Why Do You Get Worse Gas Mileage During the Winter?

Have you ever wondered why it seems that you get worse gas mileage during the winter and/or that you’re filling your car up more often?  (Note – even if you haven’t wondered this, go ahead and pretend that you did.) 

Well, it’s probably got a lot more to do with your bad driving habits than it does with anything else.  It’s amazing how quickly your good driving habits can change with a 50 degree drop in temperatures!

Here are some of the main reasons why your gas mileage tends to drop with the temperatures:

• Sub 40 degree weather tends to make walking or riding your bike pretty unbearable.  Ultimately, this means you’re more than likely to take a bunch of short trips in your car - which is a great way to make your car’s gas mileage drop.
• Nobody likes to get in a cold car, so if you don’t keep your car in a garage, you’re much more likely to go ahead and let the car sit, run and get nice and cozy warm.  The only problem with this is your gas mileage drops to 0 when your car just sits and run.
• When you do get your car going, you’re much more likely to drive for extended periods with your defrost running.  When you run your defrost, it automatically turns on your car’s air conditioning – which sucks a lot of horse power from the engine and causes you to use more gasoline.
• Finally, a lot of people tend to be pretty lazy and not get all of the snow and ice off of their cars before they hit the road.  In addition to being an annoyance to other drivers on the road, that extra snow and ice can add another 100 pounds to your vehicle.  Those extra 100 pounds can reduce your car’s gas mileage by up to 2%.

More than likely you don’t get extremely reduced gas mileage during the winter, but the items I listed above are probably the main culprits as to why you’re getting slightly worse gas mileage this winter.