Gas Mileage
Monday, December 4th, 2006Something that my family has always done with their cars is keeping a record of the fuel used and KM put on the car every time it gets filled. When I bought my Golf 2 years ago, I wasn’t too worried about it and just let it slide. Since gas prices hiked up quite a bit over the summer, I decided to start keeping my own gas and maintenance log so that I could keep an eye on how my driving habits would hurt the bank. The question then arose, what method do I use to record this data?
The most common method is by keeping a log book in the car and just writing in all in by hand. The only problem with that method is that it is very low-tech. Me being a geek, I want something much cooler then that. The next obvious solution (in my mind) would be by PDA, but unfortunately I have yet to replace my Zire 71 that I sold for iPod money, so that it out of the question at the moment. While I was trying to decide this, Google up and released Google Spreadsheets. What a better way to test out this new Google service then storing my cars gas and maintenance records! So that I did. One night I spent some time formatting a spreadsheet and making some pretty awesome formulas to calculate my MPG and L/100KMs stats. After a few months of using it not only am I happy with the ease of use that comes with all things Google, but I am quite satisfied with the performance of both Google Spreadsheets (being entirely web-based) and my little 2.slow VW Golf.
I’ve got the spreadsheet set up so that each fill up all I do is punch in a few numbers and Google’s massive server farm does the number crunching for me, spitting out the recent fuel consumption numbers on my car. For your pleasure (and thanks to Google for integrating the feature) you can see exactly what I am talking about by viewing my published spreadsheet!
So there you have it, she is still right around the area that fueleconomy.gov says she should be, and that makes me happy.