I’m not going to bore you with a super long list of tips on how to improve your fuel economy. What I am going to provide is what I consider to be the top three reasons why people experience poor gas mileage, and can’t seem to figure out why. This will come as an entry in the very near future, but for now, I’d like to provide a tip that I think everyone should adhere to.

Keep track of your gas mileage

It sounds simple enough, but far too few people actually do this. The easiest way to keep track consists of three simple steps.

  1. Fill your gas tank and clear your trip meter
  2. Drive drive drive
  3. When you feel like filling your tank again, make note of what your trip meter is at. Fill as usual, and make note of how many litres (or gallons for you American folk) you had to pump to fill the tank.

You now know what kind of fuel economy you’re getting. For example, if at the time of the second fill, let’s say the trip meter reads 400 kilometres and you had to pump in 40 litres. You are getting 10 kilometres per litre, or about 10.0L/100km (Canadian system). For our American friends, I’m sure you can figure out how to use the same system to determine miles per gallon.

I like to keep track of the current pump price as well, so I can be aware of how much (in dollars) I’m spending on gas per 100 kilometres of travel, for example. Set yourself up with a simple Excel spreadsheet, with columns for the date, pump price, distance travelled, litres/gallons pumped, and whatever else you feel you’d like to know.

You will be able to see when your fuel efficiency takes a sudden drop. If you suddenly go from 30MPG to 25MPG or 20MPG, you know that something is amiss.

Stay tuned to this blog for what could be the thing that is “amiss”, when I discuss my top three reasons for poor fuel economy.