A Case Study in Gasoline Use

Have you ever wanted to know the exact fuel economy of your car, or needed to keep track of the behavior of your wallet as the seasons change? Perhaps you are curious what time of year you drive the most, or least, and the price of gas at those times. Fuel price trends may fascinate or frustrate you and you want to coordinate your long trip with the low price season, or you want to keep an eye on how your car is performing so you can take it to the shop before it completely breaks down. Or possibly you're like me and simply want to collect a bunch of data and analyze it to make some awesome graphs!

Whatever your purpose, this Instructable details a useful method to accomplish the best results for your data analysis.

Step 1 OCD Much?

I bought my first car in March of 2006, and despite it's boat-like handling and appearance, my 2000 Chevy Impala has been my baby ever since. I wanted to know every single detail about it, and my insurance company had already suggested I keep a log of service dates and whatnot so I'd have a better idea of what my car needed. So I took their advice and put a little notebook in my car, and took the service logging a little further. Actually I took it much, much further.

Since the day I drove my car off the lot, I have recorded every single time I purchased gasoline.

Whenever I'm driving my friends around and I stop for gas, I get some pretty odd looks. "Hey man, can you hand me the black notebook in the glove compartment?" I then scribble down another line of seemingly useless information into the little book and tell my friend to put it back. Invariably, I have to explain what the book is for, and no I'm not obsessive compulsive. I've diligently kept my log for over 4 years, and I just got the motivation to enter it into my computer like I had originally planned. It suffices to say this is the longest experiment I have ever performed.

Logging your data should be something automatic. Keep the notebook in a visible place for a while, then once you're in the habit, you can keep it in the glove box. Dedicate a nice pen to the cause and keep it in the spiral of the notebook.

Comments

[milothefultz]

This is the geekiest and I am so enthralled. I usually just try to find out my MPG, but I may just start doing this from now on. Thanks for the detail and the multiple calculations possible. Was there a way to find a correlation between MPG and gas brand?

[DarkStarPDX]

I was spending about $0.14 per mile for gasoline in my previous car... When the car croaked I decided my next one would be electric as it will only cost $0.014 per mile.

I've been waiting almost 2 years, but my Nissan LEAF finally arrives in April!

[buteomont]

Great idea! The only problem I see is that the amount of gas that the pump says you bought isn't always the amount that you put in your tank.

Gas stations are supposed to have their pumps calibrated and tested by the state highway department every 6 months, but it seems that (at least in Tennessee) they don't have the manpower to do it that often. The way I understand it, they do good to check them once every 6 years!

From my own experience, very few of them seem to actually give you what you bought, in some cases by quite a lot. I drive a little Smart car which has an 8.5 gallon tank, and one pump that I used showed where I put almost 10 gallons in it!

Of course, there's no incentive for the gas station owner to fix his pumps if they're cheating people. I'd like to see if your data shows any indications of this problem.

[CrLz]

Very nice, my dad and I track the gas mileage similarly!

Depressing how much $ goes into fuel over the life of a car...