Whether you’re saving up for a mortgage or keeping an eye on your outgoings, knowing how to calculate your car’s fuel consumption can save you money as well as stress.
Being clued up on your fuel consumption can also be really helpful to work out whether your car needs to be maintained/repaired. If a specific modification has altered your petrol/diesel mileage, you’ll know why you keep spending more at the pumps.
The problem is most people don’t know how to effectively calculate their petrol/diesel mileage ratings. Read on for some very simple ways to figure out your actual petrol/diesel mileage. Don’t worry; these rules apply whether you’re driving a Seat Ateca or a Volkswagen T-Cross.
STEP 1:
First things first. To find your actual mileage, you’ll have to fill up your car with petrol/diesel.
STEP 2:
Next, make sure you reset the trip odometer after you fill up your car with petrol/diesel. Don’t know where it is? No worries. It's a small button which can be found on the dashboard or the centre console. Once you’ve found it, all you have to do is hold it down and reset it to zero.
If you don’t have a trip odometer, be sure to record the mileage. Thankfully, most cars do have a trip odometer that functions well, so make sure to set it to zero.
STEP 3:
Drive your car on a normal routine for a couple of days – whether it’s:
- commuting to work
- picking up your children from school
- going to the shopping centre to buy any essentials.
Drive your car as you normally would do – you don’t need to drive it until your tank is empty, but the more you drive on your current tank of petrol/diesel, the more accurate your calculation will be. This is because it will compensate for the days when you might get stuck in traffic, and your mileage consumption might be greater than it should be.
STEP 4
Revisit the petrol station and fill up your car with fuel again.
Remember: If you insert the pump at a slightly different angle and forget to let the pump click off on its own, then you may end up with slightly inaccurate readings.
STEP 5
Take note of how many gallons are used. Once you have a full tank of petrol/diesel, write down how many gallons/litres you needed. This is your “fuel usage.”
Now it’s time to use the information you've collected and do the maths!
Calculating fuel consumption
STEP 1:
First of all, it’s important to find the number of miles travelled. To find this, you have to subtract the starting odometer reading from the new one.
STEP 2:
To calculate your car’s fuel consumption you have to divide the miles travelled by the amount of gallons it took to refill the tank of your car.
For example, if you drove 312 miles and you filled your car with 16 gallons of petrol/diesel (312 miles ÷ 16 gallons), your overall fuel consumption would be 19.5mpg (miles per gallon).
If you repeat this procedure on a regular basis, you'll be able to monitor and improve your fuel mileage like a pro.
But what about how to calculate how much driving your car will cost you?
How to calculate your rate of petrol/diesel
After you've calculated how many miles you've driven, take that number to find out what it will cost you each time you travel. Take the average price you usually pay at a petrol station and then divide that number with your car's mpg.
Once you have calculated how much it costs you, you can apply that same method and price to whatever car you’re travelling in.
Knowing your cost and your car's fuel consumption can help reduce your expenses hugely, which, as we all know, is really important when you’re travelling long distances.
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