How to Find a Fuel-Efficient Used Vehicle

Car buyers nowadays want to find a vehicle that will go far on a gallon of gas. Whether their motivation is to save money when the price of gas goes up, or they want to use fewer resources in order to lower their carbon footprint, consumers want to get the best miles per gallon on their vehicle purchases. It's easy to do when you are purchasing a new car and the sticker tells you how fuel efficient the car is, but when you're buying a used car, you may not have that luxury. Fortunately, there are ways to find fuel efficient vehicles, even if you are buying the car from a private seller.

Check the Internet

If you know the year and model of the car you want to buy, you can look up the gas mileage on the internet before you make the purchase. If you visit www.fueleconomy.gov, you can find information on the fuel economy of almost every car model made after 1985. It will also tell you your estimated annual fuel cost, although the web site's estimate of the cost of gasoline tends to be on the low side. If you don't know exactly what kind of car you are going to get before you leave for the car dealership, check a few of the cars that you are interested in to get a good gauge of what the fuel efficiency will be.

Choose a Four-Cylinder Car

In general, cars with four cylinders will get better fuel efficiency than cars with V6 and V8 engines. Although it may be cooler to have a car with a strong, powerful engine, it will cost you in miles per gallon. Most four-cylinder engines will have plenty of power to them, and will have enough pep to merge, pass, and pull out into traffic. If you have the choice between two similar cars with different sized-engines, go for the car with the smaller engine.

Choose Manual Transmission

If you are proficient with driving a stick-shift car, choose a manual transmission car over an automatic one. Not only do cars with manual transmissions generally cost less, they also get better gas mileage. If you live out in the country and do a lot of highway driving, the fuel efficiency savings might even make it worth learning how to drive a manual vehicle.

Use Alternative Fuels

Another way to get a more fuel efficient used car is to buy a car that uses alternative fuels. Hybrid and electric cars are starting to enter the used car market, and could save you a good deal of money on gas. If you purchase an electric or hybrid car, keep in mind that the batteries in the cars have a limited life, and can be quite expensive to replace. Some cars even use natural gas. Diesels, although not exactly an alternative fuel, often get fairly good gas mileage as well. If you like to tinker with cars, you might even be able to convert your diesel vehicle to run on leftover vegetable oil and biodiesel.