Did you know that an idling car produces as much pollution as one that is driving? Or that every day millions of Americans allow their vehicles to idle, sometimes for hours?
In New York City alone, idling cars produce as much as 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year! You would need to plant trees in an area the size of Manhattan just to offset the effects of the exhaust fumes.
We know this might seem a little too “rah rah” environmentalist for some of you, but turning off your vehicle doesn’t just help the planet; it helps your pocketbook too.
Idling is Old School
Back in the days of carburetors and chokes it was a near necessity to warm-up your vehicle before driving it. Today however, all cars come equipped with a fuel-injected engine. That means warming up your vehicle is unnecessary because it warms up faster by being driven than by sitting idle. In fact, it takes only 30 seconds of driving for oil to circulate your engine entirely.
Go Idle Free
After a period of 10 seconds it has been proven that idling wastes gas. You burn less fuel if you turn your vehicle off and then restart it than if you leave it running.
Stopping and restarting the engines tends to get people worried about the life of their battery and the added wear and tear it must go through in order to turn off and on so much. This cost amounts to no more than an additional $10 a year, which is significantly less than the amount of money it costs to idles you vehicle (anywhere from $70-650 a year depending on your engine type and fuel intake).
For every hour that your vehicle spends idle…
- You spend between 1/5 to 7/10 of a gallon of gasoline
- A diesel truck will burn approximately one gallon of fuel
- It releases 6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air
Ask one of our agents at Texan Insurance about more ways to save!
