jostlehim's Forum Comments

Showing all comments by jostlehim.

New Addition: Auto vs. Manual Transmission

Hi,

Just edited my cars, and the Subaru went in fine, but when I went to the Ford Fiesta, it wasn't showing entries for Body, Engine or Transmission (and they were greyed out). Going to update a couple of times, and first the engine model came up (which was already entered, as the system knew it was Diesel), and then eventually I got all the options up and could update the car with the transmission.

Cheers,

Joel
posted by jostlehim April 15 at 7:05 AM

Post new thread missing from iPhone view

I used to get the sanity check, but it seems to have stopped. The mobile site is fine for adding fuel entries, but it doesn't cover the rest of the site, which I often browse from my phone. I tend not to like mobile versions of sites, as they are often cut down versions, which aren't necessary on iPhones.
posted by jostlehim February 21 at 3:19 AM
Just posting on https://www.fuelly.com/add/fuel.gas
posted by jostlehim February 19 at 1:46 AM
Also I no longer get the sanity check page after posting an entry (again from an iPhone). This used to allow you to verify values seemed sensible. Is this a deliberate change?
posted by jostlehim February 18 at 11:30 AM

Default units is US ... causes confusion with non-US signatures

Of course, although the UK might have moved to buying fuel in litres, distances are still in miles, so it would be odd either way.... L/100km wouldn't sit right, particularly as car odometers are still in miles. L/100miles is just crazy talk!
posted by jostlehim September 2, 2011 at 1:48 AM

Suggestion for alerting to new best MPG

The problem is that you can improve your mpg several times by 0.9 and not have anything register, even if the 5th time you have improved by 4.5mpg which is worth celebrating!

I quite understand why you don't want the notes for best tank which appear in the sidebar, but I was actually talking about alerting you to the fact that it is your best mpg in the check calculations window after your fuelup. This would only appear to you, but as your fuelups increase in number, the size of improvements in mpg will become less frequent and smaller.

It is kind of like world records for 100m sprint. Nowadays, records are broken by hundredths of a second.... But they are still records.
posted by jostlehim July 15, 2011 at 2:57 PM

UK date format incorrect

Also, the details on http://www.fuelly.com/faq/17/switch-to-metric are incorrect. It currently states:

When you switch to UK, you'll view fuel volume in Litres, distance in kilometers, and fuel economy in UK MPG (Miles/Imperial Gallon).

This should read:

When you switch to UK, you'll view fuel volume in Litres, distance in miles, and fuel economy in UK MPG (Miles/Imperial Gallon).



This is what the site currently does.
posted by jostlehim July 6, 2011 at 6:23 AM
No, it should be miles - we use miles for distance (and cars have miles on the ODO). However, we buy fuel in litres, so need to input in miles and litres. I believe that is why you have specific UK settings, as opposed to metric.

We've only ever been partially integrated with the rest of Europe. The reason for fuel being sold in litres is due to there being European legislation affecting the sale of goods requiring metric measures (with special dispensation for pints of beer/cider/milk). As far as I am aware, no-one sells anything in miles....

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1995/1804/regulation/4/made
posted by jostlehim July 6, 2011 at 6:17 AM
Logged out and back in, and logbook entries are fine now. As MMUK states, seeing incorrect format on axis of Recent Fuelups...

Cheers,

Joel
posted by jostlehim July 3, 2011 at 2:32 PM
Yes I'm logged in. Yes it seems to be consistent across my log books and across the site (although I think it was correct quite recently).
posted by jostlehim July 2, 2011 at 2:28 AM

A/C Impact on MPG

I'm really not sure whether the difference is as much as bandied about, particularly with diesel vehicles and modern climate control systems. I have tried hard to measure a difference, and it is hidden by all the other variables.

One problem is that climate control systems are set to a temperature, and so the air-con might well not be engaged a lot of the time. In addition, diesel engines generally have a lot of torque, so the load is not as noticeable as with small petrol engines. Furthermore, with modern HDi engines, there is no fuel consumption when running with no throttle. Yet the aircon will still turn if engaged. Thus, going downhill in gear, the aircon has no effect on fuel economy at all.

Another confounder is that if the external temperature is warmer, the engine will reach its operating temperature a lot sooner, and so run more efficiently. My engine idles at the same speed whether the aircon is on or not. The ambient temperature and the speed you are driving at also has an impact. The aircon also has to dissipate heat under the bonnet. How efficiently it does this will have an effect upon how efficiently it can cool the interior. Travelling at speed will maximise the airflow over the aircon radiator. A lower ambient temperature will increase the differential between the radiator and the airflow, again improving the cooling of the radiator.

Perhaps the best way to determine how much of an impact it has would be to measure the change in 0-60mph times with aircon engaged and off. If it has that much effect, it would change the performance of the vehicle. On an old 1.1l Suzuki Swift, it used to slow down if you were on the motorway and engaged the aircon.

Travelling around in traffic in temperatures of 45°C will result in the aircon having a greater effect on MPG compared with driving around in temperatures of 25° on the motorway.
posted by jostlehim June 8, 2011 at 3:12 AM

Average MPG graphs misleading

Porsche also have flat or boxer engines and indeed the Porsche Boxster, 911, Carrera and Cayman are down as having an H6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_engine
posted by jostlehim April 13, 2011 at 2:10 AM
My issue is not so much that classes where n<1>
I appreciate that you are not looking for absolute statistical accuracy, but this is not even approximate accuracy. The way to deal with outliers would be to restrict the graph to ±2 standard deviations from the mean.

How about putting a filter on fuel type (Diesel, all configurations|Petrol, all configurations) which gets around the confusion people seem to have getting a consistent engine configuration. Incidentally, the FAQ currently says that H4 refers to hybrid engines - I thought it stood for horizontal as opposed to inline? Nearly all of the Subarus are down as H4 or H6, and they aren't hybrid, but Boxers....
posted by jostlehim April 12, 2011 at 4:05 AM

Vehicles excluded from graph?

Doesn't this give a false picture of the range? I can understand varying the size of the classes? However, if you had 4 or 5 diesels, but which all had slightly different mileages, you would exclude this information. Perhaps you should look at graphing diesels separately from petrol, as there is such a difference in economies. It would probably be of more interest to see the range of values for diesels, than for the range of values of a particular year. Compare like with like...
posted by jostlehim December 11, 2010 at 1:12 AM

dual fuel

You could look at spritmonitor.de which is a European site which does have provision for dual fuel cars.... I tend to use both sites...
posted by jostlehim June 11, 2010 at 12:26 PM

Errors on Best Tank page

That sounds right. This was on the standard web site.
posted by jostlehim June 11, 2010 at 12:18 PM

Kilometers per liter (KMPL)

One reason for using l/100km is that it makes it easier to compare efficiencies and the relative improvement from increases in efficiency.

As an example, 25mpg (US) is 9.4 l/100km, 30mpg is 7.8 l/100km and 35mpg is 6.7 l/100km

Looking at the values in miles per gallon, there is 5mpg difference between 25->30 and 30->35. However, in l/100km it is clearer that the improvements between the two efficiencies are different:

9.4-7.8=1.6
7.8-6.7=1.1

Thus you can see that the move from 25mpg->30mpg makes a bigger difference to your fuel consumption than the move from 30mpg->35mpg.

20mpg (11.8) -> 30mpg (7.8) is a difference of 4l/100km (10 mpg)
30mpg (7.8) -> 50mpg (4.7) is a difference of 3.1l/100km (20 mpg)

Using volume/distance makes it slightly easier to compare the efficiencies of cars and to work out how significant the differences are.
posted by jostlehim May 19, 2010 at 2:35 PM

l/100km calculation shown after posting is incorrect.

Actually, I do have UK units set, and more to the point I am entering the values in litres, not gallons. 510 miles is c. 820 km. 50.45 litres divided by 8.2 gives 6.15 litres/100km.

Since I am entering the volume of fuel in litres, it should eliminate the whole Imperial/UK gallon issue. The mpg is correct for the UK values. My overall l/100 km values are correct. But each time I fuel, the reading for that fill-up given to check your figures is wrong by 1l/100km.

I'm entering the fuel-ups on the standard site.
posted by jostlehim April 17, 2010 at 4:02 PM