Motoring MoneySaving

Before you fill up, use free online tool PetrolPrices.com to find the cheapest unleaded, diesel, super unleaded or premium diesel near you. After registering, enter a postcode, town or city and tell it how far you're willing to travel, and it'll list the cheapest forecourts in the area.

The Cheap petrol & diesel guide's brimming with more ways to save.

Finding affordable young drivers' car insurance can be a nightmare – the cost of cover has rocketed by 46% and the average premium for those under 25-years-old is now over £2,000 a year. But there are simple ways to save.

Our Young drivers' insurance guide offers a step-by-step system to help, with tips to slice off every spare penny. Here are a couple of key points:

• Pay as you drive. Specialist 'pay-as-you-drive' schemes, also known as telematics, are worth checking to see if they undercut comparison site quotes (though increasingly they also appear on comparison sites too). With these, a device commonly known as a black box or smart box is fitted to your car and monitors your driving, so what you pay depends on your mileage, the time you drive and your driving style – see Telematics policies.
  
  
• Learner driver insurance. Learners are often added to parents' or friends' car insurance as an additional driver. This can up the cost, and put the principal driver's no-claims bonus at risk. Consider getting a specific policy just for the provisional driver instead – see Learner drivers' insurance.

It's possible to drive the same distance in the same time using much less fuel – without cutting your top speed. In the process, you could cut your petrol or diesel costs.

Here are a few pointers to get you started. See our drive more efficiently tips for more:

• Accelerate gradually without over-revving. Press harder on the pedal and more fuel flows. Get to the same speed using less power. As a very rough rule, stay under 3,000 revs.
  
  
• Drive in the correct gear. Always drive in the highest gear possible without labouring the engine.
  
  
• Slow naturally. Rather than brake frequently, let your car slow naturally where you can and use its stored momentum.
  
  
• Think about road position. To do all this takes road awareness. The more alert you are, the better you can plan ahead and move gradually.

Getting an unfair parking ticket from an official body, such as a council or the police, is a sting in the tailpipe.

See the Parking ticket appeals guide for step-by-step info on what to do. If you've got a good case, it's worth fighting it, as 53% in England and Wales who took their appeal to the independent tribunal in 2022-2023 won.

You normally have the right to appeal twice to the body that issued the ticket. If that fails, then take your challenge to the independent adjudicator. If your car's been clamped or towed away, you can appeal once to the council/police, then to the independent tribunal.

Fortunately we're in the warmer months of the year, as breakdowns are inevitably more common in winter, but it's worth being prepared.

While our Cheap breakdown cover guide has full info on the cheapest policies, preventing a breakdown in the first place is better than having to wait to be rescued.

Here are six tips to prep your motor before any cold weather sets in...

• Buy anti-freeze and a screen-scraper. Anti-freeze stops your car coolant from freezing so it can keep your car's engine working, while a screen-scraper is useful for clearing your windscreen (a de-icer will also make the job quicker).
  
  
• Make sure your lights are working. Scan your lights and check them regularly to make sure they're working properly so you can be seen in bad weather.
  
  
• Check your tyres. The AA recommends a tyre tread of at least 3mm for winter driving – more info on how to check this at TyreSafe.
  
  
• Stop doors sticking with Vaseline. A thin coat of furniture polish or Vaseline on rubber door seals should stop them sticking.
  
  
• Make sure your car is stocked up with essentials. For example: a torch and spare batteries, first aid kit, warm blanket, mobile phone charger, shovel, road atlas and jump start cables.
  
  
• Check your battery. A faulty battery is one of the most common causes of cars breaking down at winter. It needs to be regularly checked and might need charging if it's not been used in a while.

For more info on winter driving and year-round essentials to have in your car, see the AA's winter driving advice and the RAC's cold weather driving guide.

Fuel price rises can be a painful addition to motoring costs. But some basic maintenance can help put the brakes on your fuel bill. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Keep your tyres inflated. Lower tyre pressure increases the drag on a car meaning you need more fuel, so regularly check the pressures are correct.
  
  
• Declutter your car. The lighter your car is, the less effort it needs to accelerate. So declutter: clear junk from the boot, and ditch unnecessary weight.
  
  
• Take your roof rack off. A roof rack adds massive wind resistance, increasing drag and making the engine work harder. Don't need it? Remove it.
  
  
• Turn off air conditioning at lower speeds. Air con uses an incredible amount of fuel, so turn it off unless really needed. The general consensus is it's more efficient to drive with the windows down and the air con off at lower speeds, but at higher speeds it's better to use the air con and keep windows up due to the extra drag caused.
  
  
• Don't fill it up. Fuel's heavy, so by filling up you're adding weight. The less fuel your car holds, the more efficiently it drives. Filling up slightly more often and putting less in (1/2 or 3/4 full) will make it more efficient.

Thanks to the RAC for its help with this list. See Make your car more fuel-efficient for more.

Supermarkets often run petrol promotions. As their forecourts are usually cheap for fuel (always check though), these schemes mean you can make some decent savings.

The offers are usually something like 'spend £50 and get a 5p off/litre voucher'. Recent offers have also included 10p off/litre via a single voucher with a £50 spend.

Keep an eye on Cheap Petrol & Diesel for fuel promotions and info on using supermarket loyalty schemes. The best petrol & diesel deals are always in the free weekly Money Tips Email, so sign up to hear about them first.

Ever wondered what 'blip' markings on kerbs mean, or if a quick trip to get change is allowed? These are just some of the key points in the How to Park Right guide.

Parking tickets aren't just irritating, they're hideously expensive. Plus, they may take months to reverse, so arm yourself with the mythbusting Five parking facts everyone should know (if you know others who often get ticketed, pass 'em on):

1. There's no standard 'single yellow' parking restriction. You can sometimes park on a single red or yellow line, but there aren't standardised times. Always check the road signs.

2. Watch your wheels. Ensure your car's completely within any defined spot, such as a residents' or pay-and-display bay. If one wheel's outside, you risk a ticket.

3. Proudly display your permit or ticket. If you've a special permit (such as a residents' or disabled permit), a warden must be able to clearly read it otherwise you'll often get a ticket. The same goes for pay-and-display tickets.

4. Bank holiday rules vary by council. Many wrongly assume they can park anywhere on bank hols. Some councils allow parking in residents' bays or on a yellow line, others won't. There's no hard and fast rule; if unsure, don't do it.

5. Beware EVERYTHING in private car parks. Rules change on private land or in private car parks – whether at supermarkets, hospitals or elsewhere. You can be asked to pay huge amounts without reason, so check signs and be cautious.

If you live in a city, near an airport or train station, or anywhere where parking's pricey, your driveway might just be paved with gold. Rent out a parking space and you could make £200 a month or more.

Here's a quick tip, but you can find more, plus a list of the big parking sites to try and what to watch out for, in the Rent out your parking space guide.

Quickly find what yours is worth. To get an idea of what you might be able to make, clever online tools can give quick estimates. You can see what those nearby are charging for long-term stays (eg, a month) with ParkLet's price guide tool.

If you're a Tesco shopper, hoard your Clubcard points and you can use them to get cheap breakdown cover.

How does it work? Spend Tesco Clubcard vouchers on goods or services listed in its Clubcard Reward Partners brochure and you get back two times their face value.

Which policies can I get? One of the deals offered is an RAC roadside recovery policy, meaning you can sometimes get it at about half of the high street cost. Not all the usual packages are available – see what's on offer in top-pick breakdown cover.

In rural or suburban areas, you can usually park for free outside busy parts of town where there are no road markings. But you can't just park anywhere that's unmarked.

Here are some basic rules to remember:

• Avoid parking near the top of a hill, otherwise you may not be seen by approaching vehicles.
  
  
• Never park on a bend, for the same reasons.
  
  
• Make sure you're not on a clearway or red route. If you can't see a sign, or weren't looking for one, this generally means you can't park on busy roads. Stick with residential streets, or those where a lot of other cars are parked.
  
  
• Don't park within 10 metres of a junction.
  
  
• Don't park where the kerb's been lowered to allow vehicles to access a driveway, gateway or other opening.

Before you book car hire, consider the alternatives. Unnecessary car hire can be an expensive, unused hindrance. Car swaps, public transport or taking your own car can work out cheaper, depending on where you're going.

Go through this checklist first:

• What's the public transport like? In Miami or Los Angeles, most people need a car to traverse the huge city distances. But in New York you can't park anywhere, so the subway wins. Many European cities have great public transport links too, so a little research goes a long way.
  
  
• How much are taxis? Sometimes car hire's cheaper than just one taxi. A taxi from Malaga airport to Marbella's about £60-£80 each way, though you may be able to find car hire for less. So even if you don't use it again, it wins. Use international taxi fare calculator Holiday Taxis for a benchmark price.
  
  
• Can you take your own car? If you're off to Europe, this may be an option. All UK car insurance policies automatically provide the minimum cover required by law in the EU, but check if full cover extends to Europe so you know whether you have complete protection. It can be cheap to get EU breakdown cover. See Cheap Breakdown Cover.

There's a mass of motoring goodies available for free at the click of a mouse. Visit the Travel and Motoring section of the Freebies, Freebies, Freebies guide for goodies including maps, practice theory tests and car stickers.