More Miles per Gallon (400 miles per tank)!!!!

[bcredliner]

How much does rolling friction change over the tire wear life impact the decrease in circumference?

[motordavid]

Holy Tire Tech, Batman!
Some serious azz discussions on something as vague, and only a long term average, as 'mpg'...

[TerminatorX5]

Originally Posted by motordavid

Holy Tire Tech, Batman!
Some serious azz discussions on something as vague, and only a long term average, as 'mpg'...

yeap!!!

that's us, the xoutposters!!!!

my long term MPG is

16.80392 MPG

in 436 days of ownership (as of 8/21/13 latest available results) i have

used 1,773.039 gallons of premium fuel for the

cost of $6,692.34 driving the

distance of 29,794 miles with average

cost per mile of $0.22 and the average

miles per day at 68.80392 and

daily cost of driving at $15.35 a day...

[bcredliner]

Gas prices have generally been rising over the years and often fluctuating.

What equation did you use for the rise and fall in gas prices?

[motordavid]

My back of the envelope suggests closer to 50 Cts a mile for many cars, esp of the X's ilk, adding in initial depreciation, longer term/lower rate of continued depreciation, insurance, maintenance costs, some repairs, et al.

Not apples to apples, but our '01, coming up on it's 12th birthday, and 88k+ miles, shows 20.6 on the OBC, (only reset a couple times over those 12 years), which is close/slightly under what I get on trips, and more than what I get around town or shorter trips, by the arith method at fill up time.

I feel one has to add in/factor in the other 'running costs', to get closer to a cost per mile...but I still feel that cars like the X are closer to 40-50 Cts per mile overall.
Cars are expensive to buy, own, and operate, though still a wonderful method of trans.
GL, mD

[Green Dragon]

Recent pics from a short trip couple weeks back of cluster and computer before adding AA headers. Crossed a mountain range. Just thought I'd share.... I will be doing a differential swap in a couple of months. If I can squeeze a few more MPG's from some 3.64 diffs on the highway, including my recent header upgrade, mid to upper 30's might be an easy task. And don't be fooled, my 3.0 is no slouch.

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by motordavid

My back of the envelope suggests closer to 50 Cts a mile for many cars, esp of the X's ilk, adding in initial depreciation, longer term/lower rate of continued depreciation, insurance, maintenance costs, some repairs, et al.

Not apples to apples, but our '01, coming up on it's 12th birthday, and 88k+ miles, shows 20.6 on the OBC, (only reset a couple times over those 12 years), which is close/slightly under what I get on trips, and more than what I get around town or shorter trips, by the arith method at fill up time.

I feel one has to add in/factor in the other 'running costs', to get closer to a cost per mile...but I still feel that cars like the X are closer to 40-50 Cts per mile overall.
Cars are expensive to buy, own, and operate, though still a wonderful method of trans.
GL, mD

the dash read out is as close as we need to do a comparison. There are so many variables on any one vehicle from tank to tank it is a waste of time an effort to try to be more detailed.(addressing his previous post).

IRS sets cost per mile that are deductible annually--got to be conservative, wouldn't you think? Corporations use that annual set amount---got to be conservative wouldn't you think. That cost per mile is not set on X5s of any year--it would be higher if it were. Deductible cost per mile has been around $.50 for several years and about $.55 for the last few. I am not challenging Term's calculations as his is a very unique case.

Comparing OBC readouts, especially cost per mile is still meaningless. There are far to many variables from post to post to draw any conclusion other than--

Not saying this isn't interesting.

Though, IMO, if mileage averages are going to be within the same time zone of a mini-trend consideration, each post should start with the year, current odometer reading, the engine, the transmission, exhaust, city/state, wheels, tires, engine or transmission mods and how they normally drive. Use the readout as that is the only constant among all of us, and post the current average and +/-average over 5000 miles of driving that is as close to normal daily driving from reported location. Using these parameters we can pick out the ones that are the closest match and see how we compare.

DISCLAIMER,I would never even imply these are the absolute of parameters that could be used to establish an always inaccurate mini-trend. I suspect if this post is considered at all, we will know spend our time disagreeing with these parameters or posting we have to add more. That's OK--

That said, I have:

Year---2002
Odometer--109,000
Engine 4.6--stage 4 Dinan Mods and a 150 shot of nitrous now and then
Trans-- automatic--Dinan mod
Exhaust--Dinan-Low restriction
Location---Dallas, TX
Tires--continental extreme contact
Wheels--stock 87s
How driven--as fast and hard as I can get away with.
Readout---Current--13.9 MPG, Lowest I recall--12.9 Highest 19.3
Average--Average over 5000 miles 14.5--16.9

[TerminatorX5]

I use excel spreadsheet:

at fill-up i take the receipt, and write down the info from the receipt into the spreadsheet -

cost per gallon
miles at fill up
amount of gallons
total amount paid

after several fill ups a calculation is possible... therefore i know exactly how much my MPG is at each entry, can compute the total amounts of fuel, days, dollars, averages... The average cost per gallon came to $3.77, even though I had filled up for $4.30 a gallon and for 3.49...

I do not have the cost of operating the X, as the X is still in operation...

We had leased a 2011 335i xDrive Mpackage...

in 232 days we had it, the cost of operating that car came to $0.16 a mile in fuel cost, for 14,535 miles driven, and $0.46 cents a mile in amortization cost, and the grand total is $0.63 a mile including fuel, insurance, lease payments... a disclaimer, the car was returned with 3300 miles UNDER allocation for which there was NO refund, so the amount could have been a penny or two less, should all the miles be used up...
the daily cost for the car was $39.37 including the insurance, the fuel, the costs associated with lease - about the same as rental car of small size...

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

I use excel spreadsheet:

at fill-up i take the receipt, and write down the info from the receipt into the spreadsheet -

cost per gallon
miles at fill up
amount of gallons
total amount paid

after several fill ups a calculation is possible... therefore i know exactly how much my MPG is at each entry, can compute the total amounts of fuel, days, dollars, averages... The average cost per gallon came to $3.77, even though I had filled up for $4.30 a gallon and for 3.49...

I do not have the cost of operating the X, as the X is still in operation...

We had leased a 2011 335i xDrive Mpackage...

in 232 days we had it, the cost of operating that car came to $0.16 a mile in fuel cost, for 14,535 miles driven, and $0.46 cents a mile in amortization cost, and the grand total is $0.63 a mile including fuel, insurance, lease payments... a disclaimer, the car was returned with 3300 miles UNDER allocation for which there was NO refund, so the amount could have been a penny or two less, should all the miles be used up...
the daily cost for the car was $39.37 including the insurance, the fuel, the costs associated with lease - about the same as rental car of small size...

And I thought I was OCD about keeping records. This makes me feel totally inadequate and severely under qualified to claim even one letter in motorhead. Although, your calculations are for a very small category of all 335i s in 2011.

I find it interesting by not applicable to X5 E53s.

[motordavid]

Term,
Good analysis, and I find your overall cost per mile, to be in the zip code I expected...
Still cheaper/much easier for us, than flying, on most trips. And, convenient.

Cars ain't cheap, esp for the few of us that are Retired Bums, here.
GL, mD