road trip and consumption calculator

[9C1_2NV]

just finished my first long(er) distance trip for the holiday, went 553 miles from southern MD to the suburbs of Cincinnati, OH via the PA turnpike and many up/down hill elevation changes. i topped the tank off 11 miles from home and reset the tripometer, effectively making the tank 542 miles for the trip. the consumption calculator said that i had a range of 80 miles left on the tank, which sounds accurate, but that my consumption guage average was 40.7 mpg. this doesn't add up. if the range was correct that i do indeed have 80 miles left in the tank, that would be a 622 mile tank with 14.5x gallons of fuel, which works out to roughly 42.8x mpg. so that's my point, why the difference? am i putting too much thought into this or what!!!?

btw, the car performed beatifully! an absolute pleasure to drive and one of my favorite road trips ever, and i'm used to driving the big GM B-Bodies in my sig. 2 thumbs up for the entire experience!

 

[tomo366]

Just drive it and don't think about it........Pen and paper computations are the most accurate

 

[meowguy]

The 42.something average seems about right for a brand new car. Mine gets that with 3500 miles on it. I drive 75% highway and 25% city. The city part is the worst stop and slop driving you can imagine. I check my oil every two or three days. It has not used a drop.

I drive over 700 miles per week on just 18 gallons of fuel with the biggest freakin' grin on my face you can imagine.

I love everything about my JSW TDI. I have not said that about a car in a long, long time. If I could change only one thing, I would fit a 20 gallon fuel tank. That is my only criticism. I realize for most people that would be rediculous, they would never get fuel. Maybe it could be a future option for long-haulers like me.

 

[soldierguy]

I agree with tomo366...just drive it. You're most likely going to get great mileage unless you totally flog it or do nothing but city driving.

As a side note though...the MFA averages kinda bug me in one respect. I haven't figured out how to reset the 1st average when I refuel. I like to track mileage by the tank, and the MFA average (in the #1 position) automatically resets after the car sits for a few hours, and won't reset when I reset the trip odometer after refueling.

But that could be me being stupid and not knowing how to reset the MFA fuel economy average.