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These days, everybody can use more ways to save money. Whether that’s leaving your lights on less at home to save on your electric bill or cooking more, instead of spending money on fast food, savings is savings. Keeping proper car of your car, and driving it like a normal person, can help too. Here’s the second part of our tip sheet.

Know where you’re going. This is a simple matter of driving more and idling more than you need to. Find the quickest route, know that route, and execute that route, before getting in the car, where you’ll be wasting gas.

Use good-quality gas. Here’s a newsflash, guys: Those commercials that big brands air about all the additives and cleansers aren’t lying. They might not make the gas as high-tech as those vibrant demonstrations suggest, but when it comes to gas, don’t cheap out. Put quality fuel into your car and expect a cleaner engine and better mileage. The added benefit is that your car will continue to run better for longer. 

Keep your tire pressure up to specs. When you’re driving with tires that aren’t to the correct pressure, there’s more friction and resistance. When there’s more friction and resistance, it’s harder to get the car going and keep it going. That means more gas pumping through those veins.

Keep your tire pressure up to specs. When you’re driving with tires that aren’t to the correct pressure, there’s more friction and resistance. When there’s more friction and resistance, it’s harder to get the car going and keep it going. That means more gas pumping through those veins.

Maintain the speed limit on the highway. Drivers, meet cruise control. Cruise control, meet speed limit. Driving at higher speeds creates more wind resistance, and by now, you know more resistance means a harder struggle for the engine to keep up. Constantly going faster and slower will also drain your tank much faster than you’d like, so try to stay consistent. Nobody likes those people anyway. 

This is nothing new, but makes a lot of sense, especially now that the gas prices are skyrocketing and traffic means more fuel lost. Just a reminder that no matter how small the engine size of our vehicle is, if we don’t use it properly and apply bad driving habits including poor vehicle care, we won’t be able to achieve the fuel efficiency claims of our vehicle’s manufacturer. Here are 10 Ways to Improve Your Car’s Gas Mileage:

Eliminate long idling situations. This is a small step that won’t really make a huge difference at first, but over time, it’ll be saving you gas and money. Little steps. Park and go inside of Taco Bell, instead of sitting in line, waiting for the drive-through. Turn your car off, when you’re waiting in the driveway for your friend. If you’re letting your car warm up, make sure you only wait a few minutes and don’t forget that your car is out there using gas. Simple, but effective. Some brands (like Mercedes-Benz, for example) are even starting to incorporate built-in start-stop “ECO” modes on their cars that do exactly this. They stop the engine when you brake and come to a stop at a light or sign, and start back up when you let your foot off the brake.

Below around 80 kph, roll your windows down when it’s hot. This has been a hot topic of debate in the automotive real for decades. What’s better for gas, AC or windows down? In all reality, there is no one specific answer, as all cars (and how those cars are being driven) will have different results. However, as a general rule, you’re better off with your widows down when you’re just tooling around town a low speeds. But if you’re on the highway, the wind resistance with your windows down will greatly hurt your gas mileage. So, when you’re driving at higher speeds, it’s better to use the air conditioning.

Keep a clean air filter. Your engine is constantly sucking in air, and the air filter keeps all the nasty shit that’s clogged up our oxygen from getting into your block. When the filter is dirty and clogged, it’s going to be working harder to suck in air. That means more work for your engine.

Don’t use your car as a storage locker. Imagine putting a 100lb bag of rocks on your back and trying to continue on your day, doing the same routine. It’d be harder, right? You’d be using more energy, and therefore, you’d require more fuel. It’s the same with your car. More weight (yeah, we’re talking about your swirly bowling ball, box of old magazines and tool box) means more fuel required to run it.

Keep your gas capped. We’re not even talking about the idiotic act of forgetting to put the cap back on after you gas up. There are plenty of people who have gas caps improperly put on or gas caps that have been cracked and are allowing gas to evaporate right out of the tank. Your money could literally be disappearing into thin air.

(To be continued)

We’ve seen the facelifted version of the Ford Focus, but this may just be more interesting – new details are starting to emerge about the Focus RS.

According to Sweden’s Auto Motor and Sport, the high-performance model will likely eschew the Geneva and Paris Auto Show and be launched in 2015.

Power will reportedly be provided by a 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine. It produces approximately 305 bhp (227 kW) in the 2015 Mustang but could be tuned to develop roughly 330 bhp (246 kW) in the Focus RS.

Little else is known about the model but previous reports have indicated it could be available exclusively as a five-door hatchback with front-wheel-drive. We can also expect a sport-tuned suspension, high-performance brakes and a limited slip differential.

Let’s cross our fingers and hope Ford PH brings in the RS model, for both Fiesta and Focus.

For a brand that has churned out one successful vehicle after another worldwide, it seems impossible for Toyota to have one car with lagging sales (but then, perhaps “low” for them is some other brand’s “high”).

For all the good press that the Toyota GT 86 is getting, Toyota Europe Vice President of R&D Gerald Killmann claims that it is selling well below target in its major markets.

Since the 86 was introduced, every carshow was filled with them and we’re talking major shows here like Tokyo Auto Salon and SEMA. Even the after-market has taken notice of this model and started producing all sorts of items for the car like body kits, suspension and engine upgrades.

This puts Toyota in a tough spot because the lagging sales are clearly an indicator that European consumers simply are not satisfied with the GT 86 the way it is. Adding in more special editions or even bumping its performance would likely bring the sales numbers up. On the other hand, that would be a huge gamble, as the slow base-level sales makes it economically tough for Toyota to invest more money in building an open-top or turbocharged variant.

So what should Toyota do? Should it leave the GT 86 as is and allow it to fizzle away into nothingness a la the MR2 of the 2000s, or should it give enthusiasts what they want by chopping the top and dropping in some forced induction?

Maybe Toyota is just expecting too much from the 86. Since Subaru is already working on the STi version for their BRZ, Toyota should start considering a “high-performance variant” as well. Use their partnership with BMW and slap on an M3 engine on the 86! After all, the drifting world has gone crazy with the 86 and started using American V8’s.

What do you think, mga Kapuso?

As Filipino Catholics flocked to their various churches yesterday, did priests just take a brief break from giving sermons to talk about traffic regulations?

Father Edu Gariguez, executive secretary of the CBCP-National Secretariat for Social Action, yesterday appealed for priests to be exempted from the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program, in order to serve their flock better.

Father Gariguez emphasized the priests’ need to be mobile, which will be made difficult by the impending “car-mageddon,” which is expected to result to more traffic congestion.

Under the UVRP, also known as number coding and color coding, vehicles with license numbers ending with a certain digit are prohibited from using major roads on specific days of the week. The program allows certain exemptions for “vehicles used by medical practitioners in an emergency” and those carrying people in need of immediate medical assistance.

The priest noted that the exemption should be extended to them, like what is being done for doctors.

What do you think, Kapuso? Should priests be saved from hell otherwise known as urban traffic? — with report from GMA News