Friday, September 26, 2008

Using FuelClinic.com to Calculate mpg

Recently I wrote about tracking fuel efficiency in your car. Since then I have been saving my receipts, (being diligent to jot my odometer reading on the top,) looking forward to using FuelClinic.com's nifty free tool for calculating your gas mileage. The manufacturer of my car says it should get 26 city and 28 highway, but I have always suspected it did better than that. Since we frugal folks tend to love numbers, I couldn't wait until I had a couple receipts in hand and I could sit and plug them in.

I have to say, I was impressed. It is incredibly easy to set up. You just have to create an account with an email address and password, then you can add up to four vehicles. On each vehicle you can add information like make, year, manual vs. automatic, etc. After that, it is just adding information from your receipts! (Don't forget to jot down your odometer or tripometer readings, you'll need them.)

I was quite impressed - it turns out my car gets closer to 31 mpg on highway driving! City driving ran between 25 and 26 mpg.

I like the ability to track how each tank of gas affects my mileage. I noticed a real difference between when I had to drive across the state and had all highway driving, versus my regular day to day driving. Recently I have been doing all sorts of running around (I have two very, very busy weeks. I am just about due for another tank, so it will be interesting to see how it all adds up!) It would be fun to see if different types of gas affects my mileage, different routes to work, and even test that theory about windows open vs. air conditioning!


More about Saving Gas:

Problems with Road Rage? You Pay More at the Pump!

How to Save Gas Money Going to Work

Gas Pains

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