Nine ways to cut fuel costs on the same commute

You cannot always change the journey. You can change what it costs. Roughly in order of what they return:

1. Ease off the throttle

Air resistance rises with the square of speed, so the last ten miles per hour are the expensive ones. Dropping from 75 to 65 on a motorway run typically saves in the region of 10 to 15% of the fuel, and costs you a couple of minutes an hour.

2. Anticipate instead of react

Lifting early for a red light rather than braking late is free. Every drop of fuel you spend building speed you then throw away as heat in the brakes. This is the single biggest difference between two people driving the same route in the same car.

3. Check your tyre pressures

Under-inflated tyres increase rolling resistance measurably, and most cars on the road are down a few PSI. It takes five minutes a month, helps the tyres last longer, and is a safety item anyway.

4. Take the roof bars off

A roof rack or box is a serious aerodynamic penalty at motorway speed, easily 10 to 20% on a small car. If it has been on since the summer holiday, that is expensive storage.

5. Empty the boot

Weight matters most in town, where you are accelerating repeatedly. The bag of sand from a job in March is not helping.

6. Combine trips

A cold engine is dramatically less efficient for the first few miles. Three short errands from cold cost far more than one loop that does all three.

7. Buy fuel on price, not on habit

Supermarket forecourts are usually cheaper than motorway services by a wide margin. Filling up before a long run rather than on it is often worth several pounds a tank for a two-minute detour.

8. Service it when it asks

A clogged air filter, tired plugs or the wrong oil grade all cost economy. Servicing is not just about avoiding failure.

9. Know your real number

You cannot manage what you do not measure. Work out your actual MPG between two full tanks rather than trusting the trip computer, which is often optimistic by a few percent.

The one that pays for all the others

If any of your driving is for work, the mileage claim is worth more than every tip above combined. At 45p a mile, 200 business miles a month is £1,080 a year of allowance, and for an efficient car that is comfortably more than the fuel it burned.

The catch is that unclaimed miles are worth nothing. That is the entire reason Milesheet exists: record the journey while it happens, sort it in seconds, and let the claim add itself up.