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How to beat rocketing petrol prices
By Nikki Watkins
Readers' Replies at end of article
With pump prices now topping £1 a litre in some areas of the UK, the increasing price of petrol is continuing to fuel motorists' anger. According to the AA Motoring Trust, the average driver now spends £1,318 a year on petrol (based on an average 9,000 miles a year).
But while you can't do much about rocketing oil prices, there's plenty you can do to cut your petrol costs. There are now a number of websites, such as petrolprices.com or findcheappetrol.com, that will track down the lowest-priced pumps for you. With petrolprices.com, you simply enter your town or postcode and the site will list the five forecourts in your area offering the lowest prices. As the table shows, shopping around can save you up to 13p a litre - with a 40-litre tank, that's a saving of £5.20 every time you fill up. Also ditch petrol-station loyalty; just because a station offers the cheapest price one week doesn't mean it will the next. And if you're going on a long journey and will need to top up, look into the prices in the area, otherwise you could end up spending more than you need to.
Try a syndicate
It could also be worth signing up to the Pipeline card (pipelinecard.org). This is a petrol syndicate that is aiming to gather a large enough band of frustrated motorists to give their custom to one major forecourt chain in return for a discount of between 5p and 7p a litre. A similar scheme is up and running in the Netherlands, where petrol prices are even steeper than they are here. It's free to sign up and, at the time of writing, the syndicate had recruited 380,000 members. It's hoping to be in a position to start offering discounts in the next couple of months.
Drive more efficiently
You can also try to cut the amount of fuel your vehicle consumes by driving more efficiently. It may be obvious that harsh acceleration and heavy breaking have negative effects on the amount of fuel your car consumes, but did you realise that simply carrying a roof rack will up your petrol consumption? Extra weight can lower your efficiency by up to 2% for every 100lbs (45kg). So make sure you take that extra baggage out of the boot.
Planning a journey ahead is another way to save petrol, as there's less chance you'll get lost. It's also worth travelling when roads are least congested, because driving slowly and stopping continually guzzles the petrol. Driving in the right gear is another way of lowering fuel consumption. The RAC says you should always drive in the highest gear possible without labouring the engine, and you should also think ahead, so you can slow down gradually. It claims that this will increase fuel efficiency by up to a third.
The sort of car you drive also affects how much you spend on petrol. Hybrid cars use a combination of electricity and petrol, making them much more energy-efficient. While this new technology does add a few thousand pounds to the price, these vehicles are much cheaper to run. For example, the Honda Civic Hybrid does an average of 61.4 miles per gallon. Its petrol counterpart, the ordinary Honda Civic, only manages 32-37 miles per gallon. For more information on fuel-efficient cars, visit the Vehicle Certification Agency's website (vca.fueldata.org.uk).
Economical fuel
As well as making our cars more efficient, attempts are also being made to make the fuel itself more economical. Shell, for example, will be rolling out its 'Shell New Fuel Economy Formula' over the next two years. The fuel will be the same price as ordinary petrol, but promises to provide more mileage to the gallon. The new formula was recently put to the test by Australian couple John and Helen Taylor, who set the world record for driving around the world on just 24 tanks of petrol. Driving an amazing 18,000 miles, the Taylors averaged 60 miles per gallon.
Other developments include the creation of 'bio-fuels' and technology that involves running hydrogen over a hot platinum wire to create an electrical charge to run your car, bypassing the need for petrol altogether. But while you're waiting for the technological revolution, you can still save pounds if you just shop around for petrol and drive in a more fuel-efficient way.
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