One-year's actual gas mileage for 4 cars

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It costs to operate any car and fuel cost is usually dwarfed by fixed costs like depreciation and insurance, neither of which would be less with an EV and you'd also have to consider the impact on your electric bill each month.
Most of us have little choice but to pay the price required to get to work and to buy our groceries and other household necessities, get our books from the library and so on.
Kudos to the OP.
Maybe this should become a long running thread like "Post Your Latest Oil Change" entitled "Post your last year's miles driven and fuel used".
Like the OP, I've tracked every tank of fuel for every vehicle we've owned for decades.
Interesting that a modern small car can't do as well as an eighties Civic Wagon, one of which we bought new and drove for more than 200K.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Like the OP, I've tracked every tank of fuel for every vehicle we've owned for decades....
...Interesting that a modern small car can't do as well as an eighties Civic Wagon, one of which we bought new and drove for more than 200K.

Just for fun, I dug up one of the books for my 1975 Toyota Corolla 1600, from the early '80s.

For the period Dec/82 to Dec/83, the '75 Corolla used 778.59 gallons to go 22,062.8 miles. that's 28.34 mpg.
The odometer reading at the end of that period was 88,583.2 mi.

That's just about what the '99 Tercel gets with over 200K on the clock.
 
Rough averages for me:
M235i: 25.5 mpg
318ti: 28.0 mpg
Wrangler: 16.0 mpg
X3 2.5i: 18.6 mpg
i3: Beats me I topped off the tank for the Range Extender the day I picked it up. Since then the only time the engine has kicked on is when the car puts it in "Maintenance Mode" and runs if for 10 minutes
 
Originally Posted By: horse123
Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: horse123
That's kinda terrible MPG for a FWD 1.8L car.


Not really its actual mileage over a year.

not glancing over at it for one highway trip.

My forester can hit 31-34mpg, but over 5000miles I average 26-28mpg summer, 22-25mpg winter.


Well actually it kinda is terrible. I average about 30mpg in an AWD car with a 200cc larger engine. So uh yeah, don't try to tell me it's not terrible.


How much city driving?

I mean, I've hit 22mpg in my Tundra. Like, three tanks in a row 22mpg. Very few others can do that, and I worked hard to do that, and optimized my route to do so (no city, no highway). Meanwhile, people are shocked how short of a lifespan I get out of tires (half the rated warranty).

it's all about the roads and driving style.
 
We had a '76 Civic.
I don't think we ever saw a tank below 30 mpg.
We also had a '67 Corona. It did average around 28 mpg, which I thought was a little low.
Our '86 Civic Wagon typically did even better although it was a larger, heavier car with more power. It rarely had a tank below 30 mpg.
I saw 40 mpg average on my commute with this car when I used it as a daily driver toward the end of its life. The '76 Civic would deliver 36 mpg in similar driving conditions.
That's why I wrote that modern cars don't seem to offer fuel consumption as low as our old Civics did.
 
I was hoping this thread might continue as a "hard numbers" thread, where actual gallons propelled a car actual miles, based on actual fillup records.

I was hoping NOT to see "my car gets roughly xx mpg", or " I get xxx miles per tank", or "we averaged xx mpg", accompanied by no numbers.

I always suspected that very few folks have any idea how far their cars actually travel on actual gallons, and that even fewer keep any sort of real records of their gas mileage. Sadly, my suspicions are being confirmed.
 
I actually keep fuel consumption, mileage, and maintenance records in a separate notebook for each of my cars. Old-fashioned? Yes- but while it may not satisfy the curiosity of the occasional arrogant ******, it works for me.
 
Originally Posted By: horse123
That's kinda terrible MPG for a FWD 1.8L car.


he's operating in a cold evironment, that's really good.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
We had a '76 Civic.
I don't think we ever saw a tank below 30 mpg.
We also had a '67 Corona. It did average around 28 mpg, which I thought was a little low.
Our '86 Civic Wagon typically did even better although it was a larger, heavier car with more power. It rarely had a tank below 30 mpg.
I saw 40 mpg average on my commute with this car when I used it as a daily driver toward the end of its life. The '76 Civic would deliver 36 mpg in similar driving conditions.
That's why I wrote that modern cars don't seem to offer fuel consumption as low as our old Civics did.


But a Fit is way bigger than a '76 Civic now.
 
I keep a logbook in each car; each fillup is entered, and later transcribed into Excel.

I've fallen behind on my Tundra; the last few tanks were more like 17mpg.


My "new to me" Camry only has had a few fillups, so it's not really great data.


At some point I'll rework the sheet, as I started this style when I had my diesel burning Jetta--and was tracking biodiesel usage too.

Edit: the blank lines on the Tundra are because of gas rewards. I can only get 10c/gallon up to 20 gallons; then the pump clicks off. On those days I just get my 20 gallons and then do the calculation over a double-tank.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: supton
I keep a logbook in each car; each fillup is entered, and later transcribed into Excel.

Now that's what I meant about "hard numbers".

I like to have a full-year of data, since mileage can change with the seasons and a full-year is a way of compiling a meaningful real-world average. And, as with any statistics, the larger the data set, the more accurate they are likely to be.

In your report, I see that "RUG" is the gas, but what does "RUG" stand for?
 
I tend to keep cars a long time. I have and Excel spreadsheet recording every drop of fuel used over 18 years in a Mercedes 190e 2 litre Auto. There is far too much data to post but the average over 18 years was 32.73 MPG (imp) 27.25 MPG (US)

I routinely see big seasonal swings from 27 MPG in shorter winter runs and up to 40 MPG on long summer trips but the average is very consistent. After the first 6 or 7 years the average figure settled down and fluctuated by no more than 0.2 MPG
 
Originally Posted By: KrisZ
Regular Unleaded Gasoline most likely.


Yes.

I used to enter in D2 (diesel), B20 (20% biodiesel, 80% diesel), with plans of supporting different blends (if ever available). RUG when I got a gas powered vehicle, as I copied the sheet over; and I guess PUG could be entered in... when I think of deleting it I then wonder if I'll have to enter in E20, or PEV, or who knows what.

For now it's a bit odd, but maybe my OCD-ness will make sense some day. For now it's worthless distinction.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
We had a '76 Civic.
I don't think we ever saw a tank below 30 mpg.
We also had a '67 Corona. It did average around 28 mpg, which I thought was a little low.
Our '86 Civic Wagon typically did even better although it was a larger, heavier car with more power. It rarely had a tank below 30 mpg.
I saw 40 mpg average on my commute with this car when I used it as a daily driver toward the end of its life. The '76 Civic would deliver 36 mpg in similar driving conditions.
That's why I wrote that modern cars don't seem to offer fuel consumption as low as our old Civics did.


Those old Civics from the 1970s were death traps, though.
 
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