Now why would you like to keep a track of your gas mileage you say? Well, there are several benefits to knowing your vehicle’s mileage over time. An obvious suggestion would be that you could improve your driving habits and save gas and money at the pump. Aggressive driving alone can lower your gas mileage by anywhere between 5 and 33%. Seeing improvement in your mileage might give you the inspiration to keep driving conservatively and saving dollars.
Another less obvious reason is your car’s health. A clogged filter alone can cause you 10% loss in gas mileage. Other problems like faulty oxygen sensors can increase gas mileage by as much as 40%. Keeping track of your gas mileage you can easy see how much mileage your car used to get, and compare it to how much it’s getting now. This way if your vehicle is losing gas mileage gradually over several weeks or months, you’ll be aware of the problem and you can get it checked.
So how do you calculate mileage? Well, next time you are at the pump, reset your trip meter (or write down your total odometer reading, if you don’t have a trip meter) and fill a full tank. Next time you’re at the pump fill a full tank again, but write down the distance you drove since you last filled the tank before you reset your trip meter again. Then divide the miles you drove by the amount you filled. That’ll give you your miles per gallon (If you’re metric, you’ll want to divide your amount filled by the kilometres driven and multiply by 100 to get Litres per 100Km) for that particular tank.
Sound tricky? Well if you sign up with Track Your Gas Mileage, all you have to do is write down the trip meter readings on your gas receipts at the pump, and bring them home. Plug the data into your account, and all the calculations are done automatically. It keeps a history log for you, with all your fill ups, average mileage over time, and handy graphs to show you development over time. And best of all, it’s totally free!
