MSE's 2011 Petrol/Diesel Cost Diet Challenge: Put your money where your pedal is!

MSE_Martin

[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] The Petrol / Diesel Diet!
Join together to slash £100s off your petrol bill?
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What it's all about

Petrol prices are prohibitive, yet there are ways to cut the cost. The power of this forum has seen people work together to get debt free, pay off mortgages, save more, deal with dodgy builders and more, so now we want to tackle cutting petrol costs.

What to do

Tell us about your car, your journey and what you're going to do to save. Use the forum as a place to diarise your costs and techniques to cut the cost. Read what others say and share tips.

Feel free to add this slogan to your signature...

Official Petrol Dieter

MSE's tips as a wee starter

• Step 1: Make your car more efficient. Pumping up tyres, getting rid of extra junk, turning off unnecessary aircon and detaching empty roof racks combined can save you 15%. See full car efficiency checklist.

• Step 2: Drive more smoothly. This is the BIG saving, accelerate and brake gently and you can get 20-30% more miles per tank. See full smooth driving guide

• Step 3: Find a target price. Find the cheapest petrol station in your area. See petrolprices.com for current prices and cheap fuel finding section of the MSE guide for more tips.

Yet that's just the beginning

Now let the diet commence

PS. I've been doing this too for a while, here are my efforts...

How much further can you go on a tank?
20% petrol efficiency improvement - while getting engaged!

Floflo_3

The best, and fool proof way to cut petrol costs is to drive less!

Replace a 6 mile commute with a half hour bike ride and you'll save £20 a week on fuel alone. Six miles on a bike can take half an hour - often quicker than sitting in traffic every day!

Get a set of decent panniers and say good bye to the weekly shop. Get supplies from your local town or from near to where you work as and when you need it.

Or if you need to use a train as part of a daily commute cycle to the station, this can save you hundreds of pounds a month in expensive rail car parking.

A daily commute by bike gives you all the exercise you need to be healthy so you can also get rid of you gym subscription.

If you can get rid of the overhead of owning and running a car although that's thousands of pounds saved. Without a car to run train fares start to be become affordable! Even take your bike on the train and save bus / taxi / parking at either end of the journey.

jeanlyon

We have a 1.9 TDI Skoda. So it's diesel. I am managing just over 50 to the gallon on short runs, simply by driving better. I hardly use the brake at all, just take my foot off to slow down and then accelerate slowly. Haven't filled the car for weeks!

We live in a rural area, so cannot use transport to get to work and it's 12 miles. However, I do use my free bus pass to get to the nearest city.

runninglea

hI - up to October was cycling to work two days a week, 14 miles each way. Got it down to about 40 minutes each way

It is a very dark windy road so a bit reluctant to do it at present, however every morning a see the same cyclist as I am driving so need to get a bit braver.

Other three days I work less than 1 mile so walk

daveyjp

Compared to the fixed costs of tax, insurance, maintenance and depreciation fuel is a very small component of car ownership - I'll continue to use my car what it is for - getting me from A to B.

ani_26

I'm constantly on the look out for money saving tips to keep my car on the road.

I bought petrol on monday for 123p a litre, plus shell points, ( thats unleaded). Thats not 3 bad, anyone found petrol cheaper?

ani_26

daveyjp wrote: »

Compared to the fixed costs of tax, insurance, maintenance and depreciation fuel is a very small component of car ownership - I'll continue to use my car what it is for - getting me from A to B.

Unfortunately not , for me. My car drinks fuel, around 20 - 23 mpg.. The everday cost of fuel, really hurts...............................

motorguy

daveyjp wrote: »

Compared to the fixed costs of tax, insurance, maintenance and depreciation fuel is a very small component of car ownership - I'll continue to use my car what it is for - getting me from A to B.

+1

The amount of people who will spend thousands changing their petrol car to a diesel then lose those thousands again in depreciation.... :eek:

Scotty1.7

Petrol proces need to be regulated, Just like Car Insurance.

For every £10 of furl you put in your car - The Goverment get £7-8!

And do we have a fantistic road network to show for it? No
Do we have any viable reliable alternatives? No

Bus's- Cramped, Uncomfortable and over priced
Train's- Were viable till the ticket prices went through the roof
Cycling- Fine in good- reasonable weather, but I like to arrive in work Fresh, relaxed and calm, Not sweaty, smelly and annoyed- not to mention the health and safty impacts due to SOME poor bus drivers/motorists
Walking- Very few people actually live within walking distance of there place of work.

Most Parents do not need a car for the school run- Yet they still have.
Soltoution- Impose a 2nd car tax. If you family has more then one car in it then you should be taxed on it- Irespective of what car it is.

Insurance should be regulated to ensure that everyone gets a fair preimum- not based on someone sticking a finger in the air and saying that someone 10 miles away had a bump so its going to cost you this much. Rubbish- It is YOUR insurance, so it is YOUR driving past that should be looked at. YOU are not paying for Mr Smiths insurance. YOU are paying for YOUR insurance.

Fuel price's should be capped ay £1 per litre- At the HIGHEST. The goverment still gets billions in Tax, The petrol companies still made lots of profit, the price of Oil still fluctuated- and this is going back not more then 8 years when it was less then £1

More ACTION needs to be taken against the petrol companies/ Goverment on this. The British motorist has the worst road quality, the highest fuel cost, highest Insurance cost, Highest Road Tax of all of europe. Its disgussting behaviour.

Just my view though

vikingaero

Scotty1.7 wrote: »

Do we have any viable reliable alternatives? No

No one forces anyone to live in a rural area. You could make the choice to live in a town/city and not have the commuting problem.

Most Parents do not need a car for the school run- Yet they still have.
Soltoution- Impose a 2nd car tax. If you family has more then one car in it then you should be taxed on it- Irespective of what car it is.

Who says that most parents don't need a second car? Most parents I know with 2 cars work and have a need to get children to school and then off to work. People with 2 cars already pay car tax, VAT, 1st registration tax, fuel duty, insurance premium tax etc etc. You want to charge them another tax on top? Quite simply the duty and VAT on fuel is one of the best mechanisms - you drive more you pay more.

Insurance should be regulated to ensure that everyone gets a fair preimum- not based on someone sticking a finger in the air and saying that someone 10 miles away had a bump so its going to cost you this much. Rubbish- It is YOUR insurance, so it is YOUR driving past that should be looked at. YOU are not paying for Mr Smiths insurance. YOU are paying for YOUR insurance.

And I don't want to pay for all the uninsured drivers on the road but I have to.

Fuel price's should be capped ay £1 per litre- At the HIGHEST. The goverment still gets billions in Tax, The petrol companies still made lots of profit, the price of Oil still fluctuated- and this is going back not more then 8 years when it was less then £1

So where do you propose the Govt make up the shortfall in taxation? 30% standard rate of income tax?

More ACTION needs to be taken against the petrol companies/ Goverment on this. The British motorist has the worst road quality, the highest fuel cost, highest Insurance cost, Highest Road Tax of all of europe. Its disgussting behaviour.

You've not seen unleaded prices in Germany, Netherlands or some Scandinavian countries then?

Scotty1.7

The option of moving into the town- would equal higher costs of living, thus negating the reason for moving. That is a double edged sorwd so a argument on that could run for many decades

I've not seen the prices in europe, so apologies if that was wrong but going off what I have read regarding the people going across channel to fill up the last few eyars I took that to be the case.

The Goverment can make up the differnce by stopping helping other nations out of there issues, cutting imergration, stopping benefits and getting those people who are to lazy to work, to work fixing the roads. Just so you all understand that is those who are not working when they should eb a claiming fraudulantly- Not those who are unable to work for any other reasons.

I agree with the uninsured drivers comment- we shouldn't pay for them. It should be a instant 6 month custodial sentence, with a no good behaviour clause.

I see your point with the 2nd car, but I don't agree that they need such large cars. Does a family with 1-2 children need a massive people carrier? Why have 1 massive car ( which lets be honest in most case, not all but most is taken by whoever goes early to work) and small one. 2 small cars Polo Bluemotion/Toyota IQ etc woudl suffice for those needs- And they are cheap to run and cheap to tax(Free in the case of the 2 examples given)