Part of knowing the fundamentals of what your car needs, is being able to calculate its fuel efficiency as you drive around. It’s important to know how far you can drive on a single tank of gas. Knowing this will let you determine how much farther you can drive if your gauge ever breaks, and more importantly it will let you figure out what your fuel efficiency is. With that information you can out if something is wrong with your vehicle. What better month to learn about this than car care month? So take a few minutes and learn how to get to know your vehicle a little better.
Calculating Total Miles
Calculating total miles traveled is simple, as long as you’re willing to jot down a few numbers the next time you fill your car with a tank of gas. After you fill up your car, before you drive down the road, write down your odometer reading. This is the initial reading.
Now drive your vehicle until it registers at the half tank mark. Get this as close as you can accurately. Write down the number once again. This is your final reading. Subtract the initial reading from the final reading and multiply the number by two. That’s theoretically how far you can travel on a tank of gas. For a more exact figure, you can drive your vehicle around until you run out of fuel completely, but that’s pretty inconvenient, even if you do carry extra fuel with you.
Figuring out Fuel Efficiency
Now that you know how far you can travel on a full tank of gas, it’s time to calculate how efficient your vehicle is. Look in your owner’s manual for the capacity of your fuel tank, if you don’t find it there call the dealership or search for it online. Once you have the capacity you simply divide the total traveled miles by the tank capacity, and you’ll have an average for how far you travel on a single tank of gas. To find out whether this is better or worse than it should be, look up the EPA estimated amount for your model vehicle and compare the numbers you get from this test.
What Fuel Efficiency Tells You
If you have a fuel efficiency figure that’s way below the EPA estimated rating, you know one of two things. Either your vehicle could use a tuneup to improve fuel efficiency, or you have poor driving habits that could be improved to save you on gas money. To find out if you need a tuneup get in touch with car care experts to learn what options are available to you.
No matter what the results tell you, you should know more about your vehicle than you did when you started and that’s what it’s really all about. To celebrate Car Care Month take some time to learn your vehicle better a little bit better. This is a good first step toward that goal.