How Fuel Efficient is your vehicle? | OK Carz

person filling up the gas tank on their vehicle

Calculating your vehicle’s fuel economy 

Fuel efficiency is one of the many crucial aspects to consider when you’re shopping for a vehicle. A vehicle that is fuel efficient is going to be better for the earth, and better for your wallet. Even if you aren’t in the market for a new vehicle, it can be helpful to get a car that has high fuel economy. You can generally find the estimated fuel economy rating of your vehicle easily in the owner’s manual or online, but the estimated number can greatly vary from your actual fuel efficiency.  

While there are some places online that will calculate your fuel economy for you, they still need the same information that you need to calculate it for yourself. Keeping track of your fuel efficiency is easy enough. There are four simple steps that you need to follow to accurately calculate your fuel economy.

[Related: What to look for when buying a used car]

person filling up their vehicle at a gas stationHow to calculate fuel economy 

The first step is completely filling up to the gas tank on your vehicle, and making note of the mileage on the odometer or resetting the trip odometer. If you have an older vehicle, you might not have a trip odometer, which adds an extra step later on in the process. Once you’ve filled up your vehicle, drive as you normally would, and refill the tank when it gets low.  

Once you’ve refilled the tank, write down the total gallons that it took to completely refill your gas tank. Before you leave, write down the new odometer reading or the total on the trip odometer. If you don’t have a trip odometer, you can find how many miles you drove on that tank of gas by subtracting the first odometer reading from the second. From there, divide the number from the odometer by the number of gallons it took to refill your gas tank. The number you get will be your vehicle’s fuel economy for that time period.  

If you’ve been tracking your fuel economy and found it lacking, you can stop by one of the five OkCarz locations to take a look at a used vehicle. There are plenty of low-mileage, high fuel economy vehicles available. You can even find hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius.  

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