Love Your Hybrid Car and it Will Love You Back

Your hybrid car works a little differently than a conventional, fuel-powered engine car. You'll still need to pay the same amount of attention to its needs in order to ensure that it runs for a long time though. Like any other car, leaving your hybrid car unattended without any maintenance can lead to car break downs or other problems. The first thing you need to know about a hybrid car is that its parts are different from that of a regular fuel powered car. The most important of these differences is the hybrid battery. Most hybrid batteries are made to run for the entire lifetime of the vehicle - typically 150,000 miles, or more. The warranty on these hybrid batteries usually lasts around 8 years but this varies depending on the manufacturer.

When servicing your car, make sure to visit a reputable mechanic who knows how to deal with hybrid cars. They require different servicing when compared to fuel powered cars and a mechanic who does not know what he doing with a hybrid car can bring a lot of damage to the car. Maintenance costs for hybrid cars are about the same as their fuel-powered counterparts. Sometimes, you might even end up spending less because the wear and tear that a hybrid car experiences is much less than that of a gasoline powered car.

As with all vehicles, regular service and preventative maintenance is required in order to ensure that the car lasts a long time. If you ignore getting it serviced, it will in all probability break down and cause you many more troubles and more cost than it would if it was regularly serviced. Leaving the car unattended is not recommended. The car needs to be started and driven for at least an hour every 90 days. If you have to leave the car dormant, then try not to do so for more than three months. Leaving the car idle for more than 3 months might require you to get the hybrid battery charged by a professional mechanic.

When driving a hybrid car, try to maintain the car at a constant speed. The more you use the accelerator, the more fuel is consumed. Keeping the car at a constant speed will only use up the energy saved up in the hybrid batteries. In addition to this, when you are going at a high speed and need to slow down, fuel will be used up for this also. So, maintaining a constant speed while driving a hybrid will not only save on fuel but also reduce emissions into the atmosphere. It's also good to avoid braking the car suddenly because this can use up a lot of fuel too. By giving the engine time to brake, you give the electric motor some time to recover and save some energy in the process of slowing the car down. This gives the hybrid batteries more power to be used when the car starts moving again.