Fuelly

I use a website called http://www.fuelly.com to keep track of my car usage and help me identify problems, I've been asked a few times how I'm maintaining a good mpg on my car so the following are some tips which have helped me:-

* Feather use of the accelerator - press of the peddle just enought to maintain speed, majority of the time I'm only need to lightly touch the accelerator.

* Keep acceleration and braking to a minimum - Generally they are not many situations where hard acceleration is needed, replace the need to brake with gear changing to allow the engine to slow you down.

* Get used to reading the road ahead, if there is a pedestrain crossing ahead look for people that are likely to cross, workout if it's better to let the engine slow the car down to give the pedestrian time to cross without you having to stop.  This will help avoid unnessary braking and accelerating.

* Same with traffic lights, if they are a distance in front of you and the lights are on green then they're more likely to change to red when you get to them so you might as start slowing down so you don't need to brake. If it's a regular route then pay attention to where traffic is coming from to better work out whether it's worth slowing down etc...

* For cornering get used to knowing what is a safe speed to go into them so you can workout when you need to start letting the engine slow you down and what gear to by in so you reducing the need to brake and accelerate.

* Keep a note of your mileage, fillups, road conditions on a site like fuelly, this will help remind you which journeys affected your mpg and help you think what you did differently, it'll also give you early warming if your car may need early maintainence, ie you have a low mpg but you know the driving style was the same.

In following these tips you'll probable find you're driving speed reduces 10% but the travel time will be roughly the same because you're doing less stopping plus you brakepads will last longer, and maybe even your tyres.