Wondering what the easiest way to keep track of mpg? I used to just write calculated mpg and dash mpg on the printed receipt, and keep a stack of them, but around here nowadays, most seem to be out of paper. I've seen Fuelly.com . That seems to have promise. Downside could be that all your hard work disappears if they dry up and blow away. Possible to download a local backup? Perhaps a spreadsheet? I don't think my laptop came with one. I'd have to hunt around for one. I'm thinking maybe take a picture of the pump info, and then a picture of the dash meter, if that's the right word. The meter would have miles and its own calculation for comparison. Then maybe input into Fuelly, spreadsheet, etc. Thoughts/experiences? edit: The Fuelly FAQ does say you can export a .csv file from the app.
Fuely, AKA aCar app user here. It works very well for tracking fuel economy. It also can be used for reminders for oil changes (time or distance), documenting maintenance/service, costs of parts, part numbers, etc.
i used to write it in a small notebook in the center console. i don't think anything could be simpler
You still need to calculate the mpg, unless you are just recording the optimistic mpg from the display.
A half-sheet or smaller spiral notebook. Shove a cheap pen in the spiral and tab-off a third of the pages for maintenance. Keep in the center console or glove box. I've got one of those in all my cars. Frequently used maintenance part numbers on the front or rear cover, making trips to the store faster and easy. My backup is Quickbooks, but I'll need to generate a report for that.
its basically impossible to track meaningful mpg numbers with the plug in prius, right? as far as i can tell, any hybrid-driving distances just get averaged in with the ev-driving distances, so things like tank averages would take an exorbitant amount of effort to document, right? i just set my dash display to be per-drive, and observe my individual trip numbers to get a general sense of how i'm doing relative to other trips.
Perhaps just enter it once on Fuelly, as in real time, at the gas station? When I had my TDI, I used to write the info on the paper receipt, but a lot of them don't seem to work anymore. I'd collect a bunch of those receipts, and then not do anything with them.
Everytime I fill up, at the top of the gas receipt I write: [odometer](trip meter)[Toyota's BS mpg meter] At home, in a spreadsheet, I copy bottom line down one, overwrite the previous date, liters, odometer and in-dash entries. The spreadsheet substracts the previous odometer reading from the latest, updates the trip cell with the difference, and with the litres value calculates liters/100km (Canadian alternate to mpg). It also updates the error (%) field, and does a conversion to mpg. Up at the beginning there's a few fields, summarizing "lifetime average's"" The Fuelly link works, but for me that's just for fun, not sure it'll always be there, and don't want to count on it. At least for me, Fuelly badge does not seem to be updating properly of late.
Up to now, I've always used the trip miles and then zeroed it out at the pump. I guess the Prius zeros the trip (or tank) out on refueling. As I said though, around here a lot of the pumps are out of paper most of the time. Recently move into Apple world, and have no spreadsheet, word processing programs, etc, that I know of. Being retired, I haven't found the need. Maybe I should look into it. Fuelly does let you download your info.
