If high gas prices have hit you right in your (too thin) wallet, you may be thinking about finding a good, cheap, used car to rack up the endless miles to and from work every day. Just as declining sales of big SUVs and pickups have have some car dealers’ hair coming out in huge clumps, other dealers are making a fortune selling smaller cars of the gas saving variety. When it costs upwards of $80 to fill up the F-150, many people have decided that it just doesn’t make sense to continue driving such gas hogs any longer. In fact, with some of the real gas guzzlers, you can almost pay for a the monthly payments of another car with gas savings alone!

Here’s an example:
Drive to work each way: 25 miles – part city, part highway driving
Other driving: 500 miles per month
Vehicle : 2002 Ford F-150 4×4 4.6l V-8 pickup
EPA mileage: 14 combined
Current gas prices, regular gas: $3.68 / gallon, nationwide average

That means that in this example, you’d drive approximately 1,600 miles per month. At 14 mpg, your truck would drink about 114 gallons of unleaded regular every month (don’t burn premium in this rig, it’s a waste of money). That would set you back $420 per month.

If you got a used car that gave you 25mpg, you’d drop your monthly gas bill to about $235, or a monthly gas savings of $185. The smaller car would probably be cheaper to insure as well, but I won’t even put that into the equation. Your $185 monthly gas savings could be put straight into a car payment. According to Bankrate.com, if you have good credit you can get a 48 month, used car loan in about 10 minutes from lenders such as FirstAgain at an interest rate of 6.49% (today’s rate).

At that interest rate, a 48 month car loan of $7,800 would get you a car payment of $184.94, right at your gas savings for the month. Here are some of the top gas saving cars you could buy for that $7,800 according to used car values for used cars in good condition from Edmunds.com, fuel economy ratings from the EPA, and vehicle reliability ratings from MSN.

Best Cheap Used Cars to Save Gas With – #5
2001 Acura Integra LS Sedan, 1.8L, 5sp manual trans, EPA MPG 22 city / 28 hwy
This is a great car. It drives superbly, handles well, and returns fantastic gas mileage. The reliability is beyond reproach and the power train is jewel-like. Saving gas in this thing would be a pleasure. About the only disadvantages are that, as a 2001, it’s getting a bit older, so most examples will tend to have racked up a few miles, and they are not the most quiet cars from the driver’s seat. One more issue is that these cars enjoy a strong enthusiast following, so finding one that hasn’t been modified and abused may require a bit of commitment, but would be worth it.

Best Cheap Used Cars to Save Gas With – #4
2005 Ford Focus ZX4 2.0L, 5sp manual trans, EPA MPG 22 city / 32 hwy
This car gets excellent fuel economy, and handles very well. Although not the fastest thing on the road the handling makes it fun to drive and the interior was redesigned for 2005, making it a more palatable place to spend the daily slog. Not super quiet inside, but few econo rigs are. It’s new enough that you should be able to find lightly used examples out there, and it doesn’t command much of a following among the performance oriented crowd, so finding a good one shouldn’t be a challenge.

Best Cheap Used Cars to Save Gas With – #3
2003 Mazda Protege ES 4dr, 2.0L, 5sp manual trans, EPA MPG 22 city / 28 hwy
Good gas mileage, but stellar handling. This thing livens up the drive to work. Not too fleet of foot though, sort of oozes down the road more than scampers. Given the handling prowess, the Protégé is way short of grunt. Pretty good sized interior, so if you have to take your family along for the ride, this’ll do it for you. Not the absolutely highest gas mileage, but would definitely save gas over a big truck.

Best Cheap Used Cars to Save Gas With – #2
2004 Hyundai Elantra GLS Sedan, , 2.0L, 5sp manual trans, EPA MPG 23 city / 31 hwy
Great gas mileage, very good reliability, MSN Autos says “Infrequent problems reported, all with low repair costs” for all categories. The Elantra boasts decent acceleration, and is loaded with features (especially considering the low cost). The reliability should make sure you gat to work every day, and the Elantra’s cockpit isn’t a bad place to spend your drive, but it’s not as nice as the Honda Civic.

Best Cheap Used Cars to Save Gas With – #1
2002 Honda Civic DX 4dr, 1.7L, 5sp manual trans, EPA MPG 28 city / 36 hwy
And here’s my pick for the best cheap, used car to save gas with. Look at that! Buy one of these cars and you’ll get the best gas mileage short of dropping some big coin on a new hybrid. The little (but not too little) Honda really saves gas, but also goes down the road in a quiet, composed way the other cars in it’s class just can’t quite match (unless the road starts to get curvy). It’s kind of the mirror image of the Mazda; only so-so handling, but a quiet, cushy ride for your commute to work. The Civic was redesigned for 2002, so it looks even newer than it is.

It has a well deserved rep for safety and, like the Protégé, is pretty large inside for a compact car. The cons for the DX version of the Civic is that you can’t get ABS, and many of these cars may not have A/C. That last one is obviously a deal breaker if you live in Phoenix, Dallas, or Bakersfield.

The Smart ForTwo, built by Mercedes as an ecologically responsible answer to the world’s environmental and gas problems is tiny, gets good gas mileage, and takes up little space. It is so smart it even has smart in its name; since it is Smart ForTwo, it’s presumably twice as smart. But, is it really, or is it a dumb idea?

Say what you want about Mercedes prodigious engineering know how, I think their smart car is really a dumb idea and here’s why:

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 7 -
Right from the top, who the hell in MB’s product planning department thought that an economy car that burns premium gas is a good idea? Right from the get go, you’re at a fuel economy deficit over a car that gets the same gas mileage, but burns regular grade gas. Currently, the U.S. national average for premium is $3.92/ gallon, for regular gas it’s $3.68. That means you’re at a 6.5% disadvantage before you burn your first gallon. That means that, while the Smart ForTwo has an 2008 EPA rating of 33 city / 41 hwy MPG, compared to a car that burns regular gas, it’s closer to 31/39 mpg.

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 6 -
The reason that the smart gets the fuel economy numbers that it does is due to it’s light weight and 71hp, 1 liter engine.Unfortunately, even with a curb weight of only 1,800 lbs, this thing is really slow. The performance is just plain terrible. Not that it’s raison d’etre is to win races, but being able to get out of it’s own way would be nice.

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 5 -
The Smart only has an 8.7 gallon fuel tank, restricting range between fill ups to about 250 miles of in town driving. While the typical use of this vehicle is not long distance, freeway jaunts, you’d only get a hair over 325 miles before you had to pull into the petrol station for another round of Chevron’s finest (there’s that expensive, premium gas again).

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 4 -
Being small just doesn’t get you anywhere in most places. Unless you can convince your city to let you park with another of your Smart owning friends in the same parking spot, a parking spot is the same size, weather you own a Smart For2, or a Hummer H1. That means that they’ll still take up just as much room to park on our city streets, and you still will have to pay $15 to park when you go downtown.

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 3 -
Unless you’re only taking your laptop to work you, probably wouldn’t take one of these cars downtown though, because they have no room! You couldn’t take you and a friend shopping, unless you were looking for diamonds and iPODs, as you’d have no place to put both yourselves and your stuff for the drive home.

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 2 -
It really doesn’t get very good gas mileage, especially given it’s abbreviated stature. There are several “real” (dumb??) cars that get close to or better gas mileage. If one factors in the premium fuel requirement noted above, it gets even closer. If you include hybrids, all bets are off, because hybrid cars will absolutely clobber the Smart when it comes to gas mileage. Unfortunately they tend to command premium prices, too. You could however, consider the Toyota Corolla (28/37mpg, regular), Toyota Yaris (29/36mpg, regular), and if you wanted to have a ton of fun and burn premium gas, a Mini Cooper, or Mini Cooper S (both get 26/34mpg, premium).

Why the Smart ForTwo is a Dumb Idea 1 -
The real reason that the Mercedes Smart ForTwo is a dumb idea is that for about the same money you can drive a real car that just gives you so much more, while still getting fantastic gas mileage (on regular gas). You can get almost the same gas mileage, transport 4 people in relative comfort, get more performance, have room for your packages and grocery bags, etc. In short (no pun intended) you’ll be driving a real car and still conserving gas. If you want to get a hybrid, you’ll be driving a real car and saving even more gas.

Maybe the Mercedes Smart ForTwo is an idea who’s time has come, and judging from the waiting list many think it has, but for my money, I’ll twist the keys to a Mini Cooper or a Corolla.

Until Next Time.

Do you want to increase fuel mileage? You’re not alone, because even as fuel prices are falling, the subject of lowering fuel costs is still very much on everyone’s mind. The best way to lower your fuel costs is your optimizing your driving style to increase your fuel mileage. On the chance you already drive like Tony Stewart on his last gallon, you can also make some modifications to your car that will increase your fuel mileage.

There are 3 top modifications that should be looked at when considering making changes to your car in an attempt to find some additional MPG. Thankfully these aren’t overly expensive, will not, in most cases void your manufacturer’s warrantee, and are fairly easy to install with basic tools. As an added bonus these mods will increase your driveability, horsepower and just plain make your car run better.

Here are the best 3 car modifications to increase fuel mileage:

Modification to Increase Fuel Mileage #3 -

A Cold Air Intake Kit – A cold air intake, wonder of wonders, lets your engine breathe cold air from outside the engine compartment, much like it’s name would suggest. Cold air is denser, so more oxygen is contained in every unit of volume. Basically your engine can take a deeper breath with less effort. In addition, most cold air intake kits do away with such bothersome intake tract impediments as resonating chambers and sound deading flow restrictors. This means that the engine can breathe better, especially in the upper end of the RPM range.

An aftermarket cold air intake’s effectiveness varies depending on the efficacy of the original factory airbox, intake plumbing, and filter combination. Some cars see better gains than others. You should see a 3-5% increase in fuel economy and between 0 – 25hp gain by replacing your factory intake with an aftermarket kit.

Cold air intake kits are available for most leading vehicles, weather diesel or gas powered. Some of the leading manufacturers are K&N, Injen, Bully Dog, AirRaid, and AFE. The better kits are well engineered and have a divider to separate the intake inlet from the hot air in the engine compartment. You get what you pay for. Some of the kits are very complete and well made, while others are decidedly less so. You can see the K&N version here.

Modification to Increase Fuel Mileage #2-

A performance programmer. Modern engines are completely computer controlled, and that’s one of the reasons they are so efficient and run so cleanly. It’s also the reason you have to have a degree from MIT to consider working on them. Emissions of a typical car are about 1/100 of what they were 3 decades ago when emission controls consisted of only a catalytic converter and PCV valve.

Cars today use less fuel, produce more power, and require less maintenance than those of yore. Again, this is thanks largely to the computer, known as the engine control unit, or ECU, a nod to the fact that the little box of chips controls virtually every aspect of engine operation. This includes ignition timing, fuel mixture, fuel timing (on certain vehicles), throttle control (on drive by wire vehicles), cruise control, transmission control, and anything else that the manufacturer, Uncle Sam, or the EU deems it necessary to control.

Soon, reports are that not only will it monitor every aspect of your car’s performance, but it may read your mind as well, on the chance you may want to have a little fun behind the wheel. In any case, the computer can be reprogrammed to optimize the car’s engine and transmission to do your bidding, weather that is getting better gas mileage, towing a trailer, or laying down better times at the strip on Friday night.

There are ECU reprogrammers available now, such as leading programmer manufacturer Hypertech’s new Max Energy E-CON unit (You can get a Max Energy here) that are specially designed just to optimize fuel mileage. If you have one vehicle that’s could wind up saving you big money, but just imagine if you owned a business fleet of 30 – 100 vehicles! Even a 5% – 10% fuel savings could really add up, yet some people report exceeding even these figures. As with any such modification, your mileage may vary (and it probably will). Also remember that the largest factor concerning your mileage is you, the one with your foot on the gas (or diesel) pedal. If you’re not smart about that, all the programming in the world won’t help.

Modification to Increase Fuel Mileage #1-

The number one modification to increase fuel mileage is a performance exhaust system. Freeing up the exhaust will let the engine breathe, and give your car more power and better gas mileage. If you have a very high performance car, like a Corvette or Porsche, your gains will be less on a percentage basis, because these vehicles are already optimized more toward the performance side of the spectrum. For most of the rest of us, there are gains to be had here. In many cases there are additional benefits, such as lighter weight and a more powerful tone. The benefits of that last one are open to debate, depending on weather you love the automobile as a friend or view it as an appliance.

The reason that changing the exhaust system ranks as the number one modification to increase fuel mileage is that it is typically very effective, and easy to install. As performance modifications go, exhaust systems tend to be fairly inexpensive too. They are pretty easy to install for anyone that fancies themselves moderately skilled with a set of tools. Many can be installed in a few hours or less. In many cases removing the rusted old system can take more time and cause more damage to your ego than actually installing the new one.

Be aware that there are large differences in quality when considering an after market exhaust system. The better ones are constructed of stainless steel, a material befitting the hell an exhaust system is put through on a daily basis. Heat and moisture, two things an exhaust system must deal with, can reduce any standard metal component into a quivering, whimpering blob of corrosion, so making an exhaust of stainless is a wise investment in the future.

To make an exhaust system function correctly is an engineering feat. It’s not just bolting on a larger pipe and free flowing muffler. The system must be tuned for the specific engine, rpm range, and requirements. For example, a race system will generate great power, but it will be noisy and the power will be developed mostly in the very upper reaches of the rev range. Not the thing when you’re stewing in traffic and want to jump into a hole in the adjacent lane. For that you’ll need some torque, or you’ll get squashed by the traffic coming up behind you. That’s why an exhaust system must be properly designed if the goal of better gas mileage and more power is to be achieved.

These guys usually have great discounts on performance exhaust systems from most of the leading manufacturers. Click here – They’ve got an easy application to find a mileage boosting exhaust system for your specific vehicle. For a limited time you can click here to save up to 57% on a Volant performance exhaust system.

If you are considering doing a modification or two in an attempt to squeeze a few extra miles from a gallon of fuel, these are the 3 you should look at first. Look in a mirror to see the thing with the most potential to increase your fuel mileage, then order that exhaust system!

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