Car Hire Tips UK

If you’re looking for cheap car hire, most of the tips you’ll read, including a lot of those here, will tell you how to get the cheapest price when you rent a car. But there are more ways to cut the cost of your car hire than just the price you pay for the rental.

With the ever increasing price of fuel these days following a few simple rules to cut the amount of petrol (or diesel) you use could end up saving you a lot of money. Luckily, rental cars are usually well maintained and the tyres correctly inflated so they should already be reasonably efficient to start with.

Avoid short trips
Avoid taking lots of short journeys if possible. Try to combine short trips so that once you warm up the engine, you keep it running for a while. Continually warming up your engine for lots of short journeys will waste fuel.

Turn off the air conditioning
Try not to excessively use your air conditioning, as this will cause your car to burn more fuel. On the other hand, driving with the windows down is also inefficient as the drag on the car increases, especially at high speeds.

As a general rule, it’s most efficient to use air conditioning for motorway driving only when necessary and wind the windows down on slower journeys.

Drive Slower
Avoid erratic driving. Driving like a boy-racer by flooring the accelerator at the lights when in a rush or slamming on the brakes when driving too fast you will increase your cars fuel consumption (up to 60%). Try to accelerate and brake smoothly and steadily to improve fuel economy as well as your road safety.

Drive at the recommended speed. If you drive too fast you will notice your fuel gauge dropping quickly. Every 5 miles per hour that you drive over 60mph can reduce your fuel economy by 10%. If you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, doing 70mph will use between 20% and 30% more fuel than doing 50mph - suddenly being stuck behind a lorry doesn’t seem so bad!

Don’t rev the engine. Revving the engine whilst stationary does nothing except waste fuel!

Lose excess weight
Avoid driving with an unnecessarily full car. An empty roof rack or a full boot will add to your fuel consumption.

Avoid idling
Avoid excessive idling of your engine. Many people run their engines whilst stationary in order to warm them up but the car is then consuming fuel but not going anywhere. Instead invest in some decent de-icer and try to drive off straight away.

If waiting somewhere for more than a few minutes, waiting to pick someone up or stuck in a  traffic jam then it is often more economical to switch the engine off. Idling also adds to pollution.

Use the gears wisely
Drive in the correct gear. The correct use of gears can make savings on your fuel bill of up to 15%! Most fuel is consumed in the lower gears when starting as more power is needed but when driving at higher speeds you should drive in the highest gear possible for best fuel economy.

Read the road ahead
When driving, try to look ahead and read the conditions of the road. Look out for anything that might require you to slow down or stop such as traffic lights or someone attempting to park. By anticipate what is coming up, you’ll not only be a safer driver, but you’ll save fuel by starting to slow down early and not needing to come to a stop.

So, follow this simple guide and you save a few more pounds.