Economic Driving Tips..continued

In Today,s issue you will find some useful tips on Economic motoring and we all need to be more economic with our Euro don't we!

How to be more Economic in your every day motoring.

(1) Make sure you check your tyre pressures weekly or every 500 miles.Incorrect tyre pressures are not only unsafe but will wear out your tyres in double quick time.
Underinflated tyres will pick up foreign bodies; nails; glass etc; and provide a great platform for a puncture very easily. Also the ride will be severely affected as the car is likel;y to be lop-sided! Overinflation of tyres, which is a less frequent phenomenon will tend to flat-spot tyres quickly. Obviously tyres that are wearing out rapidly compromise your safety and lead to poor road-holding and an increase in your fuel consumption!
Driving on Irish rural roads is not easy since they are narrow,often unmarked,and particularly during the Monsoon season, full of pot holes.It's essential,therefore, for safety, to have your tyres in peak condition and correctly inflated.

(2) Still on the subject of tyres its worth pointing out that, since the front tyres wear out more quickly than the rears it's worthwhile swapping the tyres round at proper intervals. Taking a good to average mileage on a set of tyres to be 30,000 miles; at the fifteen thousand mark your fronts will be at least half worn and the rears not worn much at all. At this point you should switch the rear tyres to the front and the fronts to the rear, bearing in mind the directional indicators on the side wall of the tyre. What does this do for you! Well firstly, you are evening out the wear so that when the "new " front tyres are half worn then the rears will be at approximately the same wear level. Secondly, but probably more important is that you have the best tyres on the front axle giving you the best grip, roadholding and therefore safety. Remember it is the front tyres that do all the work and the rears just go round and round!

(3) Ease off on your accelerator, or "gas" pedal long before you come to your stop ..if you slow down gradually when coming to a stop, instead of using the brakes heavily you will not only save fuel, you will save brakes and hopefully prevent the closely following Driver from rear- ending you. Brakes are expensive to service and it's not a one hour job and on the road again! A brake service will almost always mean a full day in the Garage and a bill that you wish would go away!

(4) As an addition to number (3) when you are trying to maintain a legal limit in a built up area watch out for undulations in the road or even inclines and ease off on the gas pedal as you reach the brow of the hill and you will probably not need to use the brakes then on the downhill stretch; this saves fuel and brakes. Of course we all know that even when we are trying hard to obey the speed limit we quite often will be overtaken ... so constant rear -view mirror is essential and we can then apply the brakes more gently if the overtaker gets into difficulty and causes an incident with on-coming traffic.



That's it for this Post. Watch out for more tips soon from Astral Driving School.Ireland

http://www.astralmotoring.ie

© AstralMotoring 2005

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