Q. If you are really running low on gasoline and trying to reach a gas station, will turning off the radio and the air conditioner make any difference?

A. There are ways to squeeze a few extra miles out of a gallon, and shutting down your air conditioning is certainly one of them. Turning off your radio? Not so much.

Your air conditioning system gets its power directly from your engine. It’s like having an extra mouth at the table. The food, in this case fuel, won’t last as long.

The A/C in your car works a lot like the one in your home. Its power unit is a powerful compressor. But, instead of using electricity, it’s attached to a drive belt that’s connected to the crankshaft of your engine. So, you’re burning gas to power not just your engine but your air conditioning too. A recent study even showed that having the A/C blasting increased fuel consumption by 5.4 percent.

So does that mean you should just roll down the windows and let mother nature cool you down? It depends. If you’re tooling around town, then go ahead and roll those windows down. But, if you’re going to be driving at highway speeds, the increased drag from open windows can actually cost you more fuel than running the A/C.

The good news is that either way you can have your tunes blasting when you drive. Your radio gets its power from your car’s battery, so it doesn’t consume any fuel. So... turn it up--and stay tuned for more answers from the 3 Birds Marketing service department.