7 tips to save fuel for your fleet of commercial vehicles

7 tips to save fuel for your fleet of commercial vehicles

Fuel costs represent approximately 30 percent of the total maintenance costs for a fleet of commercial vehicles. In order to optimize performance and increase fuel economy for your fleet, please see below 7 easy to apply tips.

1. Defensive driving

Any auctioning of the break means additional energy consumption. This consumption is bigger when the breaking is sudden. In this respect, defensive driving helps you avoid these situations: adapting your speed to the traffic conditions and to the weather conditions is the first step any drive should take to avoid sudden breaks.

Apart from the fact that you will be able to avoid potential obstacles easier, on a long term, this practice will prove a good ally for fuel economy.

2. Use the double-clutching maneuver

Some experts recommend that you also use the double-clutching maneuver to switch to a lower gear. Practically, from a superior gear bring the shifting into neutral and release the clutch. After you accelerate a little in neutral, release the gas pedal and then downshift to a lower gear.

All these maneuvers must be done quickly and are recommended only to more experienced drivers. However, once done, this maneuver will help you spare the synchronizers which translates into an additional help in the process of maintaining the engine components.

3. Tire maintenance

A low tire pressure will increase the quantity of energy that is lost when the car rolls. Thus you will have a lower fuel consumption.

However, the right tire pressure and an optimal adherence will help you drive safely and at the same time save fuel for commercial vehicles. Constantly check that the tire pressure be right and avoid driving with tires that are too worn.

4. Using the newest technologies available on the market

The auto industry evolves daily, thus switching to the newest technologies available on the market can prove to be a very good investment on a long term. For instance, passing to VI engines combined with using Mobil Delvac 1 engine oils will only lead to gains from the point of view of optimizing the performance of your fleet of commercial vehicles you own.

A similar case is the one of the McLaren Racing fleet of trucks that, after switching to Euro VI engines and adding Mobil Delvac 1 engine oils, has reached an increase in the fuel economy of 6% in only 6 months.

5. Driving at a maximum efficiency speed for your commercial vehicle

Every vehicle has a certain speed that enables it to work at the lowest level of fuel consumption. Generally, this point is reached when the engine rotation speed does not exceed 1500 rpm.

Try to drive so that you reach the point of maximum efficiency (characteristic to the car you drive) as long as possible. Thus you will drove at maximum performance and have a low fuel consumption at the same time.

6. Using lubricants with a potential for fuel saving

A big part of the commercial vehicle operators forget about this extremely simple trick. Using high performance lubricants like Mobil Delvac 1 LE 5W-30 that were created with the specific purpose of saving fuel should be a apriority for you as well.

A test made at Millbrook (one of the top companies in the UK in the field of testing and development) has demonstrated that using Mobil Delvac 1 LE 5W-30 oils for 2 Volvo FM440 trucks has led to an average gain of 1,8 % in fuel saving for those commercial vehicles.

7. Pay attention to the transmission lubricants

Not only high performance engine oils can have a positive impact on performance of your commercial vehicle fleet. Apart from these, transmission lubricants can have the same remarkable properties regarding the potential of saving fuel.

For example Mobilube 1 SHC 75W-90 has been created especially to protect car transmission. Used simultaneously with the Mobil Delvac 1 LE 5W-30 engine oil will offer you an extremely important competitive advantage regarding fuel saving.

Of course the above 7 tips do not exclude other tricks related to defensive driving that most drivers are aware of, but starting with the above 7 and applying them for the entire commercial vehicle fleet you own, you will manage to reduce costs related to fuel consumption and savings obtained can be invested further in developing your business..

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