For McCullom Lake drivers, tracking fuel efficiency is like taking a car’s temperature

One way to check the health of that car out in

your McCullom Lake driveway is to monitor
the car's fuel efficiency.

When you pull out of your McCullom Lake driveway, you’re spending money. When you speed up to pass a slow vehicle, you’re spending more money. The reality is that every drop of fuel your vehicle burns costs you money to get there.

If you haven’t thought about it this way, you may not want to know how much it costs you to drive somewhere. After all, will it help you to know that a 3-mile trip from your McCullom Lake home to Jewel in McHenry may cost you 48-cents to get there and another 48-cents to get back?

Of course, the cost of that trip, in terms of fuel consumption, depends on some variables. For instance, what was the cost of fuel per gallon? How many miles per gallon (mpg) do you get in your vehicle? How heavy is your foot on the gas pedal when you drive? Were you stuck in construction traffic with the motor running?

The idea that the trip would cost you 48-cents assumes that your vehicle gets 25-mpg and you purchased the fuel for $4 per gallon. But why should you want to know that?

If you do have a lead foot when driving, seeing what it costs you to go somewhere may encourage you to go a little lighter on the gas pedal. Depending on your finances, you may scrutinize the necessity of going somewhere before deciding to take a trip. But tracking your vehicle’s fuel efficiency isn’t really about moderating your driving habits.

The real reason you may want to track your gas mileage is that it’s like taking a vehicle’s temperature to make sure it’s not sick.

If, suddenly, your car’s fuel efficiency falls dramatically, you want to ask yourself why? If it has something to do with a deviation from your customary driving habits, at least you’ll know and you can determine what to do about it. But that’s usually not a factor behind a significant change in a vehicle’s fuel economy.

If your vehicle’s mpg drops all of a sudden, there’s a good chance that something is wrong. A problem that affects fuel efficiency can also represent a problem that is doing damage to your car’s engine. Low tire pressure can negatively impact your car’s mpg but you probably wouldn’t expect it to have that big of an effect. Whatever it is, you’ll want to look into it sooner than later.

You might say that tracking your vehicle’s mpg is like taking its temperature. You just want to make sure that it’s healthy.

Checking the gas mileage is fairly easy – it requires a simply mathematical formula.

Determine how far you drove between fillups at the pump
Record the miles on the odometer when you fill the tank
Record the miles on the odometer the next time you fill up
Subtract (2) from (3) – that gives you the number of miles driven between fillups
Record the number of gallons of fuel you’ve pumped into the tank with your latest fillup
Divide the number of miles driven (4) by the number of gallons (5) you’ve pumped into the tank

This number represents your miles per gallon.

Do this every time you fill the tank and you’ll have a running record of your vehicle’s mpg. And the next time you back out of your McCullom Lake driveway, you’ll have an idea if your car’s engine is running efficiently or not.

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing? If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders. Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

October 20 Hootenanny will benefit veterans with PTSD

Been to a Hootenanny lately? When you read that question did you ask, “What?” Well, if you have gone to a Hootenanny in a while, or if you don’t know what a hootenanny is, we have an event for Oct. 20 that will clear up either question. From 6 p.m. to Midnight, Saturday, Oct. 20, MC3, the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce business networking group, is helping to host an inaugural Veterans R&R Wild Horse Hootenanny at Beyond Stable Farm (11129 Rte. 176, Woodstock). The event will benefit Veterans R&R Operation Wild Horse. Operation Wild Horse serves veterans with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Working with the horses has proven to have an incredibly calming effect on the veterans. And, it’s good for the horses, too, rescued wild mustangs. This means that the hootenanny is for a very good cause. But, it’s also a lot of fun. So, what is a hootenanny? According to a Google search, a hootenanny is “an informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.” The V...

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