Slow acceleration can be incredibly frustrating. However, if this is something that you’ve noticed with your own vehicle, there are ways you can tackle this. Don’t worry; our experts have outlined some of the key things you need to know to help tackle slow acceleration in your vehicle.
Hopefully, this will help you enjoy a better driving experience overall – making it easier to get up to speed in a hurry.
6 Ways to Tackle Slow Acceleration in Your Vehicle
If your car’s been slow to accelerate, there are many different causes for this – and understanding these could help you work out the best way to fix the problem.
Clean the Filters
One of the biggest causes of poor acceleration is due to dirty or clogged filters. As such, if your car seems to be accelerating slowly, clean the filters first to ensure this isn’t holding the vehicle back.
Consider the Catalytic Converter
We often fail to recognise just how crucial catalytic converters are – until they begin to wear out. As such, keeping a close eye on the catalytic converter (and replacing it if it begins to show signs of wearing out) can potentially help prevent acceleration issues due to a faulty catalytic converter.
Invest in Higher-Quality Fuel
Different fuel types can have different impacts on your driving experience. As such, if you’ve noticed that your car’s acceleration seems a little slow, using premium fuel may help improve this.
Similarly, always use the fuel recommended for your type of car; a car that’s recommended to use premium fuel simply won’t get good results with average-quality fuel.
Decrease Weight in the Car
If you tend to carry a lot of heavy items in your car, this can have a massive impact on its performance. As such, if this is an issue you’ve experienced, try to ditch any excess weight to improve your car’s acceleration.
Invest in a Throttle Response Controller
In some cases, a delay from the gas pedal signal (mainly in modern vehicles) can cause slower acceleration. If you think this might be the cause of your car’s slow acceleration, a throttle response controller can help optimise electronic signals, thus improving your acceleration speeds.
Invest in a New Car
At the end of the day, some cars simply don’t accelerate as fast as others. As such, if acceleration speed is important to you, looking for a higher-performance vehicle may be worth considering. However, before you purchase a second-hand car, make sure you run a car history check first.
A vehicle check allows you to quickly see whether a car may have had any issues in past MOTs that could predispose it to slow acceleration. Plus, this check also allows you to ensure the vehicle doesn’t have any nasty history surprises, such as being written off or having the mileage record changed.
In doing so, you’ll hopefully be able to find a great vehicle that offers the acceleration you’ve always wanted.
Final Thoughts
Good acceleration speeds are highly important in many cases. However, it’s easy to overlook this, especially when the issue isn’t glaringly obvious. Nonetheless, taking a proactive approach is important to ensure that your car’s acceleration issues don’t become something more serious.
