One of the most talked-about topics in the car world is gas mileage. Car makers around the world are often coming up with ways to introduce fuel-efficient vehicles to the market. Many of the world’s governments are also putting pressure on those car makers to do so.
Scores of nations around the world are keen to lower car tailpipe emissions. And one of the ways that can make this happen is to use less gas.
Some folks don’t have the money to buy new cars, and so they have to keep driving their gas guzzlers. They will have got told some gas mileage facts by various people at some point. But did you know that some of those “facts” are nothing more than a fallacy?
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Today I will share with you some surprising myths about gas mileage. Check them out below:
Myth: only small cars offer good gas mileage
Anyone that has listened to their physics teacher at high school will know about drag. Heavier cars place more load on engines, and so those engines will use more gas.
Small cars have always been lighter than bigger ones. But these days, car makers are using lightweight materials such as aluminum and carbon fiber in larger cars. In fact, many of the top-ten fuel-efficient cars of 2014 are medium-size to large cars!
That statement was true around twenty years ago. But today’s automatic transmissions are just as efficient as manual ones.
There are several variations of automatic transmissions in use today. For example, dual-clutch transmissions offer smoother shifts and better-calculated shifting decisions. The days of the old and inefficient slushbox are over!
Myth: starting a car uses more gas than idling it
One of the more ridiculous statements that some people take as fact is that idling a car uses less gas than starting it!
A lot of today’s cars have start-stop technology. It helps to combat wasted gas from cars that idle more than five seconds when stationary. Idling a car’s engine can use up to half a gallon of gas an hour. Turning your ignition on doesn’t.
Myth: you need to “warm up” your car to get good gas mileage
I don’t even know who started this myth, but it must have been someone in the 1950s! Most of today’s modern cars can get driven as soon as the engine starts running.
Arnold from Inchcape Porsche says that all modern cars have electronic fuel injection. The ECU or electronic “brains” of the car runs the car at high revs when it’s cold. It then drops them down once normal operating temperature gets reached.
It’s also worth point out that the quickest way to warm a car’s engine up is to drive the car, rather than leaving it idling!
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