Anyone ever use thier Garmin features to track you mileage/driving style?
 

I just got a FREE Garmin 205W (W=widescreen) from a friend who will never use it. It has a couple of features that might be interesting.

First, you can set up your vehicle including City/Highway MPG and Cost/Gallon. It will then track your driving and give you a running tally of $cost as you go. I set it up and so far it has been pretty accurate...

Second, it has a "Driving Challenge" function that judges you on a scale of 0-100 for accelerating and braking smoothness. I haven't set that yet since I just found that feature...should be interesting.

Nice feature! Mine certainly doesn't have that, but if they can popularize that feature it might help things for everyone.

Of course I don't think MPG gauges installed in some cars had any real effect, but one can always hope...

-BC

The Driving Challenge feature is interesting.

It rewards you (higher points) for steady driving. It also rewards you for smooth reasonable acceleration. It has a "leaf" that goes from RED (0-49)...AMBER (50-79)...GREEN (80-99) which is visible on the Maps Page.

It does not reward you for coasting down but the points are higher for a smooth slower stop than a "slam on the brakes halt". It also has a menu that gives you a Combined Total...Accel Score...Decel Score...Speed Score (stready rate gives best results).

It does give you something to watch when accelerating...A Scan Guage would be nice but they do not work properly on a Jeep Liberty CRD...messes with the "dual computer" system (factory with a Bosch piggybacked for the injection system).

The feature is called eco something or other. It's a free download for some models on the Garmin site.

Yep, Eco??? (not in my hands right now) and "maybe" the Driving Challenge comes with that same download.

yea mine has it its fun to mess with.