Tank 359 - 27 August 2K13: The Move Is Starting to Show

I filled the Mighty Corolla with more gas on my way home yesterday - 11.373 gallons at the Wawa on my way home. The car had been driven 404.2 miles, so my mileage was 35.54 mpg. I spent much of my highway time going 75-80 miles an hour. I did this because after my new wheel bearing got installed, the car is so much more quieter than before, driving at high speed is much more peaceful and pleasant. Clearly, however, mileage suffers...

Last time I refilled the tank was a mere 7 days prior to yesterday. This was the first time this year it was less than 9 days. Probably for a number of factors:
1) Now that the furlough is over, I'm working 5 days a week.
2) Now that the furlough's over, the CWS plan is out so I'll stop getting every other Friday off.
3) Soccer season is here, so I'm driving to kid practices in the evenings,
4) We moved about 6 miles away from the old house, so some trips are longer now (some are shorter, but more are longer).

Still, at this point last year I'd driven almost 12,000 miles, and as of today I've gone just over 8,000 miles.

The news claims that gas is 20 cents cheaper this Labor Day Weekend than it was last year, and my records support it. I paid $3.359 yesterday, and last year at this time it was $3.519 the last week in August and $3.659 the first week in September...

Tank 357, 7 August 2K13 - I Have Been Thinking About This for Some Time

I stopped at the Sheetz on my way home yesterday after driving 426.3 miles on this tank. I put in 11.749 gallons, making for a fuel economy of 36.28 mpg.

Gas was $3.279/gallon.

The total miles of my tanks of gas I have tracked is 142,117.5 miles. However, the car's odometer reports 142,180 at the same time. This is now a difference of 62.5 miles, or an average of 0.175 miles per tank. I still don't understand why this difference exists.

One would think the odometer sensors feed the trip meters and master odometer at the same time. Is it a huge coincidence that for every gas tank I have been "THIS CLOSE" for the trip meter to be clicking to the next tenth of a mile? Maybe, but if that's the case, whi is the total average nearly TWO TENTHS of a mile per tank?

Japanese precision, my butt!

Tank 356 - 28 July 2K13 - A Nice Round Half Gallon

I filled up the Mighty Corolla's gas tank last Sunday. The second click ended right at 10.500 gallons, ehich is the third time that the gallons have ended at a ".X00" with two zeroes at the end of the number. I'd only driven 352.4 miles, so my mileage sucked and was 33.53 miles per gallon. Probably it sucked so bad because I drove really fast on the highway.

The low fuel light came on as I was trolling the Home Depot parking lot. And the Giant grocery store gas station was nearby so I just filled up the tank since I was there.

Gas was $3.359 a gallon, which was about 15 cents cheaper than the Virginia average. I don't understand why my town has such cheap gas.

Tank 355 - 14 July 2K13 (My Enthusiasm for Tracking Mileage is Waning)

I refueled the Mighty Corolla last week at the Wawa near my house (I think). For the third time in a row, I had driven over 400 miles, 408.7. Mileage was 36.55 mpg, calculated after pumping in 11.183 gallons of gas.

Last year around this time, I had driven about 9,800 miles. This year, I have driven about 6,600 miles. This is mainly because my office has moved closer to my home. But recently I moved further from the new office, but not quite as far such that the old office commute would be shorter, so overall my commute is still shorter than it was when the office was in Woodbridge.

New concern is simmering in the event that there's a re-organization at my office and some of us get transferred elsewhare in the organization. There's a possibility that at some point I may get re-assigned and be compelled to go work on the base. This would be bad on many levels, because it's farther away, there's generally bottlenecks to get on and off the base most of the time, and I guess those are the main reasons.

But there's no point in worrying about what-ifs and could-happens. So I'll just keep pressing on.

Tank 354 - 1 July 2K13

I refilled the tank in the Mighty Corolla yesterday on my way home at the Wawa out Rt 3. 11.274 gallons, 401.2 miles, so fuel economy was 35.59 mpg. Given that last tank was over 38 mpg, and my suspicion that I was victim to a pump that shut off prematurely to falsely inflate my mileage, I was expecting a larger dropoff.

Indeed, my mileage for this tank is still above my average for the year. On the other hand, my mileage for the year has only been worse in 2004, when the car was brand new and had 5 tanks of gas. Wow.

Tank 353 - 21 June 2K13

I filled up the tank of the Mighty Corolla last Friday afternoon at the Giant store on my way home. I had gone 409.5 miles, and that particular pump stopped at the second click at 10.658 gallons, for a surprising mileage of 38.42 mpg.

I think this is a case of an over-sensitive gas pump shutting off too early to give me a false happy of a good mileage number.