Does It Conserve More Gas To Turn Your Car Off Or To Sit There?

There was a report in Car and Driver a few months back about this. They found that if you will be sitting for one minute, you use as much gas as you do by starting the car. So….if you are going to sit for more than one minute, shut off the engine. If you sit for less than one minute, you will use more gas starting the engine than you would have if you just leave the engine idle.

you guys are right about the 1 minute thing except for older cars with a carburetor

turn it off unless its really hot , then run the ac

MythBusters actually did a study on this. They discovered that if the car needs to idle for longer than 1 minute, then you’re better off turning the car off to conserve gas.
They also did a study on running the AC versus 4×60 (4 windows down at 60 mph). Everyone “knows” that the AC burns more gas, but there is also the theory that driving with all your windows down creats ‘drag’ which can cause your car to use more energy/gas. After the study was all said and done, using the AC did actually use more gas, so 4×60 is better on gas conservation.

It really depends on how long you sit there. some cars use more gas to start than to sit there for a couple of min. gas is moving while the engine cranks until it starts.

yeah cuz when its on its burning gas if your just sitting there if your gunna sit and wait for someone or something its wasteing gas so yeah just turn it off and it will same some