. If the speed limit is 45 and I see a light turn red that I know I’ll have to stop for, I immediately brake to 30. The next time I brake down to 15. This way I don’t end up creeping to the line as it turns green. Instead, I am still going pretty fast.

Stop Signs
It’s a simple concept. Find a landmark you can let off the gas at going a certain speed that will be a good balance between making people behind you angry and saving gas.

If nobody is behind me I’ll take all day to get to that sign.

Traffic
The best thing you can do, of course, is adjust your schedule or your route so you don’t have to deal with traffic. However, if I leave work anywhere between 4:45 and 5:45 in the evening, I will unavoidably hit some stop-and-go traffic. If you are looking far ahead (like half a mile), you’ll be able to let off way earlier than the people in front of you. Once you do hit the stop-and-go traffic, you’ll be going a lot slower and won’t have to brake as hard. Also, try to keep about a 10-car-length buffer between yourself and the car ahead of you without braking or hitting the gas too hard.

The Bottom Line
You can use judgment and timing to save yourself a ton of fuel just by being alert and keeping a step ahead mentally while you are behind the wheel, and the examples above are only a few out of many possibilities. Just try to use sound judgment when you do things that may anger the drivers around you (like coasting to a stop on a 2-lane road and/or in a no-pass-zone).

Isn’t Hypermiling Dangerous?

A lot of people are hesitant to try hypermiling because they think it’s unsafe. Fear of other motorists’ “road rage” is the main concern. This is something that needs to be addressed.

There are many things in life that are both unsafe and the right thing to do. Take Christianity, for example. We in the United States live in a time of luxury when it comes to exercising our faith, but in other places it is certainly not safe. I would be saddened to see those who would walk away from Christianity because of the danger involved.

I feel the same way about hypermiling. I will hypermile because I believe it honors God. I won’t drive like everyone else out there just to fit in and be safe if it means not doing the right thing.

However, I do try to minimize the risk of danger. If you follow all of the advice I post here, you will definitely have to deal with your share of people tailgating, honking, etc. The following are ways that I deal with road rage in the safest way possible.

Prevention is the best cure
The best way to deal with road rage is to do what you can to prevent it. Drive in the far right lane. If someone is stuck behind you, maneuver in a way that will help them get around you. If necessary, put your flashers on to let people know you are going slow. For the more advanced techniques I will be covering in the next few days, use good judgement when you practice them so you don’t confuse or agitate those behind you.

Ignorance is bliss
No matter what you do, someone will still find a way to be angry at you on the road. 99.999999% of those people will get over it all by themselves. If someone is tailgating me despite my attempts to prevent the situation, my primary response is to ignore the person. This keeps me from getting caught up in the foolishness. By the time they have passed me it doesn’t matter to either of us anymore, so why bother? Just ignore it.

A kind word turns away wrath
In the event that someone actually gets mad enough to honk at me (this probably happens to me once every week or so), my rule of thumb is to give them two short honks back. It’s what I call a cheerful honk, the equivalent of a kind word in response to an angry, lay-on-the-horn honk (which is what I equate to a verbal attack). This let’s the other person know that I’m also a human being (how easy it is to forget when we drive!), that I do, in fact, see them, and that I don’t care if they get mad. I’ve never been in a situation where that wasn’t enough to end the conflict.

Fuel Economy Calculations

I’ve given out a lot of helpful hints so far on how to save gas. I haven’t, however, given you a good metric to gauge your success by. Sure, looking at how many miles you can get out of a tank is one way, but it doesn’t really tell you how much money you saved. I’ll give you the formula I use:

Step 1: Find out your car’s rating
Find out the EPA combined fuel economy estimate for your car. For example, the fuel economy I should expect to get in the RAV4 is 26.5 MPG.

Step 2: At the pump
When you finish pumping your next tank of gas, take note of:

• Miles driven
• Gallons pumped
• Cost of fuel
• Total cost

Step 3: Calculating your savings
Calculating how much you saved is now pretty simple. Just plug your numbers into the following formulas:

Cash Saved = Total Cost – ((Miles Driven / EPA Estimate) * Cost of Fuel)

Tank MPG = (Miles Driven / Gallons Pumped)

% of EPA Estimate = Tank MPG / EPA Estimate

Extra Miles Traveled = Miles Driven - (EPA Estimate * Gallons Pumped)

Elpis International

Remember when I was talking about how cheap it is to keep a child alive in Ethiopa? Well, Elpis International is the organization that makes it easy for people like you and me to contribute. This year one of my good friends went on a missions trip to Ethiopia with the man who runs the organization.

The site has not officially launched yet, but it will be $35 per month ($5 more than the cost I had been told previously) to sponsor your own child (you get to pick!). This is a great opportunity to do several things. First, this is an awesome way to get rid of the cash you hopefully are saving by hypermiling. Also, using your resources to give to the poor brings honor to God. Remember, the poor were one of Paul’s ministry targets.

10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

Galatians 2:10 (ESV)

The most effective way I can think of to remember the poor is by meeting their needs, whether spiritual or tangible. To me, the opportunity of directly responding to someone else’s need is the coolest thing about this organization. I can be sure that because of my gift, there is a child in Ethiopia who not only gets a full stomach but also gets ministered to by Christian people.

I will post an update when the site launches.

Lessons Learned Last L... Week

Last week I learned some very important life lessons. I already knew them, but sometimes experience is the best (and worst) teacher. I won't go into too much detail, but here is a basic synopsis:

Sin is sticky
Parents don't like to see their kids "hanging with the wrong crowd" because they don't want the "wrong" part rubbing off on their kids. It's not a trust issue. The reason parents feel this way is they know sin is sticky. It corrupts. It misleads. It deceives. Sin spreads, and that is just how life is. I learned last week just how real this truth is. You see, sin isn't just sticky for your teenage son or daughter. It sticks to anyone it can.

Sometimes you don't have a choice about being around the wrong crowd. These are the situations in which we Christians ought to show character and integrity. But again, sin can be tricky. Sometimes we feel there is a fine balance between taking a firm stand against something (at the risk of being insulted or alienating those who need Christ) and overlooking the "small" wrongs we see happening around us. This can be especially true in the work-place, where you really need to get along with your coworkers. It's hard to take the high road when you know what the consequences are going to be.

But the high road is still the right one. In my experience, when we begin overlooking the small stuff, it continues until the small stuff becomes normal; when that happens, it's only a matter of time until we start doing the small stuff.

How this relates to me
I got caught up in something at work recently that I should not have. If I'd taken the high road to begin with, maybe I'd have been laughed at, but I'd much rather choose that course if I could. The issue here is dishonesty. At work we have a game where based on how helpful you are to others you get points. Well, some of my coworkers and I ended up conspiring to rig the game. While something like this is such a small, insignificant part of my work environment, sometimes those are the things that are so telling about our character. And oh, how sin is tricky! I don't even know how it happened. What lead up to the actual rigging of the game was so gradual (really, it took 7 full months to incubate) that I hardly noticed until I was being accused of cheating.

You cheated!
When I first heard the words I actually didn't believe them. It took me about 18 hours to realize that yeah, I had cheated, and it mattered. I don't know why this was only so important to me Wednesday when this all came to a head. I guess we all have experiences now and again where the most obvious of virtues seem profound. Either way, this small (ha) affair has changed how I look at sin. The small stuff is not small. It's just as sticky.

Under the Bus
I think I have heard the phrase "under the bus" enough to supply me for a lifetime in the past week, but I'm about to use it a lot more. For the culturally uneducated, throwing someone "under the bus" is what you do when you say or do something that will affect someone else in a negative way. This concept is pivotal to the more important lesson I learned last week. No well-meaning person wants to throw someone else under the bus if it can be avoided. Last week, I discovered where "if it can be avoided" meets its end.

I was caught up in a second thing at work that thankfully went down a lot better than the game-rigging episode. It involved a complex series of events that I won't discuss out in the open, so I'll just give you the answer: It's okay to throw someone under the bus when the following condition is met (there might be others):

• the only way to avoid it is to throw your character (or integrity, virtue, morals, etc) under the bus.

If you ever come to a crossroads (I'm laughing with you, Daniel) and you have to decide between upholding your character or defending someone else, you should always uphold your character.

Hypermiling Basics (continued)

There are several things you can do to maximize your fuel efficiency before you even step foot inside a vehicle. I'll cover the simpler things in this post.

Keep your car well-maintained
Make sure you get your regular maintenance done on-time. Oil changes, tune-ups, tire balancing/rotations, and maintenance of your air filter and oxygen sensor (just to name a few) should be done as prescribed by your owner's manual. Keeping up with all this will ensure that your car operates at its highest efficiency.

Tires
Keep your tires inflated to the maximum sidewall pressure suggested. You can find the actual numbers on the side of your tire (some cars also have a suggested sidewall pressure listed in the owners manual or on the inside of the driver's side door). The principle is this: the more you inflate your tires, the less tire you have touching the road when you drive. The less tire you have touching the road, the less resistance your tires face, the less gas you have to use to push yourself down the road.

Many hypermilers even over-inflate their tires by a few pounds, though this is something that should be a personal choice for you. The danger in over-inflating your tires too much is that they may wear unevenly, causing you to have to replace them sooner (which would defeat the purpose of saving gas, wouldn't it!). Some also would claim you are more likely to have a blow-out when you over-inflate your tires, but the fact is blow-outs are more likely to occur because of under-inflated tires. The extra friction causes excess heat, weakening the tire until it blows.

So, you should be sure and check your tire pressure regularly. The pressure in each of your tires can drop up to 1 PSI per month, which is about how often I would suggest you check.

Also, buying low rolling resistance tires the next time you are in the market for new tires will reduce friction going down the road even more.

Hypermiling Basics

In the next few posts, I'm going to flush out more what hypermiling is and what you can do to conserve fuel. I'm starting with the basics.

Hypermiling is....

Hypermiling can be summed up as driving in a way that conserves fuel while not putting oneself in harm's way. It is not conserving fuel at all costs. There is a lot of bad press out there targeting the hypermiling community for things that hypermilers don't do. Some practices, such as closely drafting large trucks and running stop signs and stop lights, are not just unsafe; they are illegal! Hypermiling doesn't involve illegal activity.

Now, let's start with some basics that can be applied in any vehicle.

Keep your top speed down
The easiest thing you can do to increase your fuel efficiency is slow down. If you have a lead foot, exercise the cruise control. If you don't have cruise control, exercise self-control. Your car is close to its best fuel economy when you are traveling as slow as you can in the slowest gear. For manual transmissions this means just fast enough so you aren't "lugging" the engine in the highest gear. For those of us in automatics it's the slowest you can go in the highest gear before the transmission shifts down. For my '98 RAV4 that's about 48 MPH.

Go easy on the gas
Accelerating quickly burns more fuel than accelerating slowly. Try staying at lower RPM's as you accelerate (I usually accelerate around 2 MPH per second).

Go easy on the brake
When you step on the gas, think of it as buying speed with fuel. It takes a certain amount of fuel to get to 50 MPH. If you were to let off the gas, you would coast until you stop from the momentum you have "purchased". When you step on the brake, you are throwing away speed that you used your gas to purchase. The brake slows you down by turning your momentum into friction and heat, so keep your eye out for things at a distance. Know ahead of time when you will need to stop and let off the gas. By letting off of the gas early, you don't have to throw away as much.

Using just these basic techniques, you can save a good amount on your weekly gas bill. Don't be afraid! Try them out :)