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Fuel Saving Devices – Are They For Real?
(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
A few years ago, I was approached by a strange man on the street who started chatting and told me all about some stick sort of device he put in his car engine to save him fuel and it was absolutely amazing, blah, blah, blah, and would I like to come to his house and have a look at it? Needless to say, being a smart woman, I did not go off to the home of a strange guy who said he had a stick that did amazing things he wanted to show me… I thought no more about this encounter, especially as I discovered later that this guy was the local loony.
However, I have since discovered that devices that can be attached to car engines to supposedly improve the fuel efficiency aren’t the ravings of a lunatic and aren’t the motoring equivalent of “Would you like to come upstairs and see my butterfly collection?” They are out there on the market, with several made right here in Australia and with lots of people raving about them. However, are these people right to rave about them?
The first type of device is indeed a stick sort of thing – guess I owe that guy an apology for doubting him but I still wouldn’t go round to his place to have a look at it. This claims to be a type of catalyst that cleans up the fuel so there aren’t the little gummy particles and other flaws that don’t burn properly during the brief flash of time that the fuel is in the combustion chamber. In the ordinary way, these large unburnt particles would simply be coughed out in the exhaust system and wasted. By dissolving these particles into smaller bits, the manufacturers claim that you’ll save fuel because you’re actually using what you’ve already paid for rather than wasting it. Well, that’s what they say, anyway.
Turns out their claims about catalysts may not be all that good. The red flags went up for me at one site when they claimed that fuel will get mould and bacteria in it over time. Considering that petrol and kerosene rip living cells to shreds – which is why you should be careful not to get it on your hands and why petrol used to be used to kill head lice – I didn’t quite swallow this one. Secondly, a catalyst is something that prods a sluggish, reluctant reaction into happening. The combustion of fossil fuels isn’t exactly a sluggish reaction for a start – quite the contrary. Lastly, dissolving chunks of grease isn’t anything to do with catalysis (and petrol dissolves grease anyway). A number of them have been banned or severely reprimanded for making misleading claims.
The second main type of fuel saving device consists of a sort of fan thingummy that changes the way that air flows into the combustion chamber, meaning that those nasty big gummy particles get broken up into fine droplets so that they burn cleaner. It supposedly makes the air swirl around in the combustion chamber in a sort of vortex shape, which apparently saves fuel.
There is a third type of fuel saving gadget that involves magnets, which are claimed to line up something in the molecules so they burn better. However, as we all probably learned back when we were kiddies, magnets only work on metal! If there’s metal in your fuel, something’s very wrong with your car. Avoid these things.
A bit of prodding around on the internet suggests that most reputable motoring organisations tend to be very, very sceptical about these gadgets and that most of the claims of great savings come from testimonials and not from properly carried out scientific tests. OK, the claim that parachutes save lives hasn’t been subjected to a proper scientific test either, so simply going on testimonials and empirical evidence isn’t always bad (Smith and Pell, 2003, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/). I don’t want to be close-minded but I don’t want to be a gullible idiot either, so we’d all like to hear from people who have tried them. What has been your experience? Have you managed to save fuel or have you been sucked in by a scam – and with which products?
For those who are interested in saving fuel and want to do things the more conventional way, the following devices are guaranteed and won’t cost you anywhere as near as much as those gadgets in the long run:
- a clean air filter, changed when you’re supposed to do it
- tyres inflated to the right pressure
- your right foot, applied lightly, rather than heavily
And always be as cautious about the claims of device manufacturers as you would be about strangers on the street trying to get you to come back to their place. Some may just be friendly new neighbours but…
Your Teenage Daughter* Is Learning To Drive… The Conversation You Need To Have
So you’ve got your licence – you go, girl! It’s not that long (from Mum and Dad’s point of view) that you were just heading off to school for the first time, so it definitely won’t be long until you will be on your P-plates and really getting some independence.
During this learner licence phase, we’re going to get the basics in place so you become a competent driver who can hold her head up high and won’t give berks an excuse to sneer about women drivers. OK, there will always be some berks who do this, but if you know what you’re doing and you actually are driving well, you can ignore them (and don’t respond – the rule about not feeding the trolls applies to real life as well as on social media).
For a start, I don’t care if your friends are learning to drive in a vehicle with automatic transmission, blind spot monitoring, front and rear parking sensors, cameras and all the rest of it. You won’t be. If you learn to drive on a vehicle that has all the driver aids out there, you won’t learn how to do it for yourself and cope when you buy your first car… which will probably be some second-hand thing from the 1990s or early 2000s that isn’t quite as likely to have any of these things. Yes, this means you will be doing heaps of gear changes up and down the street and the boys from school may see you when you get it wrong… and you will get it wrong occasionally. If they laugh at you, they’re not the sort of guy you want to impress, so just brush them off. Doing it the hard way now will mean that you don’t look or act like a dumb bimbo later.
Before you get behind the wheel, you will hand your cellphone over and remove those high heels. Trainers are fine, but you can’t drive properly in heels. If your outfit requires heels, then change when you get to your destination and don’t wear them when you’re driving. Ditch the flip-flops as well, as they can flip and flop into nasty places, like under the brake pedal so you can’t apply it properly.
Adjust the mirror before you start driving. You should be able to see the road behind you; it’s not for checking your lip gloss.
As well as learning all the basics about driving a car, you are also going to learn a few maintenance basics.
It’s a nasty fact, but there are a few mechanics and similar types who try to rip off women on the grounds that they don’t know anything about mechanics. The more you know about your car and the more you can do yourself, the less likely you are to be ripped off. You will also learn how to change a tyre. If you do get a puncture on a lonely road (or anywhere, really), you want to be the one holding the big heavy metal wheel jack even (or especially) if some guy comes along and offers to help. He may be genuinely trying to help a damsel in distress or he may see you as a vulnerable target. If you have a flat tyre and a guy pulls up and offers to do it for you, smile nicely and tell him “I got it – thanks for the offer.” And keep hold of that jack and your phone just in case he’s a creep.
When the time comes for you to get your P-plates, don’t take it for granted that you’ll be just able to use the family car Shakira-style (whenever and wherever – although you probably think this song is horribly old-fashioned and so yesterday). With privilege comes responsibility, so if you do get the use of our car, you’ll be helping us out either with money for fuel or running errands. We will also be particularly tough on you keeping to the conditions of your licence.
As you learn to drive and start loving it, you may start thinking about what you’d like as a car of your own. Never let anybody tell you that girls don’t drive big bush-bashing 4x4s and vans, or that little hatchbacks are girlie cars. Although cars have names like Megane, Mercedes, Clio and Octavia , they don’t have gender and you can drive what you want to. In any colour you want. In spite of what some people tell you, there is no such thing as a woman’s car or a man’s car. It’s not like bikes, where seat style and frame style make things awkward for skirts or knackers. Cars are built for all humans.
Now grab those keys and let’s get driving!
* The majority of the advice in this article applies to guys as well (although the bits about lip gloss and high heels may not be applicable). It’s just that my daughter did just get her learner’s licence last week. Tailor it to your situation as applicable.
A Few Biofuel Myths Busted
Tons of research is being done in the area of producing biofuels, even if you might not know this when you go to fill up your vehicle. Heck, there’s whole scientific journals – several of them, in fact – dedicated to researching biofuels. A lot of them cover obscure and hard to understand topics, like research to find particular bacteria that are capable of breaking down wood mass so it can be turned into ethanol, but someone’s got to do all the fiddly research if we want something sustainable to put into our cars.
Nevertheless, there are still quite a lot of misconceptions out there to do with biofuels. Biofuels Association Australia, among other people, are doing their bit to educate the public and expose these myths for what they are. Some of these things might have been true in the past but all that research has changed things – but general thinking doesn’t seem to have caught up.
Here’s a handful of these myths that we need to say goodbye to. How many are you guilty of believing?
Myth #1: E10 and similar biofuel blends won’t work in my car.
The truth: If your vehicle was made after 1986 and can run on regular unleaded petrol (91RON), it can run on an E10 blend (that’s 10% ethanol mixed with the petrol) without any hassles. Higher proportions of ethanol and cars that need 95RON or 98RON may be another story and you’ll need to talk to the manufacturers or the petrol companies about whether this will be OK. If you’re not sure about your car and whether it can run on E10, check it out on the E10 OK website https://e10ok.initiatives.qld.gov.au/. (If you’ve got a diesel engine, we can tell you right away that no, you can’t use E10. E10 is petrol. Look into biodiesel instead.)
Myth #2: You have to convert your car before you can use biofuels.
The truth: Once again, if your car was made after 1986 and can run on regular 91RON unleaded, it can take E10 without any hassles. The same goes for your lawnmower, your truck, your motorbike, your boat – anything with an engine.
Myth #3: Biofuels aren’t all that hot for sustainability because they compete with food crops for water, land and fertiliser.
The truth: This can be the case with biodiesel that’s sourced from corn oil. However, the big push these days is to make the most of waste products from the food industry, such as leftover pulp and residues from Australia’s famous sugar industry, wood chips from papermaking, brewery residues, etc., etc. In the biodiesel department, they know that the competing resources issue is a problem, so they’re doing things like researching crops that produce food and biofuel feedstock at the same time, biofuel crops that grow on land that’s no good for food or that can cope with less water, and algae that grow happily in your local sewage pond.
Myth #4: Biofuels cause deforestation.
The truth: For a start off, this certainly isn’t the case here Down Under, as the waste from the sugar industry keeps up a good supply of ethanol. As a matter of fact, this is also the case in Brazil, which also has a big sugar industry – no, they’re not cutting down vast tracts of the Amazon to grow biofuel stocks. To be fair, they may have cut a bit down a long time ago, but most of Brazil’s sugar industry is located a long way from the Amazon. It’s kind of like saying that Queensland’s sugar industry is causing deforestation in Kakadu National Park in Northern Territory – Brazil has about a million square kilometres than Australia, don’t forget.
OK, if you want to get really technical, some of the industries that produce the waste that gets used to make ethanol may have cut down bits of forest that they shouldn’t. However, it’s not the biofuel that’s to blame here but the original industry.
Myth #5: My vehicle won’t have as much power if I use an ethanol blend in it.
The truth: Actually, ethanol has a higher octane rating than petrol, according to Biofuels Association Australia, so you may end up getting more power instead of less with a biofuel blend.
Myth #6: Biodiesel is hard on fuel lines and gaskets.
The truth: this will depend on how old your car is and what your fuel lines are made of. If your vehicle is on the older side and/or you’ve got rubber gaskets and fuel lines, biodiesel will attack the rubber, as it’s a stronger solvent than fossil fuel-sourced diesel. Have a wee chat with your mechanic to see what the innards of your vehicle are made of – if they’re not rubber, you should be all good.
To find out more about biofuels in Australia at the moment and find out the latest, have a browse around the Biofuels Association Australia website (http://biofuelsassociation.com.au/).
Transmission Types Demystified
When I bought my first car (it was a second-hand Simca, known as the French equivalent of the VW Beetle ), there were only two choices when it came to transmissions: manual or automatic, with automatic being the cooler type (contrary to that Greased Lighting earworm from Grease, cars do not come with anything hydromatic or systematic). You had ordinary gear change levers (for auto or for manual) that were located between the driver and passenger seats beside the handbrake but if you had a bench seat in the front, you had column change. Bouquets to you if you can drive a manual with column change – not many cars have this these days, but in the words of one driving instructor, if you can drive one of those, you can drive anything.
Today, you have a few more choices that may leave you a bit puzzled. You get paddle-shifting, CVT, tiptronic, geartronic and dual clutch systems as well as good old manual and auto. Just what are these different types and what do they mean for the driver?
Manual
ManualThis is the good old basic type. You have three foot pedals and a gear stick to play around with. To change gear, you step on the clutch, which sets the levers going that disengages one bit of the gear mechanism from the other bit it’s currently connected to. Then you shove the gear lever into the position indicated for the gear you want before releasing the clutch. You decide when you’re going to change the gear, usually using the number of revs per minute as a guideline. It’s possible to get it wrong with a full manual system: have the engine revs too low for the gear you’re in and you stall (easier to do in a petrol than in a diesel, which is why I would recommend diesel vehicles for those learning to drive a manual). Alternatively, get the engine revs too high for the gear you’re in and you put stress on the engine by making it spin madly (listen to it scream!) and put your fuel consumption through the roof.
Hands-on drivers of the old school like manual vehicles because the driver is in full control of the power, and an experienced driver who knows the torque and power specs of what they’re driving can get the right revs to get exactly the sort of power or torque they need for a particular situation, such as overtaking, towing or hill driving.
Manual is also the hardest to learn how to handle. If you learn to drive on something with a manual transmission, going to an auto or some other system is easy. However, doing it the other way around is hard. This is why you drop your L-plater in a manual car without all the fancy driver aids so he/she learns how to do it for him/herself.
Automatic
Fully automatic transmission takes the problem of deciding when to change gears out of your hands. As you decelerate or accelerate, when the engine gets to the right number of revolutions, it changes for you so you don’t stall or redline. Having one less thing to worry about reduces driver distractions. You don’t have to worry about pushing the clutch in and out, which means you’ve got a foot free, and you can also keep both hands on the wheel while negotiating a roundabout.
You do, however, get a gear lever. Obviously, the car can’t read your mind about whether you want to go forwards or backwards if you’re at a standstill, so you have to tell it via the lever. You can also set the maximum gear you want it to go to when you need to get the revs right to get the power and/or torque YOU want, rather than what the car wants (when overtaking, hill driving or towing, or any combination of the above, although you would be nuts if you tried to overtake while going uphill towing a trailer). These gear levers also have a Park setting (for parking, obviously, so you don’t roll away when parking on a slope; don’t forget to put on the handbrake and turn the wheels to the kerb as normal) and Neutral (for when you’re waiting forever at traffic lights at a standstill or warming up the engine).
Semi-Automatic
Semiautomatic transmission goes by a multitude of names: manumatic, clutchless manual, automated manual, paddle-flappers, paddle shifters, trigger shifting, tiptronic, geartronic, etc. etc. There’s nearly as many names as there are marques. This is kind of like a manual system except you don’t have a clutch pedal to press on. Instead, when you use the levers (usually mounted on the steering wheel; hence the term paddle shifting or paddle-flappers), the engine goes through the disengage-the-clutch-move-to-new-gear-engage-the-clutch routine by itself. This gives you the best of both worlds: the ability to get the power and torque you want when you want it, plus a nice smooth gear change. Many semiautomatics can also go fully automatic if you want them to.
Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT)
In your standard gearing systems (manual, automatic and semiautomatic), you have set discrete gear ratios. You’re either at one gear ratio or you’re at another, like keys on a piano. Not in a CVT transmission. This uses a collection of pulleys connected to a belt, and they can change and adjust very flexibly, so there’s no set ratio of gears – it’s more like a fretless bass or a violin than a piano. Some mechanics have described CVT transmission as being a system that constantly changes gears to whatever’s most efficient.
Smoothness and fuel efficiency are the real benefits of CVT transmission. I can’t say that I’ve ever driven a car with CVT yet, so I can’t describe what driving one is like exactly. However, they say that the more hands-on type of driver doesn’t like the experiences of the revs staying the same while the car accelerates – it’s been compared to being in a motorboat and they say it’s quite unsettling at first.
If you’ve driven CVT, tell us your experience in the comments.
Dual Clutch
This is not the same as double-clutching, which is something that my mother tried to describe. Instead, with dual clutch, you have what is essentially two gearboxes side by side, one with the odd-numbered gears (1, 3, 5 and 7) and another with the even ones (2, 3, 6 and sometimes 8). It’s usually part of an automatic or semiautomatic system, so don’t worry – you don’t have two clutch pedals to stomp on. The two gearboxes work as a tag team: when the odd side disengages, the even side kicks in on the next gear up (think of those dinky old-fashioned weather predictors with the little man and the little woman, where one goes in as the other goes out). This makes for really, really fast changes, which is great for fuel economy.
Again, I haven’t been lucky enough to drive one of these yet, so I’d be keen to hear from those of you who have and want to share their experiences.
Level 2, 9 Help Street