Diesel fuel cards can help prepare and organize your business. If you are a fleet owner or manager, you know the importance of managing the cost of fuel. However, you may not realize that some cards, including fleet fuel cards, actually provide you with excellent benefits beyond just being a method for payment. These services empower you to achieve your business’ goals, without the risks associated with other payment methods. If you were to use a limited use card to manage your fuel usage, you would get just that–limited benefits. However, this is not something that has to happen.

The universally accepted card provides you with the ability to use it anywhere, not just at select locations. Some types of gas cards, or cards for gas, are only able to be used at specific locations. If you are near those locations, and they have the best price regularly on the fuel you need, then using these services makes some sense. However, the limitations on these cards can really stop you in your tracks. For example, if you were to use a card for a specific fuel supplier and your driver happened to need service in an area that supplier was not available then your driver is stuck. However, with universally accepted cards, this is not the case.

With these diesel fuel cards, your drivers have access to fueling up or getting repairs and maintenance when they need to do so, no matter where they are located. This gives you the ability to constantly monitor these drivers and the cars, too. If the card was not accepted at all locations, that may end up limiting your ability to track the maintenance and fuel efficiency of the vehicle overall. However, with fleet fuel cards, you have the ability to get the information you need and give your drivers the power to manage their use anywhere. This is essential to good overall management of your fleet.

Of course, these cards do more than provide just a way to pay a fuel bill. They also give fleet managers or owners more information and insight into their drives as well as their vehicles. This way, you always know what your options are in terms of keeping costs low. For example, you can track the fuel efficiency of the car so that you know when it may need tune-ups or when there is a problem. If you notice a drop in this efficiency, you can do something about it right away and not have to worry about the long-term repercussions of allowing your driver to drive for miles without getting the vehicle fixed.

When it comes to choosing a fleet fuel card, choose one that is easy to use, affordable and gives you the most information and resources to manage your fleet. Universally accepted diesel fuel cards can do that for you. These cards give you more control, information and better organization of your business’ bottom line. They also provide you with the tools you need to track how well your drivers are driving, and how well your vehicles are running. Any other card gives you nothing more than a way to pay a bill, and those other cards limit you to just one or a few fuel suppliers. A universally accepted card does not have to cost you more, but it should provide you with more tools than these cards do. As a fleet manager, your bottom line is to manage the efficiency of your vehicles and you can do this with the right cards to help you in the process.

Technorati Tags: diesel fuel cards

The cost of gas is on the rise. As a fleet manager, keeping these costs within budget is becoming more difficult than ever. The larger your fleet of vehicles is, the more expensive it is going to be to manage that fleet and the more challenges you will face in finding a way to reduce costs. There is some good news, though. The fact is, you can often use credit cards for gas to help you to lower the overall costs and manage all of your business’s expenses in a more efficient manner. As gas prices continue to rise, remember that you do have options for managing them more successfully.

You cannot always control employee fuel spending, but you can reduce the impact it has on the budget. One of the first things to do is to maintain the vehicle to the highest level. By ensuring the vehicle is running at its very best, your business will reduce its overall costs. A vehicle that is in good condition, with an engine that is well maintained, is going to use less gas no matter what the employee is doing to it. It takes regular maintenance to make this happen, though. Many fleet managers drop the ball in this area.

The problem is often not that the task cannot be done or that the fleet manager does not want to do the maintenance. Rather, it is a lack of tracking and management that leads to these problems. However, if you use the right credit cards for gas, this will change. The fact is, some fleet cards actually work better to provide you with more ability to track the maintenance of the vehicle. For example, to maintain a high level of function, most vehicles need regular maintenance to air filters, tires, and motor oil. By using a card for these maintenance purchases, you have a log of the steps taken to maintain the vehicle. You can easily track what needs to be done for the vehicle.

In addition to this, there are other ways that business owners can reduce the overall cost of managing employee fuel spending. For example, teach drivers to drive with fuel efficiency in mind. Avoid accelerating too quickly and try driving on the highway more than in the city whenever possible. In addition to this, buy the right vehicle. A more fuel efficient vehicle can most definitely help to cut into the fuel spending of your employees because it will not need as much.

You cannot control the high gas prices occurring in today’s marketplace, but you can manage the amount of gas your vehicles need. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on the keeping things in line. Teach your employees the importance of good fuel economy in today’s market. Instruct them to drive only the speed limit to reduce costs. Focus on teaching them to use the right cards to manage costs, too. You may even want to install a training program within your business to keep your drivers focused on safe and affordable driving.

There is no doubt that the cost of fuel is likely to continue to increase. Your business will need to pass on those costs to clients and to find other ways to afford these changes. However, you can reduce the impact by just maintaining the vehicles at their very best level and by teaching your drivers to be better drivers. Credit cards for gas can help you to manage the entire process. Consider the options available to you to reduce your costs and to lower the impact these high fuel prices have on your budget.

Technorati Tags: credit cards for gas

Even in the best of economic times, your company should always be striving to reduce its cost of doing business and increase its revenues and profits. If you have a nationwide fleet of vehicles traveling across the country or in specific geographical regions, being able to save upwards of 15% or more with the use of fleet fuel cards will shine brightly on your bottom line efforts.

One of the quickest ways to see those profits drain away from your company is to have no controls in place to contain unauthorized spending by your fleet drivers. If you currently issue standard fuel credit cards that provide drivers the ability to make any type of purchase, you have very little recourse if and when those employees buy things they don’t need for the job.

In fact, some nationwide fleet travel companies have seen 10 to 15% savings month after month when they start using fleet fuel cards and subscribe to fleet services to help control their driver’s travel expenses.

That’s an average cost savings. Some companies see much more when the safeguards are put into place. In addition to being able to see current purchase activities with your nationwide fleet of drivers, you can instantly identify who’s buying what, and whether or not they should be doing so. With fleet fuel cards you have the ability to set up instant notifications whenever your employees attempt to buy unauthorized items, or even spend more money on gas or fuel than your company has determined to be appropriate for their needs.

Simply being able to spot rogue drivers spending more money, or even buying approved items in frequencies that seem suspicious can help you contain your costs and reduce or eliminate this unwanted activity. And remember, your company is responsible for making payment on this activity so the sooner you can nip it in the bud or eliminate it completely, the better your bottom line is going to look at the end of each month.

The accounting procedures a nationwide fleet must use can often be time consuming and inefficient. By using a fleet service your company can take advantage of technology and a number of other money saving opportunities.

Having instant access via your online account will provide your office with the ability to know what’s happening with your expenditures 24 hours a day. In addition to the afore mentioned prevention savings, your accounting department will save time and money by being able to access all of your drivers and vehicles monthly expenditures in one easy to use interface.

Start using fleet services and gone are the days of needing to collect every receipt, wait for everyone’s expense reports. Now you’ll be able to electronically reconcile your accounts at just about any time. If a late purchase is made that should be accounted for this month, no worries. Your fleet system simply adds that activity into the data base along with the others for that reporting period, a click or two of the mouse and you have a downloadable Excel spreadsheet.

Whether you only have 2 trucks or 2,000, having one simple, easy place to wrangle all their activity doesn’t only make sense; it now makes you dollars!

Technorati Tags: fleet cards, fleet travel, trucking

2010 SS Camaro My Review

The 2010 SS Camaro Rules the ¼ Mile Race

When testing the new SS Camaro, of course you have to test it against the Mustang, and the Dodge Challenger, and be able to beat them both at their own game, if you dig in to the facts, you’ll certainly find that the new 2010 SS Camaro has done just that.

Tests may very in times that the cars run between the different people who test them, my numbers will be coming from Edmund’s web site, Edmund’s tested the hottest SS Camaro that is available to the public, and it proved just hot hot it is.

My usual forte is the old muscle cars, but I just could not refuse to do an article about the new 2010 SS Camaro, since of the big three, the Camaro has always been my favorite car, the basic setup on the Edmund’s test car is as follows.

The Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual as the gearbox of choice, you get an LS3 6.2-liter V8 in the deal, which is rated at 426 HP @ 5900 RPM, and 420 FTLB of torque @ 4600 RPM, the stats certainly stack up to the Camaro of yesteryear.

This package would have a 3.45:1 rear ration installed in the car, this is a great combination for a 0-60 blast off of 4.7 seconds, not to bad if I do say so myself, it’s a 6.2 liter engine, which is rated at 22 MPG on the freeway, not bad for a hot rod.

When Edmund’s tested this car it ran a 13 second ¼ mile @ 110.9 MPH in factory street dressing, this is pretty good when compared to the Challenger R/T’s of 5.5 second 0-60 time, and it’s 13,9 second ¼ mile @ 103.2 MPH, right in front of it comes the Ford Mustang GT.

The Ford Mustang GT did a much better job then the Challenger R/T did, with a 0-60 time of 5.2 seconds, and a standing ¼ mile time of 13.5 seconds @ 102.9 MPH, but in the it’s not enough to take out the SS Camaro, Chevrolet has done a great job building this car.

Once again my pick for top new muscle car id the 2010 Camaro SS, if your looking for a car that does all of the things that a muscle car is supposed to do, right out of the box, this is without a doubt the muscle car you should look at.

Technorati Tags: 2010 Camaro Review

Segnala presso:

u=http://muscle-car-resto.com/blog/?p=275&title=The+2010+Camaro+Rules+the+%C2%BC+Mile+Race” title=”Aggiungi ‘The 2010 Camaro Rules the ¼ Mile Race’ a BlueDot”>

By

Technorati Tags: car restoration

Honda has introduced its CR-Z, a hybrid sports car which is likely to reach showrooms next year, reported AUTOCAR.co.uk.

The CR-Z, which is designed to replace the CRX, would be powered by a new compact four-cylinder engine displacing less than 2.0-liters and matched to an electric motor. The combined output for the car would be approximately 140Hp, with drive sent to the front wheels via a CVT.

The CR-Z is expected to overlap with the entry-level VW Scirocco 1.4 on price, although its smaller dimensions make it more of a supermini-size three-door.

Power will come from a petrol/electric IMA hybrid powertrain. The system is derived from the Insight. But, in place of the Insight’s 87bhp, 1.3-litre petrol motor is a higher-output 1.5 i-VTEC unit.

The CR-Z concept is expected to be unveiled at the Tokyo show, and the production version will appear at the Detroit show in January 2010. Sales in Japan kick off in February 2010 and the car reaches the UK in summer 2010, reported autocar.co.uk.

By noreply@blogger.com (Kamal)

Technorati Tags: car news

Toyota has just announced the upcoming release of a really fancy new car. It’s the Lexus LFA Supercar and it’s designed to compete in the car world against major speedy sports cars like Ferraris. This new car isn’t intended for purchase by the average driver. It’s a limited-edition vehicle and only 500 of them will be made. Each one will sell for $375,000. It’s really meant just for those people who have the funds to collect cars that are mostly made to play with. Nevertheless, it’s a neat thing for the rest of us to admire from afar.

The new Toyota car is going to be handbuilt. That’s right; each of the 500 Lexus LFA Supercars that are made will be entirely crafted by hand using the best of the best Toyota genuine parts. They will be assembled specifically to order by the customer. That means it will take a little while after the order is placed to receive the car but the car will be made exactly like the owner wants it. That’s great for the people who have the money for a big kids’ toy like this. And it’s a neat addition to the market for Toyota which hasn’t always been able to compete in this specialized sports car market in the past.

Technorati Tags: toyota genuine parts

It’s been in the on-deck circle for about a year–and at last, the 2011 Kia Sorento arrives in our hands as the Korean automaker lets the first dozen journalists in the U.S. free with its new crossover.

The Sorento enters production later this year at a new factory in West Point, Georgia, and goes on sale early next year. It slots between the smaller Kia Sportage and the seven-seat Borrego sport-ute.

The new 2011 Sorento is a marked change from the outgoing vehicle, which was introduced in 2002 and updated significantly in 2005. The new version, for one, isn’t built on frame rails. It’s a car-like unibody as are all the crossovers in its general size class, from the Toyota RAV4 to the Honda CR-V and Honda Pilot–and you may as well throw in the next Ford Explorer, too.

On the outside, the biggest changes come in terms of proportion. The new Sorento is longer and sits shorter than its predecessor, and the new grille is definitely more appealing than the dated facade of the outgoing model. The new Sorento, Kia says, will offer more passenger room and seats than the previous five-seat model.

For world markets, Kia is offering the new Sorento with four engines. There’s a 172-horsepower four-cylinder; a 270-hp, 3.5-liter V-6; and a smaller four-cylinder and a diesel engine. The U.S. version will likely stick with the V-6 and, perhaps, the four-cylinder. The new Sorento will offer better fuel economy than the 2010 model, Kia says. Buyers will also be able to choose between five and six-speed manual or automatic gearboxes, and front- or all-wheel drive.

Kia is also predicting five-star safety ratings in the European crash-test NCAP.

Features on the new vehicle are expected to include audio systems with MP3 and iPod connectivity; flexible third-row seating; and a navigation system with Bluetooth connectivity built in, along with a music and data hard drive.

Source: thecarconnection

By noreply@blogger.com (Kamal)

Technorati Tags: car news

First of all you need to learn about the car, learn every nut and bolt, know it from the ground up, once you have learned all about the the car you can get in to the hunting process, this is the fun parts of the process, this is where you put your knowledge to work.

I’m sure that if your interested in classic cars you’ve heard the term by the number, or numbers matching, you need to know how to read these numbers because they’ll make you, or break you when it comes to investing in cars.

There nothing more important then the numbers, these numbers that you hear about all the time will tell you everything about the car your looking at, these numbers are your best friend if your going to invest in classic cars, the numbers are what I’m going to talk about here.

The first and arguably most important number is the vehicle identification number, or (VIN code) this number can tell you a lot, but it can’t tell you everything, vins for different manufactures will tel you different things about their cars.

Take for instance a vin plate on your 1960’s camaro reads something like this 124379N109876, this code would break down like this.
The 1 denotes the manufacture of the car, 1 being Chevrolet.
The 24 denotes the Series of the car, or engine type, 24 being 8 cylinder.
The 37 denotes the body style of the car, 37 being two door coupe.
The 9 denotes the year of the car, 9 being 1969.
The N denotes which facility the car was manufactured at, the N means Norwood Ohio.
The 109876 denotes the this was the 109876TH car produced on this day at Chevrolet.

What you need to know:

1.The third digit would tell you if the cat had a V8, if that digit a 3,6, or a 4 it had a V8.
2.The fourth digit indicates the body style, 3 for coupe, 6 for convertible.
3.The sixth digit indicates the year of the car, 7=1967, 8=1968, 9=1969.
4.The seventh digit indicates the production plant, N=Norwood, L=Van Nuys.
5.The last six digits indicate the line number, this number would rise by one with every car built at these two plants.

The vin code needs to match will all the other numbers on the car, like the rpo code, the transmission tag, and the rear end tag, if your looking for factory original to make an investment in classic cars, it a must that the numbers match perfectly.

The rpo code will tell you things like what engine, let’s say you’re looking for a 1969 Z/28 camaro, the suffix, or end of the rpo code would have a “DZ” indicating that the car has a 302 with 290 HP, which is the only engine that the Z/28 came with in 1969.

The rpo code would also tell you if the car had an automatic, or standard transmission in it from the factory, it will tell you the application which would be a 1969 Z/28 Camaro, and in most cases it would tell you if the engine has four bolt mains or not.

You’d also need to know the color code break down for 1969 is your looking for a 1969 Z/28, below I will add the factory color codes for the year 1969.

Code 10 is Tuxedo Black
Code 40 is Butternut Yellow
Code 50 is Dover White
Code 51 is Dusk Blue
Code 52 is Garnet Red
Code 53 is Glacier Blue
Code 55 is Azure Turquoise
Code 57 is Fathom Green
Code 59 is Frost Green
Code 61 is Burnished Blue
Code 63 is Champagne
Code 65 is Olympic Gold
Code 67 is Burgundy
Code 69 is Cortez Silver
Code 71 is LeMans Blue
Code 72 is Hugger Orange
Code 76 is Daytona Yellow
Code 79 is Rallye Green

Keep in mind that the more you know about these cars, the less chance that you’ll lose money, they gain value with every year that they are on the earth and this will never stop, on Chevrolet you also have a protecto-plate that needs to be decoded.

For this article I won’t go in to the protecto-plate, but don’t fail to learn about it also, and on the engine you’ll need to decode the casting number to make sure that the engine in your car is the one that belongs there, it needs to match the rpo code.

Segnala presso:

By

Technorati Tags: car restoration

Technorati Tags: auto repair video

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As American consumers abandon gas-guzzling SUVs for greener alternatives, they also face a new kind of sticker shock — confusing claims about the energy efficiency of electric cars heading for showrooms.

Federal fuel economy standards and household budgets have been built around relatively simple measurements of how many miles vehicles can travel per gallon of gasoline, a number that features on a sticker displayed in the windows of new cars in U.S. showrooms.

So what should those stickers show for new battery-powered cars that will draw most or all of their power from the country’s electricity grid?

General Motors Co brought urgent new attention to the issue last week when it said its upcoming Chevy Volt would get an unprecedented 230 miles per gallon in city driving.

But critics jumped on GM’s claim for the Volt as an example of brash marketing and fuzzy math.

Even electric car boosters concede there is room for confusion.

“The sticker problem has not been solved yet,” said Felix Kramer, head of California-based CalCars.org, a nonprofit advocacy group for plug-in electric vehicles.

Under current rules, Toyota Motor Corp’s hybrid Prius, has been the mass-market fuel-efficiency leader.

The Prius is rated for a combined city and highway fuel economy rating of 50 miles per gallon under standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But Toyota’s rivals, led by GM, are already making claims for a still-unreleased of would-be Prius killers, rechargeable electric vehicles they say will get the equivalent of over 100 miles per gallon under still-evolving federal standards.

Those claims hinge on assumptions about how typical drivers will behave and unfamiliar concepts for most consumers, such as kilowatt hours of electricity.

GM’s Volt is being designed to run 40 miles on battery power alone after recharging overnight. After that, a small gas-powered engine will kick in as a generator to keep its battery from running down further.

For GM, the attention generated by its striking claims about the Volt may have succeeded in moving discussion away from its recent bankruptcy filing and the financial crisis that preceded it.

The EPA said it has not yet tested the Volt and could not verify the 230 mile-per-gallon claim.

WILL IT ‘LIVE UP TO THE HYPE’?

source: reuters

By noreply@blogger.com (Big B)

Technorati Tags: car news