by Mark Salem (NAPSA)—Poor fuel economy a can put a costly damper on any summer vacation taken in the family vehicle. But there are a few simple things you can do to enhance your fuel economy no matter what type of vehicle you drive, which means you'll buyless gas and have more moneyto enjoy the summer. Let’s go through a few ideas that are proven to improve your fuel economy. Get the junk out of the trunk. I own an auto-repair facility, and you’d be amazed at the amountof stuff I find in trunks of cars these days. I’ve seen junk in the trunk of cars equivalent to a full-size man. Why haul the dead weight? Remove unnecessary win- ter supplies such as bags of salt and tire chains from the trunk of your vehicle. Get that bag of old newspapers to the recycling bin. Your vehicle will require less energy to move without the dead weight. So ask yourself if you really need to be transporting around that card table, set of golf clubs or storage container, and unload any unnecessary items from your trunk. Keep air in your tires. Remember what it was like riding your bike as a child with half-flat tires? It was hard to get the bike moving. Once you inflated the tires, your bike was like a new sports car; it went faster with far less effort. Your car feels the same pain when the tires are at, say, 28 psi instead of the recommended 35 psi. (Just to be clear: Not every tire should be inflated to 35 psi. Look for the recommended psi rating on a label on your driver’s door or in the glove box.) Use the right motor oil for your vehicle. I can’t overstate the importance of using good motor oil. To illustrate what I mean, try a little exercise. Take T) Mark Salem, ASE Certified Master Technician your hands and place them together with palms touching. Then rub the palms against each other quickly. Feel that warmth generated by friction? That’s exactly what is happening inside your engine. If you rubbed your hands together like that for an hour, you’d probably do some damage to your hands (which means you can stop rubbing your palms together now). And you’d also have to work much harder to rub your handstogether. Now you know why motoroil is so important to the efficient per- formance of your engine. If you put motor oil between those two sliding surfaces, a lot of that friction goes away, and the engine doesn’t have to work as hard. As a result, your engine is more fuel efficient. But not every motoroil is cre- ated equal. Some last longer than others. While certain motoroils may lose their effectiveness after a few thousand miles, others are designed to last for a very long time. ExxonMobil makes an oil, Mobil 1 Extended Performance, that is actually guaranteed to pro- tect and perform for up to 15,000 miles. Keep your vehicle clean. Believe it or not, that layer of dirt on your exterior creates drag that, over long distances, hurts your miles-per-gallon count. Keeping your vehicle washed and waxed will improve yourvehicle’s aerodynamics, improving your fuel econ- omy. And you'll feel good about driving aroundin a clean vehicle. Consider the best option for ventilation. Conventional wisdom says that cars are always more fuel-efficient when the air condi- tioner is off. On long trips or highway driving, however, using the air conditioner is actually more fuel efficient than rolling down the windows. Whendriving fast, open win- dowscreate a drag that forces the engine to work harder to maintain speed. If you’re driving on short trips or in city traffic, roll down the windowsand enjoy the breeze, but on the highway, turn on theair. For more information about car care, visit www.mobiloil.com. Mark Salem is the host of “Under the Hood,” a car-care show on KTAR 620 AM in Phoenix. He is an ASE Certified Master Technician and the owner of Salem Boys Auto, an auto-repair facility in Phoenix.
