Do you know how to calculate your fuel consumption?

If you drive a car, you’re obviously consuming fuel and paying for it – which can be hurtful with the current petrol cost in South Africa. Learn how to calculate your fuel consumption. Once you know how to calculate it, it will help you budget better and you might even be inspired to make some changes to your driving.

But what exactly is fuel consumption? Fuel consumption is the energy efficiency rate at which an engine of automobile consumes fuel. This is expressed in units of litres per kilometer. This fuel consumption formula will help you figure it out:

• First things first, fill up your tank to the fullest. (Take note of how many litres it takes to fill up your tank)
• Next, reset your car’s odometer to zero.
• Drive as you normally do, for about 400km.
• Fill up your tank – write down the distance travelled (approximately 400km) and how many litres of petrol you have used.
• Finally, to calculate the fuel consumption of your car’s kilometers on one litre of fuel, divide the total distance recorded by the trip odometer by the total litres of fuel used. For example, if your odometer records 450 km, and you have fueled the tank to 50 litres, then 450/50 gives you 9 kilometers per litre fuel consumption.

Factors influencing fuel consumption

• Engine efficiency
• Air conditioning usage
• Fuel quality and rolling resistance
• Regular servicing – An untuned engine will use more petrol to function properly
• Using a poor engine oil can also affect the fuel consumption of the car, which can be thicker than the viscosity required for the car.
• Under inflated tyres
• Driving habits (Read more: How your driving impacts fuel consumption)

To eliminate these issues and avoid using too much petrol, good car maintenance is required. MotorHappy offers cost-effective Service Plans and Maintenance Plans to help budget for the care of your vehicle, and when you take good care of your car, it uses less petrol. It makes good budgeting sense to get an online quote from MotorHappy today!