Owning a luxury car such as a BMW, Porsche or Ferrari is the ultimate status symbol. You don’t have to be a millionaire to run such a vehicle, however. If you look after your car, and drive well, you can keep the running costs to a minimum. Here are a few tips to help you achieve your motoring dream.
Healthy Cars Cost Less to Run
One thing that puts many motorists off buying a high-end vehicle is the service costs. Skipping your next scheduled BMW service might seem like a good way to save money – after all, those things are built like a tank, right? In truth, delaying your car’s service is a false economy. The Ferrari and BMW service appointments involve far more than just a quick health-check for your car. When your car is serviced, the engineers look out for a range of potential issues including problems with tyres, steering, and filters, which may be minor enough to not cause noticeable symptoms but could be making your car less fuel efficient.
Keep Your Car Clean
Luxury car owners usually keep the exterior of the car squeaky clean; after all, the car is their pride and joy, but what about the interior? If your car boot is full of junk, you could be wasting fuel. Clean out the back seat, boot and glove compartment regularly to cut down on fuel consumption. If you’re serious about getting the most mileage out of your vehicle, consider only filling the tank up to half-full when you top up. This sort of practice is known as “hypermiling”, and the savings are negligible, but if topping up more often is not an inconvenience to you, why not take advantage? Over the course of a year, the savings will mount up.
Keep an Eye on Your Tyres
Under-inflated tyres can cause handling problems and also increase your fuel consumption. Over-inflated tyres can be dangerous too. Check the tread depth and pressure of your tyres regularly.
Shop Around for Car Insurance
Insurance on luxury cars can be expensive, but prices vary massively between insurers. Shopping around could save you a lot of money. If you haven’t looked at new insurance providers for a couple of years, get some quotes next time your insurance is up for renewal. Often, changing providers gets you a better deal than simply renewing, no-claims and all, with your existing insurer.
Drive Sensibly
Your luxury vehicle may be capable of extreme speeds but that doesn’t mean that you should use that power, even on roads where it would be legal to do so. Most vehicles reach their optimum fuel economy at speeds of between 55 and 60mph, and economy begins to decrease after that. Reducing your speed by even as little as 5mph can increase your fuel economy by as much as 15 percent.
This doesn’t mean that you should slow down on motorways and be a danger to other road users, but if you are driving in lane 1, sticking to 60MPH will increase your fuel economy.