Save your Fuel... Let your car breathe in...!

Yes!!! Cars breathe in air. Yes....they are not living things and only living things breathe but for your car to work, it needs a combination of clean air and fuel to function. This happen to be the most ignored aspect of the car and most times treated shabbily. A lot of factors tend to increase fuel consumption and this is on of them. A clogged air filter can reduce gas mileage in cars with carburetor engines by more than 14 percent especially here in Nigeria where most of our roads are dusty. I have heard a lot of people say to me "before I could buy 10 litres of fuel and drive from the mainland to the Island and back but now, the fuel runs out even before begin my return journey". This very common today..

Our cars are made to use air and fuel n certain ratios say 5:1. When the air filter gets clogged and enough air cannot get to the engine, the ratio of the air/fuel mixture changes to say 4:2 to accommodate the shortage of air thereby taking in more of the fuel depending on how much air is allowed to pass through, increasing the amount of fuel in use. A lot of us believe that when we blow this filter using air with high pressure, its okay. Most times its not. The very fine particles that get stuck to these filters never get to go away as shown below and continue to block the flow of air.
It is advisable to change you air filters after every 12,000 miles/km or if it is clogged after visible inspection. Continous usage of clogged air filters could lead to other issues as we would see in subsequent posts..