How To Be An Eco-Friendly Car Owner | TOC Automotive College

Eco-friendliness is an incredibly significant concern in the world of cars, and not just among automotive college students. Regular drivers are also becoming increasingly concerned with their vehicles' impact on the environment.

Your car, especially if it’s a newer model, is already designed to minimise its environmental impact. But that’s only possible if you service the vehicle regularly and optimise its performance. You can also invest in better tires, pre-plan routes, and remove weight to maximise your car’s environmental friendliness. Finally, scrap and recycle the vehicle instead of letting it rust in your driveway.

In this guide, you’ll learn several helpful ways to maximise your car’s eco-friendliness while you still own the vehicle. You’ll even discover a way to minimise its impact when the car reaches the end of its lifespan.

Let’s get started!

How Do You Make Your Car More Eco-Friendly?

You don’t have to go out and buy a new car today just to become a more eco-friendly driver. That’s not a practical option for most people, no matter where they might be.

However, you can take plenty of steps to maximise your car’s eco-friendliness.

And the best part of it all? You only need to invest minimal time, effort, and money to become a better friend to the earth.

Here are 5 ways you can make your existing car much more eco-friendly:

1. Regular Servicing

The first thing you must remember about your car, especially if it’s a relatively recent model, is that it’s already pretty environmentally friendly.

Over the past decade, manufacturers and their automotive college-trained technicians have spent countless resources maximising fuel efficiency and minimising harmful emissions in their cars.

That’s because car buyers have made it clear that they don’t want gas-guzzling cars anymore, especially those that spew toxic exhaust gasses out their tailpipes.

However, your car will only stay environmentally friendly if you stay up-to-date with regular servicing tasks.

Always remember the importance of changing your engine oil and other fluids, as well as replacing any components that have become worn out.

That’s because old fluids and faulty car parts will cause your car to have a more negative impact on the environment. For example, dirty engine oil will make the engine much less fuel efficient, causing your car to burn more fuel than necessary.

Besides that, worn-out seals and gaskets will cause fluids to leak onto the ground and potentially harm nearby plants.

With all that in mind, the first and most important way to maximise your eco-friendliness is to service your car regularly. Clean fluids and functioning parts will reduce your impact on the environment around you.

2. Better Tires

Another way you can make your car friendlier to the environment is to invest in better tires. Ask anyone who studies in an automobile college are a crucial investment because they are the contact points between the car and the road underneath.

More importantly, tires help your car’s engine to transfer energy to the ground and move the vehicle forward.

While it might be tempting to buy cheaper tires, you’ll benefit much more when you invest in higher-quality models.

Firstly, better tires last significantly longer. That means you’ll produce fewer used and worn-out tires throughout your car’s lifespan.

Besides that, high-quality tires contribute more to your car’s fuel efficiency. That’s because they produce less rolling resistance. As a result, less of your engine’s output is lost to resistance, and you’ll burn less fuel to move your car overall.

3. Pre-Plan Your Routes

As you can see from the first two points above, keeping your car in excellent working condition is essential to maximise your eco-friendliness. But it’s not just about your car; it’s also about how you drive it.

Another way you can increase your vehicle’s environmental friendliness is by pre-planning your routes. That’s especially true for the roads you drive daily on your commute to and from work.

The goal is to take routes with fewer traffic jams and requiring less start-stop driving. Ideally, the path with the slightest chance of traffic jams and few or no traffic lights would be the best option, though that’s not always possible.

Alternatively, you could also rely on popular route-planning apps. Turning on those apps before driving will help you find the most efficient route possible.

In doing so, you’ll spend less time idling in traffic, saving fuel and pumping fewer emissions into the air.

4. Drive Light

Once you’ve done all of the above, the next thing you can do to be a more eco-friendly car owner is to drive light. In other words, you’ll be much better off driving with as little excess weight in the car as needed.

Remember: the heavier your car is, the more power the engine must produce. That’s done by burning more fuel, generating more emissions through the exhaust system.

You can reduce that by taking out anything unnecessary from your car. That includes luggage and any cargo that you don’t immediately need.

In more extreme cases, some drivers might even remove the passenger seats in their cars just to reduce the vehicle’s overall weight. But, of course, that’s mainly done in motorsports vehicles and not everyday cars.

5. Scrap Your Car (When The Time Comes)

All the advice above will help you maximise your car’s eco-friendliness while you’re still using the vehicle. However, you should also spare a thought about what happens when your car is no longer usable.

Sure, most people trade their cars in when they get new ones. However, some cases exist where people let cars sit in their driveways and rust away at the end of their lifespans.

Unfortunately, doing that is harmful to the environment as well. The rust and leaking fluids will pollute the nearby environment, particularly the soil and waterways.

Thankfully, you can do something to minimize your car’s impact on the environment: scrap and recycle the vehicle.

These days, plenty of Malaysian businesses will scrap and recycle your unwanted car. Many even offer to collect the vehicle from your location for free and pay to buy the car from you.

By scrapping and recycling your car, you’re performing one final act to minimise environmental impact and make yourself a more eco-friendly owner.

Final Thoughts

The movement towards more environmentally friendly vehicles is constantly improving at all levels. That includes the auto manufacturers who make those cars and the buyers who purchase them.

Another way you can contribute to that movement is from within the industry. Studying at the best automotive college in Malaysia, TOC Automotive College is an excellent first step to gaining the education and training you need to make a difference.