With the rise in fuel prices, many drivers have decided to stop stepping on the accelerator in order to save gasoline on each trip. The problem is that going too slow, at very low revolutions, also has its cost. Sometimes is worst the remedy than the disease.
We are all aware of how expensive gasoline and diesel are. It is something that we have never seen, exceeding 2 euros in many gas stations. Who was going to tell us when in the midst of a pandemic the price of these fuels did not exceed 90 cents.
Unfortunately life goes on and, according to this 2022, that means that living is more expensive than a few months ago. The CPI skyrockets, electricity and gas shot up, and fuels always on the rise, no matter how much help of 20 cents they try to help us.
This has caused drivers to begin to change their driving habits. And that acceleration that we used to put at the entrance of the highway is now a slight acceleration to reach the indicated speed. If the road is at 120 km/h, it would be better to go to 110 to save money, right?
Although it is true that at lower speeds and lower revolutions, vehicles consume less, taking the car to very low turns can cause different breakdowns. And none cheap, as our colleagues at Autobild remind us.
The trick of going slow to consume little fuel can claim fatalities with respect to the components of the vehicle, as we told you. And these are some of the breakdowns that we can suffer from taking the car almost to idle.
Breakdowns due to driving too slowly with the car
The element that has all the ballots to break down due to this driving habit is the anti-particle filter. Driving at a medium or low speed causes more soot than usual to be produced during combustion and it does not burn.
The soot goes to the filter, which retains it so that it does not go outside and the accumulation is increasing, which causes the system to carry out automatic regeneration on a recurring basis, suffering greater wear and causing failures. The arrangement can be €2,000.
EGR valve (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) It is responsible for the recirculation of gases and its function is to reduce polluting emissions, especially NOx. All new diesels have it and it is becoming more and more common in gasoline.
Its operation is simple: redirects part of the exhaust gases back to the combustion chamber, burning them, thus reducing emissions and helping to lower engine temperatures.
The problem is that, if you drive at a speed of 100 km/h, in high gear and at low revolutions, combustion is not as efficient and, again, the accumulation can block it.
If it happens, it is not that it is exactly a cheap visit to the workshop: can reach more than 500 eurosalthough the price varies depending on how easy it is to access it for disassembly and replacement.
And finally we have the turbo. The turbo can fail for various reasons, including carbon deposits, something that will make it necessary to clean it or even replace it because it breaks. This breakdown is several thousand euros.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism