ARCO gas made me lose 5 mpg!?

Originally Posted by NickTurnon

Couldve been a number of things. Sometimes when i fill up my tank I will reset my MPG meter. The meter will give you the AVERAGE of the numbers. So if you drive for 30 minutes at 70 mph and your gauge is saying your getting 24 MPG- if you stop for a 3 minutes to stop at the drive-thru and your car is still running, the car will find the AVERAGE of 70 mph & 0-5 MPH driving. Meaning the gauge will not be accurate.

If you haven't touched the gauge, then this doesnt apply. But I was wondering one day why i was getting 31 MPG on the freeway for 4 hours of driving and then I stopped to eat and was getting 15 MPG by just letting the car sit.


Hope I help.

Originally Posted by brucelidat

I wasn't referring to the MPG gauge, that was telling me a normal 21.6. What i was paying attention to was that I was down a quarter tank at 60 miles, when usually, it's 90 miles at that point. I got my 14.5 mpg number by dividing the miles I had driven since the last fill-up by the number of gallons I filled up today.