Fuel Consumption Spreadsheet

[katman]

Hi All,

 

I have been asked to post my Fuel Consumption spreadsheet so I am posting it as a new topic as well in case people dont see it as it is buried 10 pages deep in a thread about Aux Heaters.

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Using the spreadsheet.

 

The top section shows the following information

 

Min and Max price paid per litre of fuel

Min and Max MPG for an individual tankful of fuel

Min and Max MPG averaged over 10 tankfuls of fuel

Estimated Min and Max cost for fuel in a year based on the mileage you enter into B4

Mileage remaining until next service based on Service Due mileage entered into B5

 

The Info about next service changes colour as a service approaches.

 

Mileage in Column B also highlights when a service is getting close or overdue.

 

Row 8 of the spreadsheed only needs the dat and mileage when you START using the spreadsheet. You should start with a full tank of fuel and to obtain meaningful results from this spreadsheet you need to ensure that you fill up completely.

 

If for some reason you cant fill the tank eg Lack of money! then it wont affect the overall results as the averaging will take care of that once you return to full tanks but a couple of the reading will vary quite a bit from your average.

 

ONLY CHANGE THE DATA IN COLUMNS A-D

 

DO **NOT** CHANGE COLUMNS E-J or you will break the formulae !!!!

 

Column A - Enter the date you fill up in dd/mm/yyyy format

Column B - Enter the mileage

Column C - Enter the cost of fuel in Pence per Litre

Column D - Enter the number of litres

 

Spreadsheet will calculate the following for you

 

Column E - cost of that tankful

Column F - distance travelled since last fillup

Column G - MPG for that tankful

Column H - MPG averaged over last 10 fillups

Column I - Average fuel price over last 10 fillups

Column J - Estimated annual cost at current average price/MPG based on the mileage you enter into B4

 

I have left some data in the spreadsheet in

 

A8-B8

A9-D9 through to A24-D24

 

just to show how it looks. You can safely delete or just overtype that info.

 

Hope the above makes sense and that someone finds it useful

 

Regards

 

Keith

Fuelcost2.zip

[widu13]

Spot on mate, well done.

[MrT]

Have you seen this new site, gives you the lowest fuel prices in your area?

 

www.petrolprices.com

[Andrew T]

Good stuff! The AA used to offer a similar site called Petrolbusters, which sadly was discontinued a while ago.

[GSMGuy]

Told you it would go down well Katman!!

 

Mike

[katman]

Told you it would go down well Katman!!

 

Mike

Indeed you did Mike :huh:

 

It will be interesting to see if other people notice seasonal differences in MPG figures

 

In my old Pug 309 GLD I used to average about 54mpg during BST and about 52 during GMT.

 

I put the difference down to increased use of electricity as during the winter months all my driving was in the dark with all lights on and often wipers etc.

 

Difference may not be as noticable on the Galaxy or may well be reversed because of using AirConditioning. Didnt have that luxury on the Pug, in fact the heater damper wouldnt fully close so you couldnt even get cool air in the summer :)

 

It gets really scary if you look at it over a period of several years. My first tankful of diesel for the Pug cost me the grand sum of 60.9p per litre in 1999. My most expensive tankful was 93.9p, a difference of 33p per litre which sounds bad enough but when you then convert that to gallons it is a DIFFERENCE of

[Andrew T]

 

 

 

I put the difference down to increased use of electricity as during the winter months all my driving was in the dark with all lights on and often wipers etc.

 

Difference may not be as noticable on the Galaxy or may well be reversed because of using AirConditioning.

Hi Katman, I think you've now knocked me off my perch as resisdent obsessive keeper of fuel consumption data. I have a similar spreadsheet but mine includes a cumulative fuel spend figure which becomes fairly frightening to look at.

 

Regarding summer and winter fuel consumption, I reckon most of the time the A/C makes only a small increase - less than 5%. We ended up doing a couple of long journeys this summer though when the temperature was up to 30C and I reckon it used more than 10% extra. Spring and Autumn are probably the best for Fuel consumption, especially if it's mild and wet. In the winter I think the temperature has more to do with increase than anything. I've been commuting in the Galaxy over the last few days when we've had temperatres down to -5 and I've noticed a certain point in the journey where the computer normally shows 30 Mpg on a mild day was only 27Mpg when it was freezing.

 

Handy hint for petrol owners, turn the rear heater off when the engines cold - it draws a lot warmth from the engine, you can see this by switching it on with the engine at normal temp and watch temperature gauge plummet. I've wondered about insulating the feed pipes to the rear heater unit has anyone done this ?

[Guest MATT]

dont know if any of you watch "myth busters" on discovery, but they did a test on which was better, AC or windows down, in terms of MPG.

 

with "trip computers" that measure the amount of air being drawn into the engine, AC was .5 mpg better! but on a real test (two identical cars, with identical fuel, loads) on a race track, both maintaining 40mph or something, windows down did 30 or so more laps, than the one with AC, so, it shows AC does use more fuel, than windows down.

 

i have to say, that that spreadsheet is very good, top marks!

 

MATT

[katman]

Hi Katman, I think you've now knocked me off my perch as resisdent obsessive keeper of fuel consumption data. I have a similar spreadsheet but mine includes a cumulative fuel spend figure which becomes fairly frightening to look at.

Hi Andrew,

 

It wasnt created for obsessiveness but out of neccessity.

 

I used to drive from Great Yarmouth to Martlesham every day and wanted to know how much it was really costing me to travel to work.

 

The original spreadsheet also included all car cost such as servicing (at 6000 mile intervals), insurance, repairs etc.

 

It was just habit to fill up the tank every 4 days and buy bits when needed so it was the only way to keep track of what the car was costing.

 

It also shows if the car has developed a fault. Because the price of fuel fluctuates so much it becomes difficult to keep track but the rolling MPG figures should be fairly constant if the driving pattern remains the same.

 

My MPG was dropping slightly year on year which I didnt worry about but just put down to the mileage of the car. I bought it with 125K on the clock and was adding 25-30K per year. I had to replace the Injector pump and injectors a couple of years ago with parts off a scrapper and after that my MPG went back up to what I was getting when I first bought the car :huh:

 

In the seven years that I was using the car, I recon I spent 3 times as much on fuel as I did on actually buying the car!!!!

 

Regards

 

Keith

[katman]

i have to say, that that spreadsheet is very good, top marks!

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for that. There were several changes over the years to make it more useful but it did its job.

 

The version I posted today is a cut down version of the original so as such hasnt actually been tested in anger but I dont think I have broken anything.

 

If anyone does find a problem with it then please let me know and I will try and fix it.

 

Regards

 

Keith