What do you look for when buying a new car? The number of passengers it can hold? Its top speed? It's shape and color? Or do you value the practical features first, such as the number of doors your car's got, or its safety features?

Everything mentioned so far is certainly important to consider when picking out your next automobile. However, there is a more pressing factor to take into account: the car's EPA gas mileage, it's measured miles per gallon... These figures should be up at the top of your assessment. So, be sure to compare gas mileage before you make your choice and pay out your money.

Why is getting a vehicle with better fuel economy is so important? well, for a start, high-MPG cars save you gas. That's pretty obvious. But there are other reasons.

The average US medium-size car returns it's owner somewhere between 21 - 27 miles per gallon. That's not bad for fuel economy when you compare that to a standard sized SUV, that gets somewhere between 13 to 16 mpg. So it's easy to see that an automobile with a higher fuel consumption is going to cost a whole heap more to run.

Even if both vehicles cost the same amount of money to buy, in the long term, the higher-mpg car is going to save you money on fuel. And if you use the average of these two cars figures and drove them for identical distances, you would save around 40 per cent in fuel costs. That's just through getting more mpg.

So don't forget to compare gas mileage before you buy your next car. Do things right, and you will save save some serious gasoline expenses!

But if you combine this fuel economy together with another method to save fuel consumption, for example, organizing a car pool to get to town or to college, then your savings would surely add up even better.

So if you are hunting for a new car right now, or you are looking for ways to save money on fuel, it makes very good sense to compare gas mileage first.