Driving/fuel saving techniques

Ford and the Eco test

Recently Ford has started to offer a service, where istead of just hearing about how to drive more environmentally, they analyse it for you.

1) You pay them £30 ($45)

2) The check your car over, looking at about 35 different things, such as tyre pressure, fuel and ari filters etc.

3) They fit a data-logger to your OBDII port (where they plug computers to check stuff)

4) You drive around normally for a week

5) Return to the service centre and they print out stuff like typically rev range for each gear change and how hard you brake and accelerate.

It seems to me like a good idea, but I wonder if it’s really a sales tool to get your service/repair business under the cloak of the environmental banner.  I think it would be better if it had say been the RAC or the AA (or other breakdown organisation.)  I can see plenty of people making significant reductions in their fuel consumption, however, will this just be a short-term solution?

Oil price on the rise again

I been following the price of oil on the market for a while now. I’m not actually sure why, but I do.  Whilst it is still half of what is was during the peak or $140 a barrel, $70 dollars is getting towards the figure of $85 OPEC have suggested they would like to see as a longer term satisfactory price.

Does this mean an increase in petrol/diesel at the pumps?  Probably yes, but not as much as you might expect.  The GBP £ has been steadily increasing against other currencies, against the dollar it’s now 1.64.  Which reduces the impact of the world oil price rise.  But the Governments policy of bringing back the fuel tax increase, £0.02 per litre in April 2009 and a similar rise in September, means petrol will break the £1.00 / litre mark and should never drop below it again.  Will this help reduce the number of miles we travel?  Almost certainly no, there is actually little evidence to show that cost and travel (where private cars are involved) are that closely related.  We moan about the cost, but its still very cheap to drive say 10,000 miles a year.  Cheap for us, but expensive for this little old planet of ours.