You can improve your gas mileage by one to two per cent by using the manufacturer's

recommended grade of motor oil. For example, using 10W-30 motor oil in an engine designed
to use 5W-30 can lower your gas mileage by one to two per cent. Thicker oil is harder to pump.
This adds to parasitic horsepower loses.

Avoid "revving" the engine, especially just before you switch the engine off; this wastes fuel
needlessly and washes oil down from inside the cylinder walls. This is really bad thing for the
next start up, as the cylinder walls will be dry.

How Engine Oil Affects Your Fuel Efficiency

You may wonder how engine oil even affects fuel usage. The thicker the viscosity of your
engine oil, the harder the engine has to work to push the oil throughout the engine components.
Your vehicle pulls on your fuel supply to help power the engine and keep it running.

The harder your engine has to work to move oil through the different parts, the more fuel the
vehicle uses. So the thinner your engine oil, the better your fuel efficiency is. However, many
people specifically look for high viscosity oil to provide the fullest protection to their engine. So
will buying thinner oil protect your car’s engine as well as thicker oil?

Zero Weight Engine Oil

Newer vehicles are being manufactured with engines that can work well with thinner viscosity
oils. Many oil manufacturers are creating what is called zero weight engine oil. You can
recognize a zero weight engine oil by looking at the numbers on the bottle. One example of a
zero weight oil would be a bottle labelled 0W-20.

The last number signifies the viscosity of the oil when the engine is warmed. Unlike the popular
10W-40 or 15W-40, you can see that zero weight engine oil is very thin.

The new design of engine oil allows it to move quickly through the engine components without
as much drain on the fuel system, unlike the thicker oils. Studies done on thinner oils show that
the engine components are lubricated as well as those using a thicker oil.

So if you’re in the market to purchase an engine oil that will improve your fuel efficiency, then
look for a lower viscosity oil. However, if you feel more comfortable with thicker oil, consider the
cost savings of switching and if it’s not more than a few cents, consider sticking with your
trusted oil type.
Providing Customized Oil Flow

Variable-displacement oil pumps help to minimize energy losses. Their active control
matches the oil flow and pressure the engine needs, eliminating excess oil flow,
significantly reducing the parasitic load on the engine crankshaft, and ultimately saving
fuel.

In variable displacement pumps, changing the displacement volume controls the flow
rate. Vane-pump designs have hydraulic and electrical controls and actuators that move
the pump housing and vary the eccentricity of the rotor. Electronic control signals and
solenoid control valves vary the pressure set points as operating conditions dictate.

Automobile OEMs adopted these types of pumps in 2011, applying them in engines for
high-end vehicles in Europe. Although research has evaluated the fuel-economy
benefits of reduced oil flow from a torque-reduction perspective, the industry lacked
information about its control, use, and thermal interactions with other engine systems.

As part of an industry- and university-consortium project partially funded by the UK

Technology Strategy Board, researchers at the University of Bath, Bath, UK, and Ford
Motor Company, Detroit, MI, thermally tested variable-displacement oil pumps to gain
insight about performance and oil pumping speed. The group evaluated vane and rotor
pump designs in an active 2.4-L diesel engine on an engine stand at many different
operating conditions and found that fuel economy benefits warrant the pump expense.

The engine oil on which the vehicle runs has quite an immense effect on the efficiency of the vehicle.
It not only helps to increase the gas mileage but also enhances the fuel efficiency. If one’s vehicle is
not performing suitably due to un-certain reasons, changing engine oil might create a great
difference. The question is how? How changing oil affects one’s vehicle efficacy. Most of the newer
vehicles have in-built engines that work on thinner viscosity oils. With increased mileage, the engine
oil breaks down due to aging, the viscosity of the engine’s oils gets high. It becomes thick and start to
leave to deposits and has a sludge on the inner surface of engine. These scales are termed as sludge.
These sludge scales interrupt the proper laminar and resistance free flow of oil. Moreover, they start
making a layer which gets thick with time and develops heat whenever the engine starts.

Changing this cast-off oil with zero weight engine oil allows the engine to move quickly with much
less drain and heat. The sludge layer is automatically removed, eliminating the heat and resistance
factor. This is due to soft lubricating property of the fresh oil cushioning the vehicle’s components.
These factors help in increasing the life of the engine.
Every vehicle has its own manual for the type of oil and the time it needs an oil change. Whenever
you need to change the oil for higher efficiency you must follow that car manual.