Cut your motor running costs

According to AA Ireland, a Ford Focus 1.4 (Ireland’s best selling new car) driven 16,000km a year will cost nearly 70 cent per kilometre to run. 

While the AA Ireland estimations assume that you are paying roughly €4,000 a year for garage or parking costs, and over €1,000 in interest on a car loan, it’s still a lot.

Few of us would even consider giving up our cars as belt-tightening measure, but there are a variety of relatively painless practical tips to that can help offset the cost of buying and running your motor.

Buy a used, not a new car

The advantages of buying used are stronger than ever before. Cars are more durable and dependable, servicing intervals are longer, and the depreciation hit is considerably less than with a new car. But more crucially, Irish used car values have been sharply hit by a combination of the economic slowdown and the VRT and motor tax changes to new cars.

Downsize a car class

If you’re still determined to buy a new car, consider downsizing to the class below your normal car size of choice. The recent changes to VRT and motor tax now favour cars with lower CO2 emissions, which invariably means smaller cars. If you drive a VW Golf, consider a VW Polo. If you normally run a Ford Mondeo, you could consider a Ford Focus, and so on. Cars in general have gotten bigger and fatter over the years. For example, today’s Opel Astra is much the same size now, inside and out, as a 1998 Opel Vectra.

Shop around for car insurance

Insurance premiums have come down significantly in recent years, but they are now starting to creep up. The motor insurance cost comparison on the Financial Regulator’s personal finance website, www.itsyourmoney.ie, will give you an idea of what the going rate should be. When shopping around, be sure use your renewal quote as a bargaining tool to get other insurers to offer you a better deal.

On long journeys, bring a flask of coffee/tea

While this tip not strictly related to motoring costs, most long car journeys down the country will usually involve a pit stop at a petrol station/convenience store. So in order to resist the temptation to purchase overpriced takeaway coffee or tea in these places, invest in a flask. The great thing is you can bring as much as you want, AND it will stay reasonably hot for most of your journey.

Look for the cheapest petrol stations online

Until fairly recently the only way to find the petrol station with the cheapest petrol or diesel was through word of mouth. But it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a website that listed the cheapest and most expensive petrol prices in the country. Up and running since 2006, www.pumps.ie is continously updated by road warriers all over the country. The information is free but depends on registered drivers regularly logging on and updating the latest prices that they spot while on the road.  It also lists average petrol/diesel prices based on the information it receives.

Service your older car at an independent garage

If your car is over four or five years old and therefore long past its warranty period, get your servicing done at independent garages who will charge a lot less than your franchised dealer. Some may worry that this will undermine the service history, but as long as you have all the paperwork, it will still count as a full service history when you come to sell it.

Adopt a gentler, smoother driving style

Generally, fuel consumed in everyday driving is lost in many ways, such as engine inefficiency, aerodynamic drag, rolling friction, energy required to climb hills, and energy lost to braking. Eco-driving, or ‘hypermiling’ as it’s sometimes referred to, can influence all of these.  Eco-driving is about driving in a style suited to modern engine technology: smart, smooth and safe driving techniques that lead to average fuel savings of 5-10%, according to several studies.

Check tyre inflation every week

Under-inflated tyres means higher fuel consumption and greater wear and tear on tyres, so you should make a point of inflating them every two-three weeks, something that many of us neglect to do. If you drive an older car without the benefit of power steering, you at least have a foolproof warning system for telling you when your tyres are under-inflated: your steering gets heavier. But the vast majority of modern cars have power steering systems, so it’s much more difficult to tell.

Check out cheaper breakdown cover

The AA or Hibernian Rescue’s standalone breakdown cover is not exactly cheap, so you should ask yourself if you could live with a no-frills breakdown service offered by some insurance companies or brokers. For example, First Ireland, an insurance broker, offers a full breakdown cover policy for as little as €39 a year and includes home repair, 48-hour car replacement and overnight accommodation. However, the service depends on a network of local contractors or garages rather than the AA or Hibernian’s dedicated network of specially trained and branded patrols. Research by consumer magazine Which? in the UK shows that there is a greater chance that local contractors generally won’t reach you as quickly, and be less likely to fix your car by the roadside as dedicated breakdown services like the AA. Insert link

Car sharing/pooling

Finding a car-sharing partner means you can share petrol costs and have some company during the boring commute to work. Thanks to the internet, it is relatively easy find other car-sharers, whether you are a driver or a passenger. This is particularly true if you work for a large corporation or a university, as the chances are there may be a car pooling scheme in operation. Several international sites such as carpoolworld.com and carshare.com are open to Irish users, while www.dublintraffic.ie also offers bulletin boards for carpoolers as well as an option to register specific details about commuting routes. A more advanced link-up system between commuters and drivers is Swift Commute (www.swiftcommute.ie), which includes an algorithm that matches potential carpoolers based on their map co-ordinates.

Cut out car journeys of less than 2 miles

A car engine needs to be driven for a bit more than 2 or 3 miles until it reaches its peak operating efficiency. According to the AA, fuel consumption is worse when the engine is cold and pollution will be greater too until the emissions control system gets up to normal temperature. So short journeys are not just bad for the car, it’s bad for fuel consumption and the environment. Cycling has become the way to get around for short journeys if you’re in too much of a hurry to walk. If you haven’t darkened the doors of a bike shop in years, pop in and have a look. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how much bicycle design has moved on since the rickety 10 speed racer you last rode. They’re safer, more comfortable and are capable of carrying quite heavy loads.