Proper tire care is more than checking and adjusting tire pressure at least once a month. Keeping tires aired up is good for 1 MPG fuel efficiency (FE) per 1psi on average, some cars like the original Honda Insight would show it quickly, some like the original Prius would mostly just shred their tires with haste in retaliation for the lax care. Others like most American land-yachts and Asian Mega-SUVs would just hide the change in gas mileage in already poor consumption figures.
One often-overlooked care item is proper alignment. You should get your car aligned more frequently than just when you get new tires.
Alignments do not cost much or take very long as opposed to getting tires prematurely, on the regular (on a regular basis). Your regular dealership will hold occasional alignment specials, if not your town is sure to have several tire shops one of which may offer the service at a more budget friendly price.
The dealership will often have more sophisticated equipment but this is not a guaranteed situation.
Also, make sure that your shop aligns your vehicle to factory specifications, not just, "kind of close" or "until the lights stop showing red", it is very difficult to get a car to match the factory specifications exactly, and on some cars, it is not possible at all, as they age.
My suggestion is that if they are less than one or two hundredths of a degree off do not hassle your technician, though some see it as a source of pride to get each car rolling better out their shop than when it rolled off the factory line.
Think about it if everywhere you went there was a small child pulling you in one direction, you could still get where you intended to with relative ease but keep this up long enough and you would start to fatigue. Add one to three more children, all pulling or pushing in a different direction from the first, and the effect becomes more significant but not necessarily a show-stopping issue. That is how you car feels when miss-aligned.
Alignments can also reduce fatigue on the driver, if you constantly have to add small corrections to the steering wheel it might not matter on short trips but this would wear you out much more quickly than normal on longer trips.
As you can see in the story graphic at the beginning of this post, I recently got another alignment and some regular maintenance. I drive several hundred miles a week, before this particular servicing my 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid and I could only achieve Mileage in the mid 60s now we regularly get trips into the low 70s.
Our last tank for instance was practically the first full tank after that service visit, 70 and change mpg for 860.3 miles, my longest tank to date and I was not trying for a record. It was also a new personal MPG record, not a bad side effect for a few tens of dollars. We had a 74 mpg partial tank right after that, and this current tank is shaping up at around 72 mpg. 
Don’t be shy, post a comment!
Kacey Green
for the Midlands Hybrid Club
"Choose green personal transportation."
The Midlands Hybrid Club, is the home of the hybrid and hypermiling club of the Carolinas, based in Columbia, SC
My fuel economy, tracked at every fill-up since purchase, your mileage will vary.
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GardenWeasel
said:
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... I found that I get very close to 1.5 mpg better gas mileage on the interstate with 40 psi vice 36 psi...and 40 psi is quite comfy! I ran 44-45 psi for close to 25,000 miles before dropping to 40 psi. I did not really notice any significant drop in FE dropping from 44 to 40, just a more comfy ride. But dropping to 36 is a killer! |
Kacey Green
said:
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... Thank you GardenWeasel, That is great advice for HCHII owners, my own pressures are at a level where I just explain the concept and let folks try their own thing. Its nice to have some feedback about pressures I can mention without scaring people.  |
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