How Can You Figure Out How Much Gas Your Car is Using?
In today’s world we have finally begun to make that trek down the path of becoming better stewards of this planet as we attempt to lessen our impact by learning to re-use, recycle, and conserve our resources. We leave a mark on the planet from the day we are born and continue to do so until the day we die, but we have the power to make our personal contribution much smaller. There are many aspects of our lives and how we live them that make effectual change in our environment, and we will only be successful in our pursuits if we attempt to tackle as many of them as possible…but where can we start?
Well, one way of making your stint here less of a trial on the environment and a ruination of your child’s future, is to keep a running tab on how fuel efficient your vehicle is. Your mileage per gallon is a very important statistic and can tell you how your vehicle is performing in general. For instance, if your tires are low and/or your wheels are out of alignment, you will notice that you will have a fall in fuel mileage levels. If your engine needs a tune-up, you might notice an increase in fuel consumption. As you can see, knowing your fuel mileage keeps you abreast of your vehicle’s needs and can help you lessen your impact on the environment by encouraging you to conserve fuel.
Now, you may think that you already know the mileage of your car because it was listed on the vehicle when you bought it. However, this figure is really only a guideline that will give you an approximation of your car’s fuel efficiency. In fact, your fuel needs fluctuate with the state of vehicle in the way it performs. So to give yourself a more accurate report on your fuel consumption that follows the actual performance of your car, you need to follow some simple, but important steps. Here’s how to determine the miles of fuel per gallon your vehicle gets:
1) Take your car to your local gas station and fill the tank completely.
2) Read your odometer. Your odometer gives you a current reading of the total miles travelled by your vehicle. You can usually find it within your speedometer dial and, depending on your vehicle, you could get a reading as low as fifty miles to as much as three hundred thousand. Once you’ve located the odometer and read the number of miles, write down that information or store it in your PDA.
3) Now comes the easy part. Drive your car as you usually would for as long as it takes you to use more than a half of a tank. With some individuals, this process can take almost a week, but for others that drive exclusively, they may have to fill their tank in just a couple of days.
4) Fill your tank. You should note how many gallons it took to fill your tank and write it down. You could get this figure either from your pump or the receipt you get when you put the nozzle back in its holster.
5) Read your odometer. Note this number. Now you take this new figure and subtract from it the previous figure from your earlier reading. This will give you the amount of miles you have travelled since your last fill up.
6) Now comes the arithmetic. Take the number you arrived at when you sifted through the numbers on your odometer and divide that number by the total gallons of fuel you put in the car at your most recent fill up. Whether you accomplish this through using a calculator or writing it our long hand, you will arrive at a new figure, and this is your miles per gallon.
You can take this a step further and compare that figure to the listed miles per gallon of your car. You may want to consider some sort of maintenance check for the vehicle if you find that it is under performing according to the listed miles per gallon. Are your tires balanced? Have they been aligned? Are they low? How well is your motor running? Talk to your mechanic; they can usually recommend ways to help you get the most fuel efficiency out of your car.
If you take time to consider all these possible sources when you discover you are not operating at optimum efficiency, you will be able to keep your vehicle in perfect running order. You have the ability to conserve not only fuel, but also the functional life of your vehicle. As an aside, you can also find your miles per gallon by doing the same method of fueling your tank twice, but you could use your tripometer to automatically display the miles you traveled since your last fill up.