Calculating your car’s MPG on a regular basis can help you significantly reduce your expenses.

Read on and find out how to calculate your car’s fuel consumption, so that you can make your vehicle as fuel-efficient as possible.

 

How to Calculate Miles Per Gallon (MPG)

Mileage is a way of measuring your car’s fuel efficiency or economy, which is why calculating your car’s mpg is so valuable.

Not only can this help you save on fuel, but it can give you an idea of your car’s overall health.

The higher your car’s mileage, the more efficient your car will be.

 

Before Calculating

To calculate your car’s fuel consumption, first fill up your car with petrol or diesel.

Next, reset the trip meter to zero.

If your car doesn’t have one, then you should record the mileage instead.

Take your car for a drive, following your normal routine for a couple of days.

You don’t have to drive until the tank is empty, but the longer you drive the more accurate the calculation is likely to be.

Take your car back to the petrol station to fill up on fuel – just remember that you may get an inaccurate reading if you insert the pump at a different angle or forget to let it click off on its own.

Note how many gallons were used and write down how many gallons/litres you needed to fill the tank – this is your “fuel usage”.

 

Calculating Your Fuel Consumption

Divide the number of miles you’ve driven by the number of gallons of gas you’ve used.

Let’s say you drove 315 miles and filled your car with 15 gallons of petrol or diesel, this would look like:

315 miles divided by 15 gallons = 21mpg.

Calculating this regularly can help you monitor your fuel mileage and see if improvements need to be made to make your car more fuel efficient.

You can now use this sum to help calculate your rate of petrol/diesel.

Just take the average price you pay at the petrol station and divide it by your car’s mpg.

Knowing this can help you to budget effectively, especially when preparing for a road trip or longer drive.

If the calculation has shown you that your journeys are costing you a fair bit, there are several things you can do to try and reduce your fuel consumption.