How a Vehicle is Affected By City Driving vs. Highway Driving

When someone goes to buy a vehicle at a new car dealership in Hollywood, they will not have to worry about previous miles put on it because there will be none. However, the same cannot be said for any used vehicles at a Honda dealership in Hollywood. These vehicles will have thousands or potentially even hundreds of thousands of miles on them.

One of the common things to see with these used vehicles is the information about whether the majority of these miles were highway or city miles. Someone who does not have a thorough understanding of how a vehicle’s operation changes between driving in the city limits and highway driving may not know what this information means or why it is important. That is why this article is here to help explain exactly what changes for a vehicle’s performance and conditioning when taken on the highways as compared to when it is driven inside of a city.

Highway Driving Causes Less Engine Wear and Tear

The engine components are by far some of the most important in the entire vehicle, which is why a driver should always do everything that they can to prolong the life of their vehicle’s engine. Otherwise, they may find themselves having to go to a new car dealer in Hollywood fairly soon after purchasing their current vehicle. It turns out that one of the best ways to help prolong the life of an engine is to take the vehicle out onto the highways more often. This is because of the effect that highway driving has on a vehicle’s engine.

No matter what type of driving a vehicle is doing, it is going to need a sufficient amount of oil pressure in order to make sure that the various engine components are not becoming overheated. A healthy vehicle should have no issue being able to provide a proper amount of oil pressure in nearly any situation. However, city driving is going to make achieving this sufficient oil pressure a little harder on the engine.

This is because the vehicle is going to be traveling at a slower speed in the city limits, which will automatically lower the oil pressure and force the engine to have to work harder in order to try and raise the oil pressure to an acceptable level. Therefore, the lower oil pressure will put the engine at a greater risk of it not being properly lubricated and putting it through greater wear and tear.

City Driving Causes Lower Lifespan for Brakes

A vehicle is going to use its brakes quite regularly during any type of driving but there are certain situations where they are going to be used for more than other times. For example, when someone is in the bumper-to-bumper traffic that can often be found in a city, they are likely going to have to apply their brakes almost twice as much as they use their gas pedal. This obviously means that the brakes are going to experience significantly more wear and tear than they would on a highway setting where the brakes are usually only applied once or twice every few minutes.

So someone who tends to do a lot of city driving is going to have to replace their vehicle’s brakes a lot sooner than someone who sticks mostly to highways driving. And if a used vehicle has a lot of city miles on it but has not had its brakes replaced in quite some time, then it is very likely that they are going to be close to needing a new set of brake pads installed. Whereas, a used vehicle with mostly highway miles can easily go a full year or even two without getting new brake pads installed and still be nowhere near needing a new set to be installed.

Highway Driving Leads to Better Fuel Efficiency

A vehicle’s fuel efficiency is a big talking point nowadays as the price of fuel continues to get higher and more people are becoming environmentally aware. While the best way to make a vehicle use as little fuel as possible is to simply not drive it at all. However, the other way that a driver can affect this is by choosing to do more highway driving, which has been shown to lead to better fuel efficiency.

The reason for this is that a vehicle on the highway is going to need to reach its cruising speed and will likely stay fairly close to the speed for most of the drive. On the other hand, driving in the city is a combination of frequently speeding up and then slowing down and repeating this process over and over again. This seemingly constant acceleration is burning much more fuel than simply cruising at a constant speed, which lowers the vehicle’s fuel efficiency.

The other thing to consider is the fact that highway driving is only burning fuel when the vehicle is actually on the move. But for city driving, there is often a lot of idling at red lights, busy intersections, or bumper-to-bumper traffic, which is all still burning fuel even though the vehicle is not actually moving anywhere. Even though the amount of fuel that idling goes through is not very much, it can quickly add up when a lot of time is spent idling every day on the commute to and from work in the city.

That is why a lot of the newer vehicles being offered at a new car dealership in Hollywood are going to offer an automatic start/stop feature, which is a handy system that automatically shuts the engine off whenever the vehicle is brought to a complete stop. This helps to make sure that no fuel is spent during idling, which helps to bring the fuel efficiency of city driving a little bit closer to matching that of highway driving. But even with this handy feature, highway driving will still come out on top every time.

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