Lesson 6: Parking
You might not believe it, but parking costs you a lot more than just exorbitant meter or hourly rates! It doesn’t make much sense from a fuel economy standpoint to aimlessly drive in circles, stopping and starting repeatedly just to find a place to park your car. By applying your ecomiling mind to parking, you can save money both on the road and in the parking lot.
Insofar as parking is concerned, I’ve just given you the most pertinent and probably most valuable piece of advice to keep in mind. Don’t drive around parking lots looking for a place to park. Driving at very low speeds and in low gears delivers poor fuel economy and that’s exactly what you do in a parking lot. It’s literally one step above idling, which you already know delivers the worst fuel economy you can possibly get. When you enter a parking lot, put your car in the first available space even if it means you have to spend a minute walking. If the lot is busy, head straight for a part of the lot where you can reasonably expect lots of free stalls: the far end.
Simply getting your car parked and turned off as soon as possible instead of aimlessly driving around will save you money, but parking at the far end of the lot has other advantages too. Whenever possible, attempt to find a space where you can pull through to an opposing stall. Again, you might not believe it but driving in reverse, especially on a cold engine, delivers astonishingly bad fuel economy. I’ve briefly clocked instantaneous fuel consumption of 250L/100km (1.7mpg) using my ScanGaugeII when creeping my car out of my garage on a cold engine. You want to get your car turned around while the engine is still warm so that you do not have to reverse out of a spot on a cold engine, and the easiest way to do that is to simply find a pair of slots where you can pull through. If you head straight for the far corners of a parking lot, chances are that you’ll have any number of immediately-available pull-through opportunities.
When you cannot pull through, or in situations where the parking spots in a particular lot do not have head-on opposites, it is very much in your best interest to back into a spot while your engine is still warm instead of backing out of that spot when your engine is cold. If you must drive your vehicle in reverse, try to do so when your engine is warm. Backing into a parking spot will set you up to drive straight out of it in a forward gear and that will save you money!
And finally, as you may have guessed, parallel parking isn’t exactly an economical maneuver. In order to parallel park your vehicle, you must come to a complete stop, reverse at a crawl, stop again, and then move forward at a crawl. And that’s assuming you’re a perfect parallel parker. And as if that wasn’t enough, you will likely need to drive in reverse on a cold engine, stop, pull forward and idle while waiting for an opportunity to jump into traffic when you want to leave. You already know that all of the individual components of parallel parking are not economical and for this reason you could make an effort to avoid parallel parking altogether. As much as possible, you should try to find groups of parallel stalls that are unoccupied or end stalls that are free so you can park head-first and without repeatedly stopping, starting and crawling around.
Takeaways from Lesson 6:
- Avoid reversing, especially on a cold engine – driving in reverse consumes a lot of fuel.
- Do not circle around parking lots looking for a spot – park at the far end of the lot if you do not immediately find a spot close to the front.
- Use pull-through spots to avoid having to back up your car.
- Back into spots when your engine is warm instead of backing out when your engine is cold – your engine consumes less fuel when it’s warm.
- Avoid parallel parking whenever possible. Use end spots or wide open groups of spots to pull in head first without making adjustments when you can.
Parking may not be the first place you'd think to save fuel but you might be surprised at the benefits you reap by adopting ecomiling techniques even in parking. The gains in fuel economy here are not tremendous but then ecomiling is all about small changes to your driving style that add up to big savings. It's also quite fitting that the official ecomiling lessons end in the same way that car trips end, with parking.
If you heed all of the lessons you've learned thus far and truly make an effort to employ and perfect them, you can expect to start saving fuel immediately. Make your next ride as an ecomiler and keep track of your fuel economy. Once you start seeing the results you'll want to share them with your friends and improve upon them even further. If you proceed to Lesson 7 and beyond, which is entirely optional, you'll learn how to optimize your driving for fuel economy by going above and beyond.
Lesson Quicklinks
Lesson 1: Get Started by Doing the ObviousDisclaimer: It is of critical importance that you always place safety first and fuel economy a very distant second. Although ecomiling may be an engaging, exciting and money-saving challenge, never place fuel economy above your safety or that of other road users. Obey all local traffic laws.