CODE RED FOR HUMANITY: Car maintenance tips to save money and help planet | Top Story

TRI-CITIES. WA – Keeping up with car maintenance can help you save money and help the environment.

If all Americans kept their tires properly inflated, we could save an average of 1.2 billion gallons of gas each year.

A simple tune-up can boost miles per gallon anywhere from 4% to 40% and a new air filter can get you a 10% boost.

If you are concern about high fuel costs right now, with the price of gasoline exceeding $3.65 a gallon. Bill Merk with Toyota of Tri-Cities said you can save money on gas if you maintain your car.

He says to take good care of it. If you keep your tire pressure up to the manufacturer’s recommendations the car has less rolling resistance and therefore gets better gas mileage.

If you keep the engine serviced properly, change the oil regularly and change the air filter, you will see an improvement from that too.

“Funny that people don’t understand that air filters, as they age and get dirty, they resist the air flow in the engine and the engine needs gasoline and air to operate properly. And clean air is all the better. So there are just little things that you can do. Then, you could slow down too if you want to save some gas money,” Bill Merk, a parts and accessories director, with Toyota of Tri-Cities said.

If you are looking to save even more money on gas, Toyota also sells hybrid cars. In fact, this year all their cars are hybrids.

Bill also makes 90 seconds PSA on how people can live in the car world and take care of their car, you can go to their website at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAnNO-MVZ2LzvW66yI1vtRA.