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I had a house call recently from Dr. FuelGood. Born Barbara Terry, the good doctor was born into a Texas ranch family with six older brothers who had her sitting on four telephone books so she could drive the hay wagon when she was just 4 years old. Like her older brothers, she raced on local dirt tracks and discovered she had a real knack for cars. She became a car broker and then ran the service department at a Dallas dealership.
Speaking of Dallas, while she may look like she should be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, she’s a skilled auto mechanic and car-care specialist who shares fuel-saving driving tips on behalf of the Shell Oil Company, which is how she ended up making a house call here in Phoenix.
She’s talked about car care on several national television shows, and is negotiation to have her own weekly show. She could become the Rachel Ray of cars, and contends that “checking the fluids in your car is as easy as making dinner.”
Her message is that a little car and driving care can increase not only your vehicle’s fuel mileage, but its longevity. By the way, while she has a Porsche 911 back in Dallas, her daily driver is a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with a four-liter six-cylinder engine that, she says, provides 18 miles per gallon and plenty of room for her big yellow Labrador retriever.
Her basic automotive medical advice is to check tire pressures and make sure they’re properly inflated, to rotate tires every 6000 miles -- and to include the spare in the rotation -- to use the right grade of oil, and to make sure you have a clean air filter. A clean air filter, she says, can provide up to 15 percent better fuel economy than a dirty filter. She also recommends watching your weight. Well, not necessarily your weight, but your vehicle's: Don’t carry stuff in the trunk or on a rooftop luggage rack that you really don’t need to carry, because extra weight means your engine has to work harder and burn more fuel.
She also
breaks motorists down into four categories: Proactive pumpers, (running on)
empty tankers, fume fiends and disciplined drivers. Obviously, the doctor
recommends that you become a disciplined driver who follows her fuel-saving
tips. In fact, those are the doctor’s orders.
- By Larry Edsall
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