Summer fuel efficiency tips of Kimi

[Principessa]

Some summer tips of Kimi Raikkonen


Kimi Raikkonen and Team McLaren Mercedes Technology Partner ExxonMobil recently came together to offer tips on how to make the most of your summer driving

The summer holiday season has arrived! Whilst you might be in a rush to pack up your car, you can't forget how important it is to have the best fuel economy possible. To help get the most out of your summer driving, here are five good ideas from Kimi that will help improve your fuel economy.

Get the junk out of the trunk

The dead weight found in the boot of many cars can be equivalent to a man. Remove unnecessary winter supplies such as bags of salt and tire chains from the boot 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.

Keep air in your tyres

Remember what it was like riding your bicycle with half-flat tyres? It was hard to get the bike moving. Once you inflated the tyres, your bike was like a new sports car; it went faster with far less effort. Your car feels the same pain when the tyres are at, say, 28 psi instead of the recommended 35 psi. (Just to be clear: not every tyre 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,” notes Kimi. “I've learned that on the race track. To illustrate this, try a little exercise. Take 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, so you can stop rubbing your palms together now. And you'd also have to work much harder to rub your hands together”.

“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 motor oil is created equal. Some last longer than others. While certain motor oils may lose their effectiveness after a few thousand miles, others are designed to last for a very long time. ExxonMobil makes a synthetic motor oil, Mobil 1 0W-30, which is specifically formulated to promote fuel economy.

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 your vehicle's aerodynamics, improving your fuel economy. And you'll feel good about driving around in a clean vehicle.

Consider the best option for ventilation

Conventional wisdom says that cars are always more fuel-efficient when the air conditioner is off. On long trips or highway driving, however, using the air conditioner is actually more fuel efficient than rolling down the windows. When driving fast, open windows create 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 windows and enjoy the breeze, but on the highway, turn on the air.

[flynfrog]

i should also add tune up your car

by replaceing the spark plugs and wires i gained 2 mpg

new fuel filters will help to and fixing vacum leaks

[kilcoo316]

Hands up who thinks Kimi actually told them that?

[zac510]

Feel that friction generated by rubbing your hands together in anticipiation of a Ferrari contract? A bit of Marlboro leverage will help that.

[bhall]

But remember, boys and girls, the key message in all of this is to buy Mobil 1 motor oil.

[flynfrog]

But remember, boys and girls, the key message in all of this is to buy Mobil 1 motor oil.

i have for years

[Ciro Pabón]

I'd like to add:

- Fill the tank before the gas delivering truck arrives. This applies only to countries where meters are not temperature compensated (USA does not compensate, Canada does). Gasoline expands 0.1% per degree centigrade. If you can get a 10 degree differential, you'll save around 1%.

Ground temperature almost does not vary because of thermal lag, so you do not have to arrive at 5 am to get the "cooler gas", but you have to allow for the maximum time to elapse since it was dumped on the underground, cool tank from the hot delivering truck (hence the recommendation). I work as consultant for a big gas company and we managed to get a compensation (trying to achive the inverse effect) of around 2%.

- Use the air conditioning when you deaccelerate and turn it off when you accelerate. In a city, this means turning on the air conditioning on the red lights, the traffic jams and the like and turning it off when you need to accelerate. Check your air conditioning clutch (if it has one) as you would check your car's.

- Check the amount of cooling gas on your air conditioning system: running a system with little gas in it is inefficient. Try to go to the air conditioning shop on the winter days: they will have plenty of time and probably will agree to charge less.

- Buy a pressure gauge for tires. Right, do not underinflate the tires, but, how? To keep your tires inflated, buy a pressure gauge, do not trust your instinct. You could get an electric air pump, if you are not the kind of guy that goes frequently to a station or shop to inflate the tires.

- Check belts for air conditioning, water pump and the like, in late spring. Self evident.

- Change your cooling system water. Use a rust preventing additive: that rust coating your pipes is no good and it will slow down the thermal transfer rates.

- About using Mobil One: check your warranty to see if the constructor of the car allows you to change your oil every 15.000 miles... If he doesn't, your warranty is hanging on the little message in back of the bottle of oil you bought.

[bhall]

Actually, a really good motor oil to use (works well for me anyway) is Royal Purple. After using it, I noticed about a 2 mpg gain in my fuel economy. I'm not sure if it's sold outside of the U.S. though.

K&N makes a great permanent air filter. It only needs cleaning every 50,000 miles and adds about 1-2 mpg.

[flynfrog]

Actually, a really good motor oil to use (works well for me anyway) is Royal Purple. After using it, I noticed about a 2 mpg gain in my fuel economy. I'm not sure if it's sold outside of the U.S. though.

K&N makes a great permanent air filter. It only needs cleaning every 50,000 miles and adds about 1-2 mpg.

i would not use a k&n filter when i used to race we found they are pretty good at stoping gravel but not so good at stoping dust a good paper filter or if you can find a foam filter will clean the air much better

besides royal purple there is also redline and amsoil but they all cost more than mobil 1 and there is little to no gain by switching

I used the redline two stroke oil though great stuff but in the cases i always used mobil 1 and i had a redline sponsership

[Venom]

Also, the way people drive effects fuel economy.

I also believe tracking can have a very very tiny effect too... and ofcorse, the profile and sizes of tyres and wheels

[West]

Funny, I was going to take out the spare tire on my car to reduce weight but before that my tire blew...

I can get around 30mpg, over factory rated 25 mpg, on the freeway just by driving 70mph. Changing my oil at regular intervals really helps too.

I've read somewhere that an Apex'i air filter is even better than K&N, but they usually make air filters for mainly japanese cars

[flynfrog]

Funny, I was going to take out the spare tire on my car to reduce weight but before that my tire blew...

I can get around 30mpg, over factory rated 25 mpg, on the freeway just by driving 70mph. Changing my oil at regular intervals really helps too.

I've read somewhere that an Apex'i air filter is even better than K&N, but they usually make air filters for mainly japanese cars

there is a common misconception that the more air a filter flows means its better

but the more air that gets through the more dirt also gets through a good paper filter may not flow as well be is ussaly better at stopping dirt

a foam filter will flow better handel water better but allow sligtly more dirt through

a gause filter like a K&N will let the most air throught but sucks at actuly filtering

if you see a huge perfrmance gain by switching air filters it more than likely means your old one was dirty or impropely sized

On a side note stay far away from fram filters

[Tom]

I don't agree with any of your coments I'm afraid, except the one regarding foam. Paper filter are deliberatly crap, there is a whole industry setup around making rubbish filters cheap, that will only last between services, so that throughout the life of a car, say 8 years perhaps, it may have 8 new filters, each made at £2 and sold for £3 (not accurate I know) £1 profit per filter means that you will make £8, not much, then consider that 10 million cars (there are more cars than that in Scotland) each last 8 years and have £8 worth of filter and your looking at £8 billion in profits!!! Overall you'd spend £24 bear in mind.

K&N etc catch as much air and as much dirt, take up less space and you only ever need 1 or 2 (costing suppose £8 each, with perhaps only £1.50 profit, again not accurate) whatsmore that throughout 8 years you only need one replacement, maximum, if you treat it right and wash it regularely you spend £16. Yet it looks better, not important usually, lasts longer, costs less and does the same job, but all garages all buy paper element filters for customers anyway so the crap filters always come out best.

Sorry to gabble on so long but its true.

[flynfrog]

I don't agree with any of your coments I'm afraid, except the one regarding foam. Paper filter are deliberatly crap, there is a whole industry setup around making rubbish filters cheap, that will only last between services, so that throughout the life of a car, say 8 years perhaps, it may have 8 new filters, each made at £2 and sold for £3 (not accurate I know) £1 profit per filter means that you will make £8, not much, then consider that 10 million cars (there are more cars than that in Scotland) each last 8 years and have £8 worth of filter and your looking at £8 billion in profits!!! Overall you'd spend £24 bear in mind.

K&N etc catch as much air and as much dirt, take up less space and you only ever need 1 or 2 (costing suppose £8 each, with perhaps only £1.50 profit, again not accurate) whatsmore that throughout 8 years you only need one replacement, maximum, if you treat it right and wash it regularely you spend £16. Yet it looks better, not important usually, lasts longer, costs less and does the same job, but all garages all buy paper element filters for customers anyway so the crap filters always come out best.

Sorry to gabble on so long but its true.

i never said that one was cheaper than another but that is rubbish (ive never used that word i think you are rubbing off on me) look at what the recharger kits cost.

most of my experince come from racing Moto Cross i had K&N sponsership but i would always have dirt in the intake boot when i used them. You cant use normal filter oil or cleaner on them you have to buy the K&N stuff and they didnt handel getting wet that well

i almost always used UNI filters no dust in the intake boot could be soaked in water with no ill effects lasted longer than my K&Ns did and i could use cheaper oil and cleaners with them and they were $12 instead of the $35 for the K&N


Also look at K&Ns claim of filters better once it gets dirty (so its letting dirt through untill it gets dirty)

i belive K&N has a much better marketing department than an air filter

but any way ill agree to dissagree at this point we are way beyond the point of this thread

[Tom]

Sorry, miles off-topic, I completly missed out the point I was trying to make and got going on the whole paper element scam. apologies to everyone.