Monday, June 2, 125
Fuel Mileage
- In early June 2008, TV news said a US gallon was $0.55 in Saudi
Arabia, and under $0.25 in Venezuela.
Closer to home...
- One leans a few things from tracking car MPG.
- Tracking mileage informs about upcoming problems.
- One expects and sees mileage improvements from tune-ups, etc.
- Not every maintenance act improves milesage. A front or rear-end
alignment improves mileage only when it was seriously out of true.
- MPG varies with driving conditions, car conditions, driver style,
weather, et al.
- Some problems are subtle, such as dried out vacuum lines in an
aging car.
- The web has many sites that show where to buy less expensive gas.
Alas, with savings/gallon in the 2-3% range the help is limited.
Furthermore, most newer cars hold 10-12 gallons. Here is a typical
site from the safe
mapquest.com.
- Knowing how one's car responds to different gas brands is worth
a bit over 5%. It too, has problems. Fuel companies change their
product both seasonally and over time. Learning about a car is
months, not weeks. Until recently, there was little interest in
tweaking MPG beyond the common sense stuff. Learning about a
specific car will help about twice as much as picking gas strictly
by cost.
- All of that said, offerings here include examples of different cars
and times.
- Display fuel mileage for all cars here, sorted by brand.
- This site also has detailed graphs for each car here.
Using the graphs.
- Separate graphs are from a Honda,
Saab, and Toyota.
Send comments or suggestions to
Neal
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