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Well...it goes like this:
When the "fuel low" light blinks I get gas...making note of how many miles it takes me to get to the pumps...so I can calculate those miles back out of any mileage I get from the new supply of gas.
I put in $20 worth...lets say here its $3.80/gal...for 5.3 gallons...and then calculate back out the miles it took to get to the station (lets say 1/10 gal but I have to assume my average mileage to do this)...so now lets say that "above the beep" I have 5.2 "fresh" gallons in the tank.
Drive, drive, drive...get 183.6 miles before the "beep" again.
183.6/5.2=35.3 MPG.
Does this not sound like a realistic calculation? I do this approximately 2X/week and typically get 34-35MPG in mixed driving between 30-55 mph zones, one hour each way, 2X/day.
Barring purchasing a ScanGuage,which is in the plans, how else would I compute mileage? There needs to be a baseline (I use the fuel-low beep), because I can't run the tank dry just to fill it with 14.5 gallons...that's just too impractical.
EDIT: an '03 Jetta wagon, 2.0L, 5spd. ...rated for 29mpg...I believe.
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