Fuel Economy Tip - Drive in the Highest Gear
May 5th, 2006 | by Brian Carr |While today’s tip certainly isn’t going to help you win any races down the highway, it will help you save a significant amount of money on your vehicle’s fuel bill.
Drive in the highest possible gear.
When you’re cruising down the road, try to drive in the highest gear possible. This will help you keep your car’s engine’s RPMs down, which will ultimately reduce the amount of fuel you end up using.
By doing this, you will notice that your vehicle may not be as responsive when you try to quickly increase speed. This is because you are keeping the engine out of its “power band”, which is typically in the mid to upper range of RPMs. Staying in this “power band” requires your engine to use more fuel.
All of that being said, be realistic about keeping your car in the highest gear. You don’t want to keep your RPMs so low that the engine bogs down; it’s not good for the engine or your fuel economy.
Obviously, it is easiest to control what gear your car is in if you drive a manual transmission (stick, clutch, etc.) car.
Not all hope is lost if you drive an automatic, though. If this is the case, just make sure that you keep the over drive feature on.
If you’re someone with a lead foot, this tip will be beneficial because it will help you keep your speeding to a minimum, increasing your gas mileage even more.
2 Responses to “Fuel Economy Tip - Drive in the Highest Gear”
By penty on Jun 1, 2006 | Reply
Hope I’m not posting here too much.
“Drive in the highest gear” isn’t all that great by way of advice.
Engines are designed to run most efficiently with in a certain RPM range. Either TOO high OR TOO low outside this band and it’s less efficient (meaning more gas/mile).
BTW that is what helps hybrids do better on their mileage. The gas engines can be designed for a narrower band of RPMs. The more specific an engine’s task the more efficeintly it can be desiged.
By Tony on Jul 22, 2006 | Reply
To illustrate the above, in my diesel it’s not happy below about 1400rpm, and is optimal at between 1800 and 2200rpm, but going into 4th gear at 30mph (urban driving) will put it outside that.. the engine still *runs* but it’s struggling. In 3rd it’s right in the lower range of its optimal band.
I was told the ‘keep in the highest gear’ mantra and was wondering why my fuel economy was so poor. A better way is to know what rpm your engine runs best/most effiently at and choose your gears to stay within that.