Will Inflating Your Tires Save You Gas? Yes, About $130 Worth.

NASCAR tires (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m interested in simple solutions, and tire inflation seems like that sort of solution.For more on tire inflation, here’s the original discussion.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/4276844

I summarize:

The best tire loses 2-5% of its pressure per month.

Four tires low averages 10% off gas mileage.

Average American drives more than 10,000 miles a year.  (See here for your age adjusted driving average).

Average fuel economy is 28.6 mpg.  (Will be 54.5 with new law.)

Average gas prices 3.50 to 4 a gallon.   Which is between 12.24 cents and 14 cents a mile.  Call it 13 cents a mile.

At 13 cents a mile, the average person is spending over $1300 a year on gas.  And wasting $130 a year by underinflating his or her tires.

So should you inflate your tires properly?  Yes.

According to the Department of Energy, underinflated tires alone cost the country more than 1.25 billion gal. of gasoline annually. (Popular Mechanics article above.)

Now, how can you inflate your tires when air pressure machines get scarcer and scarcer?

One thought I had was to use a bicycle pump.  So does Wikihow.  Youtube has a nice video showing someone pumping up his tire like he was doing CPR. 

So let’s get out there and save ourselves a little money while getting a little exercise.  Or spend a few dollars to have someone else pump the tires up for you.

Related articles

• Tips for Increased Gas Mileage (answers.com)
• Car Care: Tire Inflation (motortrend.com)
• Pump it up: Keeping tires properly inflated gets easier (shopautoweek.com)
• How The Rubber And Air In Cooper Tires Keep Your Car Above The Ground (outofboxwritings.wordpress.com)
• Five Reasons Your Tires Keep Losing Air Pressure (techwench.com)
• 7 tips for saving your driving dollars (metronews.ca)
• How To Squeeze More Savings Out Of The Gas Pump This Summer (roadsister00.com)
• Driving ‘Green’: It’s Easier and Cheaper Than You Think (theepochtimes.com)
• Get Better Fuel Economy (bobbellchevrolet.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of Maintaining Proper Tire Pressure (blinetrafficschools.com)