Finding the Best Car to Fit Your Lifestyle in the San Antonio Area

By Maureen Condon

Is Your lifestyle family-oriented? sports-oriented?

It’s always helpful to consult the experts, online or in person, before buying a new car.


Typically, you check what the experts have to say about safety ratings, price, maintenance costs, and warranties -- all the standard measurements.


But how about checking in with the experts to see what’s the best car for your lifestyle?


• Do you use your car mostly for family travel and errands in your San Antonio area?


• Do you use your car mostly for sports and fun outdoors? Are you an off roader, a weekend athlete, a sun lover or just a person who wants to have fun driving?


• Are you mostly concerned with commuting issues – like safety features, gas mileage, reliability and driving comfort -- because you spend so many of your non-working hours commuting?


• Are you a construction worker, electrician, plumber or other on-the-go type of worker who needs reliable transportation that can double as a staging area for your job?


• Are you the boss in the corner office who needs to look the part, especially when pulling into the company parking lot?


• Are you more concerned about the environment and your impact on it, than anything else?


Whatever your lifestyle and concerns, now there’s an easy way to consult the experts on this topic. Visit: http://www.cars.com/go/criteriaSearch/lifestyles.jsp


Click on the lifestyle that best matches your own, and you’ll get a complete rundown on makes and models that are best suited to you.

The Not-so-Obvious Ways to Drive Greener

Driving in a greener direction...


You want to drive green. You’d love to drive a car powered by completely clean fuel, with no waste products to foul the environment or threaten your health.


Well, we’re not there yet. But, there are some obvious and not-so-obvious things you can do to drive in a greener direction. Before you buy your next car, consider the following options.

The Not-so-Obvious Options (source: Edmunds.com):

1. Go Lean with Engines and Options

Engine and transmission choice can make a big difference, even within the same vehicle family.


Curb weight also makes a difference. Options like four-wheel drive and third-row seats add weight to your vehicle and increase fuel consumption. Skip these, if you don't really need them.



2. Shut Off Some Cylinders



To improve fuel economy and reduce emissions, some automakers have created systems that deactivate half an engine's cylinders during certain driving conditions. Chrysler introduced the second generation of its Multi-Displacement System (MDS) on the 2009 5.7-liter Hemi V8, which can improve fuel economy by up to 20 percent on models such as the Chrysler 300C and Dodge Challenger R/T.



If you're shopping for a Honda Odyssey, consider getting either the EX-L or the Touring model. These trim levels have the same size V6 as the lower trims but with Honda's second-generation Variable Cylinder Management, which improves the van's EPA ratings from 16/23 mpg to 17/25.





3. Consider the Car’s Components and Content



Many automakers are using green materials, including recycled components and parts made from plants. Volvo goes especially far to ensure that its interiors are environmentally friendly (and good for allergy sufferers) by minimizing the amount of nickel released from surface treatments and by using environmentally certified fabrics and chromium-free leather.




4. Compare Car Manufacturers’ Factories

Some automakers have made huge strides in greening up their manufacturing facilities — and you can reward them for their efforts. Subaru has received accolades for its "green" manufacturing facility in Indiana, and Honda has committed to achieve and maintain ISO 14001 certification for environmental management at all of its North American plants. These are the toughest international standards, and cover such factors as waste disposal, water treatment and energy use.

Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant at the Rouge Center in Michigan has the world's largest living roof, with 10.4 acres of drought-resistant plants busy absorbing CO2. The factory also has the world's largest porous parking lot, which is part of a water clean-up system. Its fumes-to-fuel program captures paint fumes and converts them to hydrogen to power a stationary fuel cell at Dearborn and at two other U.S. manufacturing facilities.



5. Pick a Green Award Winner



Quite a few groups give green awards. For example, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) rates vehicles according to the health problems caused by the pollutants they emit (including greenhouse gases), and it factors in estimated pollution from vehicle manufacturing and the production and distribution of fuel. Diesels have been beating out hybrids for some of these awards recently, including Green Car Journal's 2010 Green Car of the Year award, which went to the Audi A3TDI.


Here’s a list of the more obvious choices you can make to drive greener:

1. Drive a Hybrid or a Clean Diesel

You can lower your fuel bill and reduce emissions with hybrids such as the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Toyota Prius, which can run in electric-only mode when you're puttering along in rush-hour traffic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rates the front-drive 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid at 41 mpg city and 36 mpg highway, while the 2010 Prius is rated at 51/48 mpg.

The introduction of new technology, meanwhile, has allowed diesel-fueled cars to be just as clean at the tailpipe as regular cars while also getting better fuel mileage. Volkswagen's 2010 Jetta TDI has a 30/41 mpg EPA rating.



2. Pay Attention to Fuel Consumption


To learn more about improving your fuel economy, check out Edmunds.com Fuel Economy Center.

http://www.edmunds.com/fueleconomy/index.html

3. Emit Less Pollution

Check out the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Vehicle Guide to see air pollution scores for any vehicle. The listing is searchable by state, so you know the vehicles sold in your state will perform as indicated.

4. Buy A Smaller Size Car



Buying a small car is the best way to reduce your car's environmental impact. The Honda Fit, for instance, is incredibly roomy and versatile on the inside despite its small overall size. It's also one of the most fuel-efficient small cars you can buy, with an EPA rating of 28/35 mpg for a 2010 model. Other top small but enjoyable-to-drive cars include the Hyundai Elantra and Ford's Fiesta.


5. Monitor Your Tires



Underinflated tires result in increased tire wear as well as reduced fuel economy. Plus, they adversely affect handling, increase stopping distances and increase the chance of tire failure. You also can choose tires for your vehicle that provide better fuel economy. Goodyear's Assurance Fuel Max tire provides 27 percent less rolling resistance than a standard Goodyear Assurance tire, equating to 4 percent better fuel economy.


6. Choose a Better Route



Real-time traffic reports tied into a GPS-based navigation system make it easy to find less congested routes. By avoiding stop-and-go traffic, you improve your fuel economy. Many vehicles with factory-installed navigation systems include real-time traffic information, and similar capabilities also are available from aftermarket companies.

For more information, visit:

http://www.edmunds.com/reviews/list/top10/146306/article.html

Hypermiling – A Passion? An Obsession? The Wave of the Future?

Hypermiling is alive and well, despite some bad press generated over the past few years by overenthusiastic practitioners who took extreme and unsafe driving techniques to the max in their pursuit of ever higher miles per gallon records.

Notwithstanding, there is growing interest in all the ways hypermiling can be implemented to boost automotive fuel economy and reduce green house gas.

What is hypermiling?

Wikipedia defines it as: The act of driving using techniques that maximize fuel economy. Those who practice these techniques are referred to as "hypermilers."

But the real definition of hypermiling is being forged on the street – by whiz kid college students, as well as ordinary, middle-aged, frugal-in-the-extreme drivers.

Just this week (March 29, 2010), Laval University students, from Quebec City, Canada, took the grand prize at Shell’s annual Eco-Marathon, in Houston, TX, with a prototype vehicle they designed that squeezed 2,487 MPG out of a combustion engine-powered car. This was the second year in a row that students from the school took home the grand prize in Shell’s annual Eco-Marathon Americas — last year Laval set a 2,757.1 MPG record.

To read more, visit: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/29/university-students-build-2487-mpg-hypermiling-supercar/

Shell Eco-marathon Europe, which will be held May 6-7, 2010, will host more than 200 teams from a total of 24 countries. The challenge is simple: to design, build and drive the most fuel-efficient vehicle. The goal is not to break speed records or be the first to cross the finish line but to consume as little fuel as possible over a set distance.

To learn more, visit: http://www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/europe/

But, most hypermilers aren’t getting quite that many miles per gallon. Still the numbers are impressive. The ordinary man or woman in the street hypermilers are getting close to 80 miles per gallon in today’s conventional cars. It’s not done with smoke and mirrors. They do it by using a potpourri of special driving techniques. Here are just a few of them:

1. Use a Digital mileage gauge: This device hooks into the vehicle's computer and gives instant feedback on fuel consumption, allowing drivers to see what practices burn excess fuel. It costs about $150.

2. Inflate Your Tires: Filling tires to the recommended or maximum pressure can have a big impact on fuel economy. While there is less friction in a highly pressurized tire, it also can make the ride bumpier.

3. Keep Speed Down: Varying speeds can be ideal for gas mileage, but driving more than 60 mph always decreases fuel economy substantially. Every 5 mph over 60 mph reduces fuel economy by the equivalent of 30 cents per gallon.

4. Minimize Weight: Keep the car as light as possible. Every 100 pounds off the vehicle can increase fuel economy by 1 percent to 2 percent.

5. Lay off Gas and Brake Pedals: Only use the pedals when absolutely necessary, which means keeping an eye on the road ahead and planning your drives accordingly. Don’t accelerate toward a stop sign. Coming to a complete stop nets 0 miles per gallon, so setting a pace in a traffic crunch and timing green lights can go a long way toward helping gas mileage.

Your driving style has enormous impact, and, in fact, hypermiling is an attempt to control that style to maximize mileage.

You can hear what the real aficionados of hypermiling are taking about if you join CleanMPG.com and visit its forum, http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/ run by hypermiling Guru Wayne Gerdes.

And if you’d like to spread the word about hypermiling as you drive, you can get a bumper sticker at: http://www.cafepress.com/hypermiling

You can see some informative videos at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/hypermiling-tips-videos.php

And, for more information on hypermiling, visit these sites:

http://www.hypermiling.com/car-mpg.html

http://www.whatgas.com/fuel/hypermiling.aspx