Save Gas – Save Oil – Save Your Engine

Conservation of oil has been an ever-growing concern of American motorists for the past couple of decades. It all began with issues about the environment and dependence on foreign oil imports. In the beginning, the concept of saving money on fuel took a backseat to these global and national concerns. Today, with regular unleaded gas prices speeding past the $3.00 per gallon mark – rapidly heading for $4.00 – fuel conservation is a necessity for most Americans. And while the environment and foreign oil requirements are still very important, most Americans are now seriously concerned with merely surviving these unprecedented prices at the pump. Herein, we'll show some rarely covered approaches to saving some substantial amounts of fuel and oil, while making your vehicle's engine last longer.

Before getting into some unfamiliar ideas, let's take a moment and review some of the more popular methods of saving fuel and oil.

• Make a conscious effort to use your brakes less: Don’t follow so closely. Allow the vehicle to decelerate naturally when approaching a stop sign or red light. Don't leave one foot on the brake.
• Unless it is very cold, or you haven't driven the vehicle for a while, do not start it and let it 'warm up.' If you do need to warm your vehicle up, two minutes should be more than ample time even under extreme circumstances.
• Keep your tires properly inflated. This will not only help with fuel mileage, but will also make the vehicle handle better and stop better. This is not only an economy matter, but a safety matter as well.
• If you are going to stop for less than five minutes, then don't turn off your engine. It will consume more fuel to restart it than it will to allow it to run. If you're stopping for longer than five minutes, turn the engine off.
• If you can stand it, turn off your air conditioner – even if it's only for a few minutes during your drive. This can save amazing amounts of fuel.
• Keep your engine in good working order. This does NOT mean to go get a $100.00 tune-up every month. Get them as needed – which with many newer cars is not very often at all. In the meantime, however, keep that air cleaner clean by tapping out the trapped dust, or blowing it out with compressed air. If you have a gas line filter, make sure it is changed regularly. If your car has fuel injectors and you use regular unleaded, every so often pour a can of injector cleaner into your fuel tank, or run one tank of premium unleaded through it – it's worth it!

Now let's veer off from the traditional ways of saving fuel, and get into some less discussed matters. Let's investigate how doing two very simple things will save you money – perhaps a lot of money – when you drive up to the pumps.

To oversimplify, the power of an engine is directed to two places: 1) running the engine itself, and 2) running the drive train that makes your vehicle move. The less energy the engine requires to run itself, the more power is available to the drive train. Think of it like this: if your engine requires 20% of its own power to sustain itself and keep running, then you have only 80% left to go to the drive train. This means that you will have to depress the accelerator an extra 20% to achieve the results you would have attained if the engine required no power to sustain itself. Of course that's not possible as even the most efficient engines require some operational power, but it all remains relative.

If your engine currently requires 20% of its power to simply keep running, and you can reduce that by 10%, then you will depress the accelerator 10% less to accomplish the same thing – roughly speaking. Also, your engine will consume less fuel to idle. All of this can add up to substantial fuel economy.

If you alter your lubrication methods and practices, you can dramatically reduce the amount of power the engine uses to sustain itself, and thus allow more to the drive train – and therefore save fuel. Here are ways to accomplish that worthwhile objective.

First, your choice of lubricating oil… Don't go with the cheapest! In fact, you should absolutely use a pure synthetic lubricant, such as Mobil 1 or Amsoil (http://www.amsoil.com/). Yes, this type of oil costs more to buy, but as you'll see, you'll save more than the cost difference over the course of the oil change interval.

Second, enhance your oil filter's function with magnetics. Again, this has a cost, but it is more than worth it in the savings accrued – not to mention how much longer your engine can last when adding magnetic capability to your filtration system.

Synthetic oils are so much better than non-synthetic oils that some car manufacturers will allow you to go longer between oil changes if you use them. This trend is catching on quickly, and in the near term, all auto manufacturers should grant this extension period to owners who use synthetic lubrication. What does this mean to your pocketbook? Here's an example of a vehicle that uses 5 quarts per oil change at scheduled 5,000 mile intervals using non-synthetic oil, or 7,500 mile intervals with synthetic oil. Our example vehicle travels 35,000 miles per year.

Oil change cost 1: 5-quarts at $5 each = $25 + $10 oil filter + $20 labor per change x 7 changes per year = $385.00.
Oil change cost 2: 5-quarts at $7 each = $35 + $10 oil filter + $20 labor per change x 4.6 changes per year = $299.00. So, simply by switching to synthetic oil, you've saved $86.00 in the first year. (You will also save all the time of actually going and getting those extra oil changes – and waiting for your vehicle.)

The use of the slicker, better synthetic oil will also reduce engine friction. Engine friction is the hobgoblin of efficiency and fuel economy. Using synthetic oil can improve the fuel economy by about 1.5% (1% – 3%). In our example vehicle, that gets 20-miles per gallon over its 35,000 annual miles traveled, that amounts to an annual fuel savings of about $105.00.

"Oil is the life blood of an engine." You've heard it and read it your entire life – because it's a fact. And the cleaner/better the engine oil is, the more efficiently the engine will function, and for many more miles.

Start with good oil and a good filter. The filter's function is critical. It keeps the circulating oil free of much of the debris that wears engines down – robbing power from the drive train AND reducing fuel economy!

Spin-on oil filters are not all alike – not at all. Get a name brand that your mechanic (and you) trusts! Some oil filters only filter out particles down to 40-microns in size, while some others filter out particulates down to 20-microns. The ideal oil filter would filter out everything down to and below 1-micorn. But the tightness of the filtering material is constrained by the need for the oil to be able to pass through it – so as not to starve the engine for oil and cause very serious, usually irreversible damage.

Whatever spin-on oil filter you use, you should add magnetic capability to it. Proper magnetic oil filtration allows for the removal of ALL iron-based particles from the engine's oil, as well as other contaminants. There are several ways to achieve effective, efficient, SAFE magnetic oil filtration using products available on the market.

Some magnetic oil filter devices wrap around your filter, some attach to the end of the filter. These units definitely enjoy a degree of effectiveness, but the metal oil filter housing stops (shunts) much of the exterior magnetism from working inside the filter. Further, these units cover part of the filter, and thereby can cause the build-up of excess heat in the filter, which is especially bad for motorcycles and ATVs. There is one product, Engine Sentry® (www.enginesentry.com), that is simply inserted into the filter's core before the filter is installed. Its efficiency is unparalleled; it is very inexpensive; it works inside of any spin-on disposable oil filter that has a metal core – which is essentially all of them.

A used Engine Sentry® shown still attached to the filter core. The black 'dots' on the sphere are actually composed of thousands of tiny pieces of steel, combined with sludge and other metallic debris. Yellow arrow points out the small 'net' constructed of steel particles suspended between the sphere and the slightly magnetized core area near the Engine Sentry®. These 'nets' collect non-ferrous metal debris as well as sludge.

Using an Engine Sentry® will filter out particles that are well below 1-micron in size, thus substantially reducing wear and friction, and increasing mileage by 3-7%. In our example vehicle, using a 5% savings figure, you can save an additional $262.50 per year. Plus, you can expect your engine to operate for many more miles before it fails due to wear. If you keep your oil nice and clean from day one, you can expect the power plant to last from 2-5 times as long! If you start adding up savings on how much longer your vehicle will last, the use of quality synthetic engine oil and magnetic filtration such as Engine Sentry® shows incredible savings!

Microscopic view of the edge of a used Engine Sentry®. The tall spire, composed of many small pieces of steel, is a little over 20microns tall.

Naturally, you should not do anything that will negate the warranty of a new vehicle – such as extend the time interval between oil changes because you are using synthetic oil. But that won't stop you from some of the other measures listed herein – such as keeping your tires properly inflated, cleaning the air filter, or using an Engine Sentry®.

If your vehicle is no longer under warranty, then the interval between oil changes is up to you. So is the type of oil you use, and the type of filter.

Lastly, taking fuel and oil saving measures is no longer just a matter of personal finance, it is a matter of the environment, and our country's dependence on foreign oil. If everyone would take similar measures to those listed above, we could immediately reduce consumption by about 5% - which equates to about 4.5 million barrels per day. So, save gas, save oil, save your engine – and be a good American all at the same time. Everybody wins!