Keeping Track Of Gas Mileage

And now for something different...

Here's how I keep track of my vehicle's gas mileage. This procedure works well for me. I get all kinds of useful information about my vehicle from knowing how good it's gas mileage is.

For those of you who do not know what gas mileage means: it's how many miles the vehicle can drive while consuming one gallon of gasoline. You see, gasoline is a fuel, and it makes the vehicle move through the wonders of physics, chemistry, and electricity.

Since I have to buy gasoline before I can drive the vehicle, it's useful to know how much I'm going to need.

So I start with a full tank of fuel. I reset my trip odometer on the dashboard to zero. I drive wherever I have to go, then when it's time to get gas again based on the gas guage, I plan for a full tank. If I know how many miles I drove, then the number of gallons it takes to re-fill the gas tank can be used to check miles per gallon. Take the number of miles driven, then divide it by the number of gallons to refill the tank. That's the gas mileage, AKA miles per gallon.

EXAMPLE: I drove 200 miles according to my trip odometer. I refill the tank and it takes 10 gallons. That's 200 miles per 10 gallons - and through the wizardry of mathematics (or, using a calculator), I determine that I just got 20 miles per gallon on that last tankfull of gas.

Resetting the trip odometer to zero again, and leaving the gas station with a full tank, I'm ready to embark on my next journey, knowing I'm keeping track of how much gas I'll need over the long run.

I've recently been using my Garmin GPS device to keep track of what my average speed is each tankfull of gas. I've learned over the years that gas mileage is significantly influenced by 2 things outside of the vehicle itself: 1) overall temperature outside, and 2) average speed driven.

The warmer the temps outside, the more efficiently the engine burns fuel, and the better the miles per gallon rating becomes. Also, higher average speeds usually will improve gas mileage. Slower speeds caused by a lot of stop-n-go driving will lower overall gas mileage. Driving more miles on a highway will usually improve gas mileage.

The Garmin Nuvi

As I mentioned in a previous post, I got a Garmin Nuvi for Christmas. It's a GPS device. At first I thought - "I don't need a GPS device, I never get lost." Then I used it for awhile and found it has some cool features.

Even if you don't get lost ever, like myself, you can still use this device for tracking mileage, average speed, it leaves little blue lines on road you've driven on, and more. I even downloaded a cool blue monster truck icon, to represent my powerful persona, of course, from the Garmin website. Totally unnecessary, but cool.

I also found out this device can be used to find places, like restaurants, gas stations, places for entertainment, amusement places, and other useful places. It can find phone numbers and give directions. It searches for places within your current location.

Plus it has the ability to be used while your ride a bicycle, or if you just walk around. It can see how fast you are going, what direction, puts you on a map, finds average speeds, how much time you are moving, how much time you're stopped, and a bunch of things I'm still discovering. It has a built-in battery that charges from a USB connection to a computer, or you can use a cable that goes into the lighter socket in your vehicle.

It even has a voice that tells you when to turn right or left, when you program in a destination. Plus, if you decide you don't want to turn when it tells you to, it doesn't get mad at you, like a human direction-giver would do. It just recalculates your next turn, and keeps it's mouth shut. Way too cool.