If you’re the type that changes your own oil, or the type who never looks under the hood – do you know the MPG of your car? . By knowing the MPG of your automobile, you are able to find out a lot more about how your auto is performing. So what is the best way to figure MPG?
Keep track of your MPG
The first part of figuring out your MPG is filling your tank. Once you’ve a full tank of gas with your auto, write down the mileage on your odometer. Every time you put fuel as part of your tank, fill the tank to the top. Contain the number of gallons you put within the tank. Once you have filled your tank a couple of times, you are able to start doing math. For the whole time period, or for each trip, divide number of miles traveled by number of gallons. This gives you a miles per gallon number.
How Miles Per Gallon can change
The first thing you’ll notice once you start tracking MPG is that it can vary greatly. In-city MPG is usually much lower than highway. You should track your miles per gallon for at least a month to get a good average. Once you know what your vehicle typically gets for MPG, you can start working to improve the efficiency of your car.
Making your MPG even better
Once you experiment with your miles per gallon, you can improve it. Start with changing the oil in your vehicle. Your MPG will improve by a couple of miles per gallon when you change your oil each and every 3,000 to 5,000 miles. Whenever you change a dirty air filter, you can see up to a 10 percent gain. Spark plugs that are used for a lot more than 30,000 miles are also fuel hogs – so change those out. Check your tire pressure each week or so too, so top it off every week. Every time you make one of these changes, record the miles per gallon and determine if the change was worth it.
