DTMAce's Forum Comments
Showing comments 151-180 of 198 by DTMAce.
Suggestion: Display units next to odometer
Actually to add to this:
I have a couple of vehicles, one of which is using Kilometers, the others use miles. As I'm based in the US, all of the vehicles are set to report in gallons and miles. With the van being in kilometers, Fuelly has the option to enter your odometer in whatever value you set it to, then report your data in again whatever value you set it to. In this case, I enter the odometer in Kilometers and have Fuelly track it in Miles. Works perfectly.
And even though I have different vehicles with different settings in my garage, I do not have issues with confusing them.
posted by DTMAce October 13, 2010 at 7:58 PM
Need help - my trip odometer was reset
This is why I use the actual odometer to track mileage, rather than the trip. ;)
Trip I use to get a general feel of were I am each tank, but if I actually take a trip, I let it track that. :D
posted by DTMAce August 9, 2010 at 6:43 AM
cost of ownership stat
I had linked this before, but give this a look. This is a 2007 Excel spreadsheet designed to import data straight from the exported CSV Fuelly files. Instructions are in the first page.
It can do up to 10 vehicles/200 fill-ups, but this can easily be expanded as needed. It will also process up to 10 partial fill-ups in a row and total that with the next full fill-up. All figures in RED must not be changed, as it will alter the calculations.
It will also do time figures and can predict a yearly mileage, or average it, if you have more than a year's worth of data. It uses whatever the earliest date of your tracking to automatically calculate days, hours, weeks, months, whatever. And it does factor in for leap years.
It can provide per vehicle totals as well as overall totals.
If you like it, it would not take much for me to add in cost factors for a variety of things like repairs, oil changes, whatever.
At the moment, this sheet is setup on the premise of US based figures, meaning miles and gallons, and setup to use odometer readings, rather than trip. But I can easily adjust this as needed, just depends on interest in this.
Take a look, let me know here.
http://art.cariboucomputers.com/beretta/fuelsheet.zip
Thanks.
posted by DTMAce August 2, 2010 at 10:20 PM
Actually a simple Excel sheet could do this rather easily. As for site to do this, no idea. I suppose if someone wanted something like that done up, it wouldn't be hard to set one up as a link for others, if they want me to. Even I have considered it for my own vehicles as I work on and maintain them.
posted by DTMAce July 26, 2010 at 7:22 AM
MPG dropping - hot weather?
Hot weather makes the gas go farther, however there is some trade off with regards to A/C usage. The last couple of tanks (that I haven't posted yet) reflect me using more fuel, mainly to keep the van cool during a bit of waiting with the kids in the van, while the other half is doing some shopping. Granted this doesn't happen all the time, but I certainly am not going to make the little guys cook in the car with me if I don't half to. So obviously that will affect my mileage.
But if I do mostly highway miles AND use the A/C I still see higher numbers than average. Maybe the Insight has as someone else stated, a different setup that may affect it more. Hard to say. It could also be how its driven, as for example in my case letting it run and keep cool while going nowhere. :D
posted by DTMAce July 5, 2010 at 10:13 PM
Kilometers per liter (KMPL)
Ah no worries there gg. Just me ole' American brain not wrapping around it I think. As for the site, yeah, a lot of work would be involved, but it would be a cool thing to have here.
posted by DTMAce May 4, 2010 at 5:42 AM
MPG differences between Fuelly and MID
I know the MPG thing on my older caravan never matched. But then I reset it at every oil change whereas Fuelly doesn't reset as it is a true average. And it is simply going by the distance you drive and the amount of fuel you use. The individual totals are averaged. No one fills their tank the same exact way every time. I usually round mine up to the next buck or two, if it lets me. That can cause discrepancies on individual fillups, but not your overall average. The meter in the car usually goes by what it thinks it should be. It cannot physically measure the amount of your fuel by unit. It measures mostly by usage and is only an estimate, not exact.
I will agree with mechjames, check your site location settings, make sure you have it on the right country. :D
posted by DTMAce May 3, 2010 at 7:28 PM
Kilometers per liter (KMPL)
Errr... Ok.
So dividing total trip Kilometers by 100 then multiplying that by the L/100K value to get how many liters for your trip is easier than dividing total trip miles by the avg MPG to see how many gallons it takes? (or the same of KMPL) Sounds like more steps, according to the math.
Maybe its easier due to having a 100k value as part of the division path, but from a step point, it takes two steps, instead of one.. That or I'm missing something simple.
If you are using this to plan a budget for before you take a trip is what I'm assuming here.. But I always budget for 1.5 times what I need. Cause ya never know how many side jaunts or missed turns you may take. lol
But oh well. Still think its just.. Odd, regardless of the reason.
posted by DTMAce May 3, 2010 at 7:18 PM
Personally, I never understood the point of L/100K anyway. I always wondered WHY they never did do them in KMPL. That just makes more sense. But that was my opinion of course. :p
posted by DTMAce May 2, 2010 at 12:14 PM
A side project I am working on...
Also at this time it is based on Odometer readings, NOT trip. But I plan to change this in a future version.
posted by DTMAce April 29, 2010 at 10:21 PM
Ok, new update!
I have put together a test version of the sheet.
Requirements at this time:
Excel 2007.
Setup for US measurements. Metric/UK etc may come later depending on how this goes.
There are instructions included for doing your importing from here, as well as an example page of what it should look like after being imported. Problems or questions please contact me. I would like to see what others think of it, and any suggestions or changes would be welcome.
Thanks.
You can download the zip of the file here:
http://art.cariboucomputers.com/beretta/fuelsheet.zip
Again, problems, questions, let me know.
posted by DTMAce April 29, 2010 at 10:17 PM
Can't change vehicle pic?!
Or just hit F5. That will refresh the browser, so will using the reload or refresh button at the top. Or clear your cache files and try again. :D
posted by DTMAce April 29, 2010 at 7:05 AM
A side project I am working on...
OK, an update. I have been doing more tweaks to the individual car pages. What I really need is an export with 50 or more fillups listed, so that I can put this to the test. Anyone have one that can share it? Just need to export your vehicle info to a CSV file then host it. Or message me, I can send you an email to send it to. Totally voluntary and will only be used to test my import setup.
I have also added the ability to directly calculate the partial fill-ups along with the immediate next full tank! And it can do this for up to 10 partial fillups in a row.
Let me know if any of you can help me test it.
posted by DTMAce April 21, 2010 at 6:33 PM
Scan Gauge
My Grand Caravan has one built in, with live MPG right on the overhead readout, along with avg MPG, time, etc.. Its nice, but annoying. Most of the time on level grade at 55 I get well over 30MPG. LOL But the results tell another story. The avg MPG gauge is usually close to what the site shows. But it gets reset every oil change unlike here. Winter its worse, Summer its better. Ah well.
posted by DTMAce April 14, 2010 at 11:23 PM
Highest mpg?
Biggest things I can offer that I know help:
Drive the speed limit. Don't accelerate hard, but don't be a puss about it either. If you use the resume for your cruise control, that will give you an idea of where you should be.
Keep your tires inflated to at least the minimums. I usually run mine 3-6lbs over, for a firmer ride and it helps the MPG.
Run synthetic oil. All of my vehicles do and it helps. Run the appropriate weight per your manufacturer. I run 5w-30 winter/10w-30 summer. 5w-30 is what all of my vehicles call for. But 10 gives it better protection during the hotter months. Those that use diesel fuel obviously have different standards, etc
Keep the stuff you don't need out of your car. Less weight means less work for the engine.
Other things are just common sense. Don't sit with your car idling for any reason. Traffic lights etc, fine. But just because you are going to run into the store real quick doesn't mean you can't shut the car off. I always shut it off, even in the winter. I don't warm it up either when its cold but I go easy for a bit till it warms up.
I don't drive the best MPG vehicles, but I get good results keeping my habits uniform. Though its really hard to do with my Z. lol
posted by DTMAce April 7, 2010 at 3:49 PM
Full tank of fuel or not?
And back to Rob.
I know this, hence my post. But as I said, I highly doubt most modern cars have "crud" in them anyway. If you are filling the car properly, there won't be crud in the tank! Unless you are a person that is constantly leaving the gas cap off and the lid open, and drive through dirty rain or something.... All I know is that when I changed my 200 thousand plus mile tank on my car it was clean, no "crud" or other debris inside. AND since the pump pulls from the bottom (as I said above) it WILL suck in whatever MAY be floating down there, and it gets trapped by the fuel FILTER.
So assuming the fuel system is in good shape and the components are working properly and the owner filled and maintained it properly, it will be clean as it was when it was new in there. Simple as that.
posted by DTMAce March 23, 2010 at 7:14 AM
Missing total purchase price from one fillup?
Ah well, can't get it right every time. :p Thanks for pointing it out though!
posted by DTMAce March 17, 2010 at 9:00 AM
You would also use the totals of the Trip odometer (if you use that) or just the odometer reading from the full tank for your distance.
posted by DTMAce March 16, 2010 at 4:20 PM
No. This is how the site works. When you do a partial fillup, Fuelly cannot calculate this. So what happens is it then goes from the next full tank (which it also gives a 0) then it can recalculate again correctly on the tank after that.
The reason this happens is it is difficult to code correctly the math for it on here from what I understand. I know my Excel sheet I use can do it, but I have to do the calculation entries eslwhere on the page, and I have to know the near exact capacity of my tank.
You could do this another way as well. Add the fuel amount from both the partial and the full tank together. Then add the purchase totals from both together. Divide the total cost by the total gallons to get your price per gallon. Then enter those details as one fuelup entry. It won't reflect the correct tank volume pontential of your particular vehicle, (it would look like you have a bigger tank for that fillup) but the mpg, usage, and costs will come out the same.
posted by DTMAce March 16, 2010 at 4:18 PM
SMS banner.
My bad, I meant upper LEFT logo. lol
posted by DTMAce March 9, 2010 at 6:56 AM
You could always put it temporarily in to replace the upper right logo that says fuelly and change its home link to match it. Back up the current image, redo the graphic to include your SMS tag, (like fade out the original and put the SMS thing over it) then update it. Everyone has the home link to use right beneath so it won't be as big a problem. :D
posted by DTMAce March 9, 2010 at 6:54 AM
Fuel type selection
Well, that would be obvious wouldn't it? If you filled up say last week with X octane fuel at X station, then the next fuelup would actually reflect the impact on your usage/mpg/etc from that fuelup last week. And if you use the tags to track those changes, you will have a good idea what type of gas from which station is helping you the most. This would also of course depend on whether your driving habits remained constant too though.
I find that with all my driving that my habits may stay the same but the usage level changes, depending on how much city vs country driving I do on that particular tank. I rarely ever let the car idle for more than a minute, if I actually leave the vehicle it gets shut off, I don't warm it up in the winter, just get in and go (just go easy).
Anyways, tags are useful in knowing where you got your last tank from, and what impact (if any) it has on your mileage. Keep in mind, the true impact differences are going to be slight anyway. More octane does not give you more mileage. Octane is a spark knock prohibitive and normally only needed for cars that require higher octane fuel due to their higher compression ratios. So unless you car says to use a higher octane, don't, or if you car has spark knock, go up one grade to try to help it.
posted by DTMAce March 5, 2010 at 8:35 AM
Use the "tag" section. What I do is list the town (or highway) of where I was and the company (for example either BP or the name of the station).
Here is a tip for using tags:
1: Do not use spaces when labeling something, for example: Franklin Ohio. Make it FranklinOhio.
2: Same thing for the gas station, make it like: Shell2ndSt.
Spaces between the entries give you MULTIPLE tags in that line that you can then later do searches for, to see how many times you have been to that station.
In your case, you can have more info, such as town, station/brand and then octane rating. Just space between the three, but no other spacing. Then you can even search for them later on.
Hope it helps.
posted by DTMAce March 4, 2010 at 6:47 AM
Full tank of fuel or not?
I like the myth of the "last of the tank crud". The fuel pump is pulling the fuel in from the BOTTOM of the tank all the time! There technically shouldn't be any crud in there anyway. When I pulled my 200k plus mileage tank off of my Z it was clean as it could be on the inside, with NO crud or dirt but it had bad outer rust and had a leak near the top, hence the replacement. I can see this being the case on some older vehicles, but most cars the past 20 years or more pull their fuel from the bottom of the pump/tank. But I will agree on the fuel being used to keep the pump cool, and it is still not advisable to run around on little to no fuel all the time. You shouldn't even do this during the winter especially, in case you get stuck in a ditch for awhile and need to run the car to keep warm. Been there, done that. Providing you don't plug the front full of snow during the episode. :p
posted by DTMAce March 2, 2010 at 8:56 PM
I would think the impact is minimal. Plus Fuelly doesn't track partial tank fill ups individually if I recall correctly. On a really small car I can see weight have some help, but on a vehicle weighing over say 1 ton (2000lbs imperial), 75-100lbs is not going to make much difference. Most vehicles weigh between 3500 to 5000lbs.
posted by DTMAce February 15, 2010 at 7:29 AM
fuel economy question
I mostly just start and go. My main vehicles stay outside all the time so they are going to be bound by whatever the outdoor temps are. The colder it is, the harder to start and the longer it takes to warm up. If I have the baby joining for a trip I tend to start and let it run at least 5 minutes, just so it isn't cold for long once I get going. Usually start it, strap him in, then get going for example.
These vehicles on average take a few miles or so for the transmission to warm up enough for the overdrive/lockup to kick in. Until then they will run higher RPMs that fluctuate with changes to engine demand, therefore using more fuel. Fortunately I live in the country, so driving at 55 tends to warm up a car a lot faster than someone living in the city and going only a mile or 3 to get to work. Often cars in this situation never properly get to warm up to operating temperature.
I do have a block heater on my newer van, but I think I have used it once, maybe twice when the temps dipped below -10F. It does help though, noticeable difference in warm up time. Most of my winter temps here average around 15-20F, and that doesn't really require this.
I also agree about oil temps. Oil pressure does always seem to be higher when cold and stay higher longer than it would in the summer. My older van will even kick on the low pressure light occasionally on a hot day due to the lower oil viscosity, and that's even using a heavier weight oil during the summer!
Those of you that keep them in a heated or semi heated garage will have at least half as many incidents with this sort of thing. Most of us don't have heated garages at work for example. LOL
posted by DTMAce February 8, 2010 at 4:37 PM
Potential Fuel Savings Optimistic
Maybe it was because that last tank was your lowest MPG? That's the only thing I can figure.
posted by DTMAce February 1, 2010 at 7:59 AM
Provision for fuel system cleaners
Its funny, my last fillup I did put in a bottle of injector cleaner.. LOL But I don't see a need to count that among the fuel really. I see where you are going with it, but I think that is being a bit overkill. Most people don't bother with additives since most of them are not truly beneficial anyway. The only reason I put in some injector cleaner is because it needed it, not because I wanted to. I can count the number of times I have used it on my vehicles since I have been driving on less than 2 hands. The 03 van I bought was poorly maintained by the previous owner and needs more work yet, but getting better..
Anyways, not to get off topic. Do you factor in the COST of the additive and add that to your fuel purchase at the time of fillup, including the tax? That would also change your price factor. So in your case, you would put in the additive, then put in the fuel. Later sit down and do some math. You would have to figure your total volume, when you have done, and then your total fuel cost. Since you also have to add in the additive, add the cost of that, plus the tax for it, plus what your fillup was, then divide by the total number of gallons including the additive volume and it will give you a correct per gallon price, leading to a correct cost for that tank.
Though just a thought. Additives are for things like spark knock, or injector cleaning. Do you have spark knock? If so, go up one grade of gas (87 to 89 for example) instead, it will be cheaper. If you are using it for injector cleaning, realistically you should only need that at most every 15-25 thousand miles, or at least once a year. If your injectors are getting THAT dirty to need it each fuel up or something, its time to get gas elsewhere or have your fuel system checked.
Just trying to help. :D
posted by DTMAce January 31, 2010 at 9:13 PM
I think (and I could be mistaken) but it seems they would like to be able to add in the cost and effect of using the additive as part of the fuelly features. Naturally it isn't documented anywhere, as it is not a feature.
The "add a note" feature is there to simple do that. Add notes about anything relating to that fuel up instance or anything else you wish to add. I used it when Winter hit, and will use it to note when my oil changes, etc were done. They are not going to be a part of the vehicle costs on the page though, just notes.
Maybe that will help?
posted by DTMAce January 31, 2010 at 10:24 AM
Idling with an auto
Point taken bates, and I can see what you mean. Though honestly I've been doing this with my Z26 since I bought it new and now have over 220,000 miles with no problems with the tranny. However each car is different, as are each driver. Just that it worked for me in my experience, and I use it with the vans as well with no problems thus far. I had to rebuild the tranny on one van when I bought it, but that was due to the previous owner's misuse, rather than a gas saving technique.
We all should do what we can and what is feasible to do to save fuel. It helps in the long run. Do what works for each of you, but always consider other options, and keep an open mind.
posted by DTMAce January 25, 2010 at 1:12 PM