My primary car is an all wheel drive 2006 Subaru Legacy GT that I bought some 2-1/2 years ago. It is a very fun car to drive and it has an awesome stereo system. The power plant is a factory turbo charged, flat 4-cylinder engine that cranks out around 250-HP. The setback to this fun-to-drive car is that the fuel mileage is less than desirable and it "requires" premium fuel.
With the price of gas reaming us, I was forced to make some adjustments to my driving habits in order to preserve fuel. I researched the lowest grade of fuel that I could use that would not harm the engine. Diehards were adamant that the only fuel I should even consider is premium. However, lots of people have successfully used mid-grade without modifications and no harm befell their engines. My local Subaru dealership confirmed that I could use mid-grade without losing my 100K mile warranty. They also admitted that they only use regular unleaded on all their vehicles, including their "GT" demos without problems.
I switched over to mid-grade and carefully monitored the performance of my car. That change automatically saved me 10 to 15 cents per gallon, depending on where I filled up. I have been using mid-grade for over a year and I can honestly say I never noticed the slightest difference in performance. Someday I might take it down to regular grade and see if there's an effect, but for now I'll keep using mid-grade.
But as I started paying $4.00+ per gallon, I decided to make further changes to my driving habits. Several months ago I became much more thoughtful of how often I drove the car. Wherever possible, I either did not make the trip, went with someone else, or simply combined all of my errands into a single day or trip. This change alone greatly reduced my trips to the fuel pump. But that still wasn't enough. I was keenly aware that my driving habits needed an adjustment. So I forced myself to stay off the turbo and to keep a maximum speed of 65 MPH on the freeway. It's now been about 4 or 5 months since I made that change, and my average fuel mileage jumped from 21 MPG to 26 MPG. This is a consistent average that I can confirm over the last several months.
I had an old gasoline calculator that I created in Excel some years ago to compare MPGs between "Vehicle A" and "Vehicle B". The calculator was designed to compare the cost at the pump over hundreds and thousands of miles. I used the same calculator to determine how much money I'm saving by increasing my mileage a measly 5 MPGs. It was quite an eye opener. Veh A is my Subaru at 21 MPG, and Veh B is my Subaru at 26 MPG.
On average, I currently drive around 350 miles between fill ups (about once a week). With the current cost of mid-grade in my area (about $3.50 per gallon), I'm saving an average of 3.2 gallons of gas per 350 miles, which comes out to $11.22 per fill up! With a fill up of 13.5 gallons, this is equivalent to saving 26 cents per gallon. Over a year (adding 3,000+ miles for family visits, etc.) my fuel savings for the increase in MPGs alone is $673.08. That's a chunk of change, Folks. The savings is actually much higher when considering switching to a lower grade fuel and reducing unneeded trips.
These adjustments have positive side effects besides spending less on gasoline. To begin with, driving on the Interstate in the right lane at 65 MPH is relaxing. Before, I was constantly speeding up and slowing down, passing and being passed, and stressing over other fools on the highway. You know the song. Now, I mostly just stay in the right lane and I don't worry about it. It's not often that I have to pass anyone, and then I only do so when I have plenty of space and time to get around the car. Driving slower also puts much less wear and tear on the car, especially the tires and brakes.
Click the photo to see my simple calculator (PM me if you want the Excel file emailed to you for your own use):
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