How To Reduce Your Fuel Costs by Almost HALF | Life Love and Hiccups: How To Reduce Your Fuel Costs by Almost HALF
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Tuesday 18 June 2013

How To Reduce Your Fuel Costs by Almost HALF

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How To Save on Fuel Costs

This post is brought to you by Autogas

I have this extremely absurd, but deep rooted fear of putting petrol in my car that started back in the old days when I was 19 years old.

It was the first time I ever filled a car up with petrol and I did not have even an ounce of a clue what I was doing, but man I thought I was styling rocking up to the servo in my newly purchased red Mazda 323.

To really set the scene, I need to detail what I was wearing - a pretty and floaty green floral button up dress with brand new chunky camel coloured suede desert boots.

Why you laugh?

It was actually a pretty trendy outfit back in the early 90s.

Remember this look?


So anyway I got out of the car and walked around to the back corner where the petrol-tank-flappy-cover-thing was located and I spent the next 5 minutes trying to pry open the petrol flap with a key, a coin and a nail file. I broke multiple nails in my attempts before the guy behind me waiting to fill his car up, cracked the shits and showed me the little button down beside the driver seat that automatically opened the petrol-tank-flappy-cover-thing.

I was what you would call REALLY grateful.

But I was also now a little stressed as reality just popped in with a big hello and laughed at the moron in chunky boots and a red hatchback that had no idea what she was doing.

So this was a little harder than I expected, but still doable.

I shoved the petrol-gun-spout-thingy into the tank and waited for the petrol to come out.

Nothing happened and I looked to the guy behind me again for advice.

"You have to squeeze the trigger" he snarled with disdain.

"Gotcha" I said with my best eyelash fluttering I could muster.

I wasn't impressing anyone, and the now really pissed off guy just mouthed something that I'm pretty sure would make my grandmother blush.

And so I refocused and carefully squeezed the trigger.

Not much happened.

So I squeezed it a little harder.

Yep that'll do it. The damn petrol came gushing out everywhere, all over the car, the ground and ALL over my pretty and floaty floral dress and precious new chunky camel coloured suede desert boots.

Ever since that fateful day I have been petrified of petrol pumps and thankfully my new boyfriend (now my husband) took over petrol duty forever more.

I only had that car for a few years before I was fortunate enough to be given my first company car and I have driven a fully maintained company car ever since, so I have never really put much thought into the costs of owning and maintaining a car.

Cue the sweaty brow and itchy palms as the no job no car reality has just smacked me in the face.... HARD.

I had no idea cars were so flipping expensive and the costs of servicing and insurance and blah blah blah blah. I need to lie down even thinking about it all.

And then there is the cost of petrol.

Holy Smokes, who knew you would need a bank loan to fill your car up every week?

What I also didn't know, is there are alternatives to petrol fuelled cars. Alternatives that cost nearly half as much to fill your car up and run it as petrol does.

The alternative fuel I'm referring to is LPG Autogas.

For roughly $4000 I can convert the car we buy to LPG Autogas and if I apply for the $1000 government grant available for Australians who convert their cars to LPG, it will only cost me around $3000 bucks.

For people looking to purchase a new car that runs on Autogas (Holden and Ford both make new models) there are grants of $2000 available which should pretty much cover any increase in the sticker price

And since LPG Autogas costs around half as much as unleaded petrol per litre - that's going to save me bucket loads more.

I did some rough calculations and added up all the kms we do in our family including shopping, running errands, running kids around to sports and school and parties and I worked out we do roughly 150kms a week. Using the Autogas Savings calculator I calculated we would save $379 a year in fuel costs if not more.

Throw in a couple of weekend and interstate road trips and the installation will pretty much pay for itself in no time.

Save With LPG

We test drove an LPG fuelled car, but if you are looking for a comprehensive run down of the performance and how it drove, you are asking the wrong chick.

What I can tell you that I caned it and it went well and most importantly I was first off at the traffic lights every time. And that's a good thing right?

As for a guys opinion - Carl has one as he drove it too. And despite his initial fears that an LPG fuelled car would be sluggish and smell like rotten egg gas (flashbacks to Taxis from his youth), he was surprised by just how smooth it was and responsive even when dropping back a gear. "It jumped out of the gates and made overtaking a breeze".

Yep what he said.

One of the added benefit is Autogas reduces C02 emissions by up to 15% compared to petrol cars and is much cleaner for the air than diesel keeps the inner greenie in me smiling.

So I'm thinking that my shoes and I are going to seriously look into converting the second hand Ford Territory we are looking at buying over to Autogas, as let's face it, we are gonna need to save money every which way we can now.

And then there is the magical formula that is going through my head that goes something like this;
Saving Money equals a Happy Husband, and Happy Husband equals Happy Wife. Therefore a Happy Wife equals a Happy Life and Happy Shoes equals well ummm Happy Everyone.

For The Win!

Whatever.

If you want more information for yourself about converting your car or how much you will save, check out the AutoGas Website here.