Crude prices appear to be setting in place at the all time high levels. With this, gasoline has become a pretty premium commodity. The price of gasoline appears to be set for a long time at record high levels and many commuters are left trying to find the most efficient ways to increase mileage. To start saving money at the fuel pump, consider this cheap tip to change your spark plugs.

To start, lets discuss the basics of how the engine creates power. Small amounts of gas and air are introduced into the piston chamber. The piston then moves to compress and pressurize this mixture. Your spark plug then transfers a tiny spark of electricity into the chamber, combusting the gasoline and air.

The resulting combustion produces an expanded source of energy that is used to power the vehicle into motion. The process of doing this is repeated thousands of times each minute your engine is operating (this is also known as Revolutions Per Minute - or RPMs). Depending on your engine type, your vehicle either has 4, 5, 6 or 8 of these chambers (think V-6, V-8, 4-cylinder etc).

The action of creating the supercharged gas through the spark the best transfer possible can increase mileage. If the spark plug is losing some of its output before it reaches the compressed gas and air mixture, the resulting combustion will not have as much power available for use. A spark plug can lose it’s power through seals not being tight and corrosion of the spark tips. A new spark plus with platinum tips will result in a much higher transfer rate, reducing the amount of cycles needed to extract the same amount of power. This increases mileage by using less fuel.

Having clean, high quality spark plugs can increase the efficiency of your engines performance, and in return, increase mileage. Many spark plugs can increase mileage by upwards of 2-5%. While this may not sound like a huge increase, changing your spark plugs (at a cost of roughly $4 per plug) will pay for themselves within that month for an average driver.

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