If you pulled your BMW into the Exxon-Mobil in Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood recently, you might have found yourself pumping $3.90 per gallon premium high octane gasoline alongside a senator or news anchor. But if you were clever enough to fill up just a few miles away at the KAZCO station in Northeast Washington, you could have paid just $2.79 a gallon.
Saving $1.11 a gallon might not sound like much. But if you're filling up a 20 gallon tank, you could save $22. Do that once a week and you'd save $1,150 a year. Switch to a hybrid, and the savings can mount to $2,300 a year or more. Drive twice as much or have two cars, and you could reclaim $4,600 or more a year in income that's now disappearing through your exhaust pipe. Drive smarter and save as much as 20 percent on top of that.
Finding ways to save on gas is time well spent these days. Surging wholesale gasoline prices are expected to push gasoline prices at the pump above $3 a gallon by summer, according to the Energy Department. This week the nationwide average was $2.854, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service, up 4.8 cents over the past month and 80.2 cents since last year. “It’s one of those double-edged swords,” says Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com, a network of 210 local web sites on gas prices. “As the economy recovers, oil and gasoline prices follow.”
What to do?
If you own a gas guzzler, you can cut your fuel costs by as much as half by trading it in for a hybrid, which typically gets more than 40 miles per gallon (mpg) compared to the 15-to-20 mpg of other family cars. But hybrids can be pricey. A 2010 Toyota Prius costs $23,000, versus only $16,150 for a basic 2010 Toyota Corolla, according to Automotive.com. So, they’re not for everyone.
Smooth driving
The good news is that buying a new hybrid or other fuel-efficient car isn’t the only ─ or even best ¬ ─ way to save big on gas. In fact, experts agree the single smartest strategy is to change how you drive. “Many people say $3 a gallon for gas is a rip-off, but after they pump they fly out of the station and get half of what their fuel economy is rated,” DeHaan says.
Rules of physics back up the smooth driving concept; inertia means that a car uses less gas if it’s moving at a steady pace. “If your worst offenders—people that accelerate and brake the hardest from light to light—drove more defensively they could save up to 15 percent or 20 percent at the pump,” DeHaan says. Even those who already obey the speed limit and drive conservatively could save at least 5 percent more by keeping their driving aggression-free, he says.
In addition to driving slower and steadier, experts say keeping your vehicle well-maintained and removing excess weight are the next best ways to improve your fuel economy. Some useful tips:
• Keep your tires inflated, since that increases resistance to the road and fuel efficiency.
• Make sure your engine is running properly, since malfunctions usually mean burning more fuel.
• Take the golf clubs (or other heavy objects) out of the trunk. An extra 100 pounds in your car could mean 2 percent fewer miles per gallon, according to FuelEconomy.gov.
• Turn off the air conditioning and change air filters frequently, particularly with older cars.
Finding bargains
To find the best priced gas in your area, go online. Web sites such as “cheapgaslocator.com and "GasBuddy.com" will tell you faster than you can accelerate from zero to sixty where to find the best ─ and worst ─ deals in your neighborhood. It is not uncommon for one gas station within a hundred yards of its local competitor to be charging 10 percent to 15 percent per gallon more.
Remember, the quality of the gasoline being sold is identical, as determined and monitored by state and local regulations. It often comes from the same refinery or off the same oil tanker that sailed thousands of miles to refill your gas tank. So, why pay more just because you happen to have a particular supplier's credit card at your finger tips?
Bargain hunters know it's cheaper to purchase gas outside the city limits of major metropolitan areas, and that stopping in a state with a lower tax rate than its neighbor is the place to "fill 'er up." Regional differences can be dramatic ─ California fuel prices are often 20 percent higher than eastern states.
And if you’re driving on an interstate, consider pulling onto a local road to fill up your tank. The major oil companies ─ like Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron ─ rarely undercut the lesser known, sometimes family-owned stations. Also, there are many stations that now offer discounts, typically five cents a gallon or more, for cash instead of credit card purchases.
So, next time you need to fill up your tank, don't just pull into the closest station. Consider your alternatives. Then, ask yourself an even more fundamental question: Do you really need to drive? Sometimes public transportation can get you there quite a bit cheaper, and with a lot less stress too.
