Whats your fuel log telling you?
 

sorry for the long post but i think its a cool thing

in a recent thead i read about a fellow ecomodder that took a different approach to ecomodding...considering how much fuel he was consuming in addition to what his mpg was...rationing his total miles per month in the car. its simple but brillant and got me thinking about how much i consume as well.

ive been on ecomodder for almost 4 months exactly and with my limited math skills it seemed like the perfect time to multply my ecomodder log times 3 to figure out my estimated total yearly consumption.

my total miles driven since june is 4284 miles. ive consumed 191 gallons of gas at the cost of $707.

when seeing these numbers i thought it would be great to have this info included in all fuel logs...maybe as a header comparing actual total fuel used vs what you would have consumed with your epa number. a digital readout of "free miles driven" would be cool! my total free miles since june is 1435 taking into account my 33 percent over epa times miles ive driven so far on ecomodder. check out your own free miles...it will make you happy!

its great to have the ecomodder community to promote efficient driving and after doing this math rather than telling someone im 33 percent over epa (a different language to lay people) im going to tell them ive driven 1400 miles for free since june thanks to ecomodder! id love to see a digit counter on the front page of the site that says "free miles driven" as it takes into account all members total miles driven times percent over epa. i think that makes lay people interested to change their driving habits to get their own free miles.

nike.com does this on the front page of their nike plus running shoes to track total miles run by people that own the nike plus gear. its over 100 million miles run...an impressive figure that makes me want to run more and gives me a cool community feel. just a random thought that probably makes more work for the moderators of the site...sorry!

Doing the math from my logs starting on 8/31, I have saved 10.7 gallons over 1819 miles, or have had 271 free miles. (actual mileage vs. EPA corrected reference.)

i love the free miles stat and considering im pretty much a non highway driver...avg about 12000 miles driven a year...some of the more impressive ecomodders on this site should be able to post out of this world free miles from their fuel logs!

id love to see total miles driven...total gallons consumed...free miles driven all added to the fuel log to take it a step further. i keep a pen and paper log so i can track it myself if its too difficult to program into the site.

someone getting 50 mpg might be driving thousands of miles for free every year and its cool to see that! at the same time they might actually be consuming the same amount of fuel as a guy getting 30 mpg if theyre driving alot more miles a year. all told its cool to see just how many free miles and how many gallons of fuel the ecomodder community is saving! without knowing the actual number of vehicles on the ecomodder site i wouldnt be surprised to see hundreds of thousands of free miles and thousands of gallons of fuel saved!

My fuel log tells me :

• Rear skirts are effective : my 2008-09-01 tank was done with cardboard rear wheel skirts and same techniques as previous one. I had to improve my skills and techniques during 2 months to achieve an equivalent mpg.
• Traffic jams kill FE : my last 3 tanks has been done with more and more traffic jams.
• NICE-On Coasting (coast in neutral engine on) is better than DFCO (Deceleration Fuel Cut Off, ie engine break) only, and the better the tires are pumped up the better the mpg.
• In 4 months I avoided to feed 22 trees for 1 year :) (1l of diesel = 2.66kg of CO2 - 1 tree absorbs 10kg more CO2/year than what it generates), but I fed 61 trees :(

Denis.

i have gained 1 free day to work or 130 miles every tank.
went from abou 70 miles quarter to 120ish a quarter i use to have old fuel logs when i drove like a bat out of hell and i got 17-19 every day and best was 24 on a trip. now 24 is a bad bad tank. so i went from 250 miles to 400 miles a tank.

i also notice i have a short temper that leads to mpg drop even if i was the one who made me mad, or if i just want to get there. 1.5 hours each way to work seems so long some days. :)

like one day trip home can be 30 mpg, the next day might be 27 mpg. or a trip to work when i leave on time = about 27-28 mpg alot of evelevation change 1200 plus 3 mountains not included in that number) or if i am runnign late 25-27 mpg.

which considering my truck has 252 thousand mile and is a 4x4 and rater for 17 combined aint all the bad but speed kills it. 55 mph= 30-32 mpg 65-70 mph =24-25 mpg.

Thats how Ive been looking at it as well. Over a tank of going to work and back, I can usually get a free trip to work and back with the mileage I am getting now, as compared to before I joined the site. Going downstate and back, its about a free trip every 2 months.

My mileage log tells me that I am fairly consistent in my driving. It also show the drastic difference between highway and in town miles.

The latest trend is a sharp drop in mpg due to energy required to heat the engine in the cold mornings. Also the fact that the gas stations are beginning to receive shipments of winter diesel that has a lower btu content further drops my mileage.

my commute to work is only 8 miles round trip so in just 6 months i build up enough free miles over epa to ride free to work for a year! over the course of a year i drive about 2900 free miles! thanksgiving should include a special "thanks" to ecomoder!

Matt -

Hrmmmm, interesting POV. Here's another one from a $ POV. Assuming $3.50 per gallon :

New (Ecomodder) MPG : 40+
Usual fill-up : ~5.5 gallons (1/4 tank to 3/4 tank)
New fill-up Miles : 40 MPG * 5.5 gallons = 220 Miles
Cost : 5.5 gallons * $3.5 = $19.25

Old (pre-Ecomodder) MPG : 30+
Gallons to go 220 Miles : 220 Miles / 30 MPG = 7.33 gallons
Cost : 7.33 gallons * $3.5 = $25.67

Cost Difference : $25.67 - $19.25 = $6.42 => ~$6.50 for each fill-up.

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Now, let's look at a year. I project about 20,000 miles this year :

20,000 / 30 MPG => 666.67 Gallons
20,000 / 40 MPG => 500.00 Gallons
Difference = 666.67 - 500.00 = 166.67 Gallons saved per year

Money Saved Per Year : 166.67 * $3.50 = $583.45

CarloSW2

daycfg... i cant take credit for the pov ecause it was motivated by another ecomodder but i will take credit for the term free miles...i think it puts it in laymans terms and really makes people think about what 1000 or 2000 or 5000 free miles means to them. it might be 50 freetrips to work or 20 free trips to taking their kids ack to college after holidays. whatever it means to them...its personal and i think it means mora than percent over epa to someone not fully comitted to what we do every day. dayday

Taco: 1.5 hours each way? thats madness!!!!

I'm in the same boat as Taco. I drive 1.5 hours one way for grad school classes everyday. Which is the main reason I now own a Metro! On Tuesdays and Thursdays I drive 3 hours (total) for a 1 hour class! yeah, I know... crazy. But the quicker I get it over with the sooner I can really save gas and get a job I can bicycle to!! THEN I'll get tons of 'Free Miles'!! lol :thumbup:

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I don't have a Scangauge but I've taken to recording my coasting miles on a dash-mounted calculator. On my California-Wyoming round trip in August, 20-percent of my driving was in neutral, or over 200 miles. It boggles the mind.

my fuel log tells me that I have paid a total of $289 in fuel costs this year.

it also tells me that if i had been getting exactly the epa estimate that entire time my fuel cost would have been $493

total miles, 5,219
free miles, 712
14% of my miles have been "free miles"


it also tells me that my recent low mpg numbers aren't really all that bad. my time between fillups is much longer because im driving less than i was during the summer

yep 65 miles one way 65.4 miles the other way. that is each direction.
one way take me 1.5 hours on the dot the other is 5-10 minutes quicker but i get about 3 less mpgs.

and it is all 2 lane country roads. curvy and hilly.:thumbup:

tourig...im horrible at math but by your percent over epa which is 44 i would guess that for every 100 miles you drive you get 44 free miles. if you have driven 5000 miles this year the 2000 are free miles...right...not 700.

Someone getting EPA+44% and driving 5000 miles/year gets
5000 - 5000/1.44 ~ 1500 free miles/year for ~ 3500 miles paid.

Denis.

Thanks for getting your red pen out Groar...like I said "1500 free miles for 5000 driven at 44% over EPA." If anyone needs a math tutor...I'm available!

Mine is telling me that the weather is getting coler, so my MPG is dropping slightly. Still over EPA though, so I can live with it.....

Jim

I realized i did the math wrong after i posted it. it kept me up for a while...

my lifetime %epa is also much lower, ~36%

For "free miles" I just go by what I was always getting before I started here, which was 29 to work and back, and 32 downstate and back. EPA for my car is 21 combined, and the only time I would get that was when I had a stuck open thermostat in the middle of winter, or some other mechanical problem. I dont consider it free miles if I never really got that low to start with.

However the wife is pretty good at getting EPA mileage. Trying to convince her how to do better.

wagonman,

I also got better than EPA before I started ecomodder but for referring my stats to lay-people not associated with ecomodder (who probably don't get much better than EPA and might not even know what EPA means) I was including total free miles over EPA.

I've been touting ecomodder to anyone that will listen and have two people at work trying it on their vehicles (P&G, higher psi, etc.) and they are seeing some improved results although I think only 1 of them actually tracks their fuel consumption on the site. I actually have an appointment with a friend of mine this week to take him out driving in his toyota tacoma to show him some P&G.

Matt -

Hrmmmmmm, let me redo this. Putting my calcs into the "free miles" POV :

New (Ecomodder) MPG : 40+
New fill-up Miles : 40 MPG * 5.5 gallons = 220 Miles

Old (pre-Ecomodder) MPG : 30+
New fill-up Miles : 30 MPG * 5.5 gallons = 165 Miles

220 miles - 165 miles = 55 free miles per tank.

---------------

Now, let's look at a year. I project about 20,000 miles this year :

20,000 Miles / 40 MPG => 500.00 Gallons
30 MPG * 500.00 gallons = 15,000 Miles
20,000 Miles - 15,000 Miles = 5,000 FREE Miles per year.

Orrrrrrrrrr, to make a short story long, for every 3 miles I drive, I get one mile for free, :D .

CarloSW2

cfg...

For every 160 miles you drive you get 60 "for free" based on being 60% over epa. If you drive 20,000 miles a year then you take that number divided by 160 miles and get 125. Then multiply 125 x 60 free miles and you get 7500 free miles. Check my math but I think I'm correct (maybe)?

My fuel log is telling me that I'm near the max I can get out of the truck. The good news is that the mods and driving are robust and I stay within a 3 MPG range most of the time.

My fuel log told me that using Lube Control FP Plus helps my gas mileage.
Don't use it MPG went down at least 1 mpg.
My fuel log also told me that a gas station by me had changed suppliers and I noticed in two tanks that I should not use their gas anymore.
Went back to name brand Exxon and Sunoco and I get top gas mileage again.
Never would have known if I hadn't started writing down my fills and miles and getting my mpg per tank.

Matt -

7,500 is about right. In my pre-Ecomod days I was already averaging 30+ MPG (which matches the old EPA standard), so that is my personal benchmark. But let's plug in the EPA standard with more exact numbers :

New (Ecomodder) MPG : 41.92 (lifetime Ecomodder-MPG)
New fill-up Miles : 41.92 MPG * 5.5 gallons = 230.56 Miles

New EPA MPG Standard for my car : 27
EPA fill-up Miles : 27 MPG * 5.5 gallons = 148.5 Miles

230.56 miles - 148.5 miles = 82.06 => ~82 free miles per tank.

This means that for very tank (on average), I get at least on free commute to/from work.

---------------

Now, let's look at a year. I project about 20,000 miles this year :

20,000 Miles / 41.92 MPG = 477.099 => 477 Gallons
27 MPG * 477 gallons = 12,879 Miles
20,000 Miles - 12,879 Miles = 7,121 FREE Miles per year.

Hee hee, I just gained 2000 miles from my previous calc, :) . I like to low-ball my benefits so that I am not exaggerating when I tell non-Ecomodders, but it's good to crunch the numbers now and then.

CarloSW2