Winter Fleet Fuel-Saving Tips  

As a fleet manager, keeping your company’s vehicles running safely and within budget is a top priority. Winter is an ideal time to review usage trends and driver behavior in order to identify savings for the year ahead.

If you’ve partnered with the right fuel card company, you’ll be able to see fuel cost and consumption trends easily. You can also use the following tips to keep your fleet running efficiently this winter.

Tips for Fuel Efficiency During the Winter

Check Air Filters 

Clogged air filters on your fleet vehicles prevent proper air needed for combustion in the engine. This affects gas mileage in older vehicles and performance with newer ones. Spring pollen and dusty summers are a recipe for clogged filters. Make sure to stay up with filter change intervals.

Check Tire Pressure 

Tires gradually loose air pressure over time. This naturally occurs as air leaks through the tire’s casing. Because the loss of air is gradual, under-inflation can sneak up on fleet vehicles, reducing gas mileage by 3 percent.

Reduce Lead-Foot Driving

Vehicles in fleets are often driven very hard. Besides wearing out a vehicle faster, accelerating and braking hard reduces fuel economy by 5 percent. Encourage your employees to take care of company vehicles by easing up on the gas and brake pedals.

Ways the Entire Fleet Can Help with Fuel Savings

Send Drivers on Efficient Routes

Lots of extra fuel is used when driver routes are not efficient. Make sure that routes are planned in advance to avoid traffic and unnecessary idling. When an emergency arises, sending your closest driver to the area of need will help conserve fuel.

Lighten Your Fleet

Work trucks often have excess gear from previous jobs that drivers have not unloaded. There’s a cost to carrying this extra weight. An extra 100 lbs. of weight in a fleet truck can decrease fuel economy by 2 percent.

Use a Fleet Fuel Card to Help Increase Company Savings

The most comprehensive way to save on fuel expenses is to couple the tips above with a fuel card. A fuel card enables fleet managers to monitor gas purchases by company employees and as well as control the type of fuel and time of day purchases are made. Using a fuel card also means fleet managers don’t have to deal with petty cash and reimbursement hassles.

The Fuelz card is a solution that will help your entire company. Fuelz collects data in real time so you can monitor the efficiency of all the vehicles in your fleet. You will be able to identify which vehicles are getting good gas mileage and which need to be serviced. Contact Fuelz to get started saving money for your company today.