How exactly should I read my gas mileage? Im driving a small car, a 1.5 engine toyota vehicle?

Answer 1

Every time you fill it up check your odometer and write down the miles that it shows. Divide the miles that you have driven since the last fill up by the number of gallons it took to fill it up.. You need to do this several times to get an average as you will get better mileage on open road trips and less in town driving. If you have that small of a Toyota engine you should get about the best mileage that any cars are getting... short of having a hybrid car.

Answer 2

To get the best overall estimate, track it over time. When I check my gas mileage, I do it over a period of a month.

Wait until your car is pretty much running on fumes, and then note down exactly how much gas you put in, and fill it all the way to when the pump shuts itself off. Reset your trip odometer to zero before you leave the pump.

Follow that procedure regularly, and each time you fill up, wait until you are as close to an empty tank as is safely possible. Note the number of miles you traveled from your last fill up by looking at your trip odometer.

At the end of a month (or however long you choose, but I have found tracking over a month gives me the most accurate reading), take the gallons for each fill-up, and divide that into your miles traveled on that fill up. So, if you put in 13 gallons, and traveled 260 miles, you end up with 20.

After you have figured out what your mileage was for each fill up and travel period, average the mileage to get the most accurate picture. Do that by adding your mileage numbers together, and dividing by the total number of periods used in figuring.

So, if you get 20 mpg, 20 mpg, 23 mpg, and 27 mpg, when you average it all out you get 22.5 mpg.

The reason I do it over a month is because it gives me a more accurate picture, and tends to factor in both surface street and highway miles. I may not take an extended drive on the highway in a given week, but I will more likely than not take one in a month, and tracking it over a month gives you a better picture, as it takes all those driving situations into consideration.

Good luck--I bet your number ends up being fairly good, as those small imports tend to get good gas mileage.

Answer 3

1) Fill your tank up to full. Don't "overfill" the tank. Just let it fill up till the auto-shut-off mechanism triggers.

2) Reset your trip odometer to zero, or write down your current odometer reading.

3) Drive your car like you normally do until you want to fill up again. You should have preferably driven more than 1/2 the tank of gas away.

4) Fill up in the same manner. Don't overfill.

5) Note how much fuel you just put in the tank.

6) Note the reading on your trip odometer or do the math finding the miles driven on this tank of gas.

7) Divide the miles driven on this tank of gas by the amount of gas you noted filling up the tank with.

Thats your gas mileage.

Answer 4

Top the tank up first, set the odometer to zero, then next time at the gas station also fill it up and write down how many gallons u filled, then divided the odometer reading by the number of gallons you just filled. That gives u the gas mileage.

Answer 5

fill up your gas tank, set your trip-ometer to 000, drive it until you're pretty much on fumes. Divide the gallons of gas in your tank by the number of miles on your trip-ometer (or is it the other way around?). Do this three times and you will have your average estimate of miles per gallon. I had to do this when my gas gauge broke on my old jeep. When my tripometer got to 369, I knew that I needed to fuel up.

Answer 6

see how many miles you go after filling up the tank. divide that number by the number of gallons you put in it before it got empty again