Archive for August, 2008

Many of the gas saving devices on the market right now fall into the category of a vortex generator. The name of it sounds like something very fancy and that would be complicated to work with. Once you understand the concept of it though it is easy to see how people would assume it could help cut down their use of gas.

This allows there to be air mixed between the air cleaner and the intake manifold. The process resembles a tornado but on a much smaller scale. There isn’t anything type of additive with various ingredients being added to your vehicle which makes consumers happy.

Since there is an unlimited supply of air nothing has to be added to it later on either. These products claim to work by mixing more air with the gas in your vehicle than what is normally found in it. This is to allow it to burn cleaner when it enters the combustion chamber.

Yet what you will find is that your speed is reduced due to this method and so that can result in gas being saved. For those that drive over 60 miles per hour the most, savings will be evident.

However, if you plan to be taking that vehicle on a highway with a speed limit of 75 miles per hour you will have a hard time getting to that speed as well as maintaining it. Your vehicle may start to run sluggish which can mean something with it isn’t being properly operated like it should.

Your vehicle will have to work very hard and that can result in more wear on it. If you have to slow down or stop often it will also reduce fuel efficiency. When you consider the distance a person may travel for fun or to get back and forth to work at those higher speeds it can really be a recipe for disaster for our vehicle. Some of the air injection products offered claim that they can create more heat, and that reduces friction.

As a result of less friction there is less fuel consumed. It is said that there is less work for the liquid gas to be changed into a vapor. The understanding of this particular technique is complex to many people. Therefore they don’t look into it any further.

What is often ironic about gas saving devices and products is that is seems the more complicated they are to understand the more people invest in them. The general consensus of this is that it must be some scientific formula that will work and so it doesn’t matter if the consumer understands it or not.

Well, you can be sure that the manufacturers and the marketers know this. If the gas saving device is too simple then it won’t hold water with most people. Add some tricky terms though and a process that is complex to follow and it will seem logical in many ways. After all not everyone knows ways to save money on gas so they may be on to something.

Regardless of if you understand what that process entails or not, the testing that has been done on many products by professional organizations shows they don’t really work. There isn’t enough significance with that process to allow you to save money on your gas expenses.

You need to get the name of the particular product you are interested in and do your own research on it as well. Chances are there have been reviews of it from individual consumers. You will also find those done by experts that aren’t biased one way or the other. They call it as they see it simply by monitoring their gas mileage before and after using it on a particular vehicle.

All of the data that they use is recorded and shared so there isn’t any secret about how they derived at their final report on things. It is hard to argue with such testing methods when you can see they have done every single step by the book and not gotten the promised results with the given product.

One of these testing gurus is Popular Mechanics. They are well known for offering information and advice about various types of vehicles. They stay on top of current issues and events including high gas prices. They aren’t about to allow their loyal readers to be taken for a ride to listen to what they have to say.

There are many air injection products for gas saving offered on the market. Yet according to Popular Mechanics many of them never even get around to actually adding more air to the fuel like they claim. They believe it just isn’t possible for this to really take place with the design of the vehicles system. This is due to the fact that there is likely to be too much space between where the air intake is and where the fuel is mixed. It doesn’t really matter which type of vehicle you are driving around in, this set up is standard. You can have it modified which will cost you a great deal of money.

Magnets are quite interesting because they have the ability to attract and repel due to the energy they create. We can all probably remember science experiments in school that dealt with magnets. They were actually very fun to play with and to see what they could do.

Magnets of all different sizes are used in our society for a variety of things. We use them to keep things on the refrigerator, to search for items, and to operate various types of devices. Many people view magnets as something scientific though so they assume it may be logical to try using them to save money when it comes to fuel costs.

Many consumers like this idea because they aren’t adding anything to their vehicle in the form of a liquid which often makes them worried. The magnets can be added or removed any time you feel like it. They like the thought of being able to get results without the risk of ruining some part of their engine.

There is also the fact that you don’t have to remember to buy them all the time. With additives you need to get a good supply of them and then remember to use them at the right times. With the magnets you can simply put them on once and then not worry about it again.

Magnets that are offered for reducing the amount of gas that your car uses will cost you between $15 and $40 so that isn’t too much of an overall investment. They can improve your gas mileage ever so slightly but not enough that you will get any real savings out of it. We are talking 10th of a gallon when it comes to measuring the benefits.

These magnets are secured to the fuel line and are believed to change the molecular structure of the gasoline. As a result the types of metals that are used to ionize the fuel will no longer be there. This may all sound good in theory but the reality is that it doesn’t do anything for your gas mileage that is significant enough for you to save any money.

Magnetic gas saving products often have the biggest claims when it comes to how much gas you can save. Many of them boost about a savings of 20% -25% but the testing on such products hasn’t shown hardly any benefit at all, let alone something that substantial.

There is a popular TV show called MythBusters where they take certain products and test them out to see what the results are. They did a show about the use of magnets to increase fuel mileage a while back. You can see parts of it on their website if you missed it.

Several different brands of magnets advertised for saving gas were tried out but the results were similar with all of the ones they tried. They were able to control the variables and tried the use of the magnets under a variety of different conditions.

They didn’t find them to be difficult to put on the vehicle or to remove. They also didn’t find them to offer any significant benefit in the area of gas mileage from them. So the best bet is to skip these types of gas saving devices and use your money for something else.