Why wouldn't you use cruise control? Even for short stints on the highway, it maintains the constant speed better than your foot, so it doesn't deviate the throttle as much as yourself. What happens if a tire blew out? Thats a useless move there. Honestly you never know, and the tire is only 20lbs, you can't seriously get a gain of mpg from that. What not let your engine warm up properly? A cold start engine uses more gas than a warmed up engine, even if you think running it immediately after start will help warm it up. A 2 min warm up will help. Are you carrying something heavy? Over-inflating your tires is only recommended for when you have to compensate for a heavy load. Go by the OEM PSI rating. And plus you wear out your tires sooner.
Honestly you're doing much worse for your V than you think.
I feel you have been misinformed. Let me explain why. First cruise control keeps a constant speed or I should say tries to. It is constantly giving gas to maintain this speed. It can not anticipate a decline where the driver can. If you see a decline coming and you let off the gas totally sure you may slow down 5mph or so but during that time your engine uses 0% of fuel. It uses no fuel while engine braking. Now you get to the decline and the cruise control is trying to keep you at a constant speed. If you are just coasting the vehicle will pick up speed. You will go further on less gas by NOT using the cruise control. And if you think cruise control can maintain speed better then your foot you are mistaken. At least it can not maintain it better then my foot. Cruise control varies +/- 3mph. I have never had one that maintained the speed perfect. Forget cruise control with a 4spd automatic. It will down shift and waste a ton of gas at every little incline.
While I agree not driving with a spare can be dangerous it's not as bad as it use to be. With cell phones, AAA, and over population it's almost impossible to be stranded. Weight savings is beneficial to handling, braking, mpg, and performance. Every little bit does help.
On to the cold start issue. Warming up a car really just means lubricating the head. This process takes about 10 seconds. You can cause serious damage to your vehicle by revving the crap out of it when you immediately start the engine but once oil has flowed up to the head you are good to go. Reason it can cause damage is if you use cheap oil and it doesn't stay stuck on the parts on the top of your engine you will have metal on metal contact. But todays oil, engine tolerances and engineering basically alleviate the need for "warming" the car. Did you know in the UK it is or will be illegal to idle your car? Basically it will be illegal to "warm up" your vehicle.
Let me explain how driving after you start your car uses less gas and can be safe. While that car is running and not moving you are getting 0mpg. You are just wasting fuel. While an engine does use more gas when it's cold it warms up far quicker while driving then sitting still. Plus you are actually using the fuel and getting more then 0mpg. What you should do is start the car. Wait about 10-20 seconds or how I like to do it is the time to put on my seat belt. Then drive the car easy until the blue light turns off. Try to avoid high rpms like highway use or late shifts. I remember this past winter before I was big on mpg I let my car warm up. The car was running for 25 minutes with the heater on and when I want outside the blue light was still on. The tiny 4 cylinder at idle doesn't really produce enough heat, at least here in New England to warm the car up in a timely manner.
As far as tire pressure goes it's tricky. I myself like to keep it what the manufacturer says to 2psi over. That is not enough to cause irregular wear. Reason I go over is because I usually loose a PSI or two while testing how much pressure and over a cold night. I do not like to over inflate too much because it make the ride a little harsher and handling worse.
I'm not concerned about MPG that much, it's not a big deal to me
while it's not a concern for you it is for alot of people. It is a viable one too as gas is over $3.00 gallon here and will be $4.00 mid summer. Getting greater mpgs is beneficial to everyone. It makes us use less foreign oil, makes our air cleaner, saves the person getting good mpg money and gives some of us a little pride.
I just have fun when driving my car. Whatever mileage I get then that's fine with me!
While I'm glad you all do not care what mileage you get and just enjoy your rides again some of us do. I can care less about ebay headlights, HID's, springs or coilovers, or 17" wheels but alot of the people on here like that stuff. Everyone is different, with different interests. I still post in the threads on those subjects saying if I like the way it looks or not and make useful suggestion. What I don't do is post up in them saying "I don't care". Because I know the opening poster obviously does care or they wouldn't have posted.
