Fuelly.com review (Verdict: He likes it!)

My best pal Michael Schulte is a automative fanatic in every sense of the word: not just a prize-winning autocross racer, but an absolute nerd when it comes to maintenence and statistics of even his daily drivers. Mike's the kind of guy that starts a file folder for every car the day he purchases it, stashing away car brochures and magazine reviews on the off chance he might someday need to put his cars in a museum. After Fuelly.com launched, I knew a website designed to help manage gas mileage (and more) would be right up his alley. I asked him to write up his impressions after a week or so using Fuelly. – Joel

In my driving infancy I relied on an Excel spreadsheet, logging gas mileage and fuel cost; I also kept a folder or pocket in the glove box for miscellaneous service paperwork that I thought I should archive. That idea has expanded over the years: at some point I developed a full blown obsessive/compulsive need to track total operational costs for my automobiles, framing — in clear plastic sheet protectors placed in a three-ring binder — every receipt of maintenance and every part purchased, the better to track things like insurance costs, 1/4-mile times, and even horsepower-per-dollar.

There's a full record available for each one of my cars, even the daily driver. I am fully aware of my disorder, but I have found over the years that there are thousands of gear heads, penny pinchers and green freaks that share part — if not all — of my obsession.

Thanks to a tip from Joel [My pleasure – Ed.], who is fully aware of my problem [Boy am I, Mr. What-Do-You-Mean-You-Lost-the-Receipt – Ed.], I took a peek at Fuelly.com.  Now I have been using Gas Buddy for a few years in addition to my other methods for tracking fuel economy and cost efficiency of my vehicles, so I was a bit reluctant to go through my personal records and input these figures into yet another site. Still, after browsing the barely launched site I noticed a lot of great features that made me pull out the numbers and start plugging them in. 

While knowing exactly what sort of mileage I get on average out of my car is nice, being able to share that data with others easily and compare it to people who might have the same car as me is fantastic. Even better: EPA Estimates for each particular model can also be compared.  Once you input a few fill-ups — being able to do this right from the pump via mobile web is awesome — it becomes clear exactly how useful this site is.

There are handy suggestions and techniques that tell how to get better economy and figures associated with the car that show exactly what I would’ve saved had I kept my foot a bit more shallow in the throttle. Statistics are right there in your face for "Average MPG", "Current MPG", "Your Best MPG" — as well as trending information with clean, concise graphs, total fuel-ups over the life of the car, best pricing and the ever-important fuel operating cost per mile. 

I’ve since spend a few minutes each day over the last week or so locking in my personal figures for each one of my cars. I started with my daily driver, a 2002 Honda Civic Si (Nickname: The Shoe), and put in all the my fill-ups for 2008. I moved on to the almost-brand-new 2008 Honda Civic EX-L that my soon-to-be-wife drives.

I’m currently in the process of sticking in the rest of the figures for The Shoe, although there are 158 fuel-ups in there already. There will be 100,000 miles of data soon. You can — if you dare! — sift through it. Try to find my experimental attempt to become a hyper-miler.

It’s not all about bottom-line fuel efficiency though. I guess it’s sort of fun for me to see the little graphs and figures, too. In a time where getting the most out of a gallon of gas is on everyone’s mind, I still happen to own two extremely inefficient Nissan 300ZXs that I take to the track, autocross and drag race. (I personally bring the overall average of the site down by several ticks.) Still, it’s interesting to see that if driven with a light right foot (as I try to do on my way to such events) that they too can achieve respectable mileage.

And though it sort of hurts, it’s interesting to know that I pay almost the same amount for regular pump gas today as I did for Aircraft fuel — the Racer's Friend™ — in 2004.

The website! [Fuelly.com]

[#1 posted by pork musket , August 19, 2008 6:42 PM]

It's all about the E85. 100 octane cheaper than I can get 91 in Colorado? Yes please! Sure it's no 110 octane race fuel, but My STI loves it almost as much as I do and I can get it at quite a few local stations. MPG goes down, but last time I ran the numbers it was still saving me a few hundred year based on cost per mile.

Thanks much for the review and for pointing out fuelly.com. I'm not nearly as OCD about logging everything, but I think I'll give it a go.

[#2 posted by Joel Johnson , August 19, 2008 6:46 PM]

You have an STi, Pork? I hate you so bad. That's my maybe-someday-I-could-actually-afford-that dream car. (Although the new Evo X is hot, too.)

[#3 posted by pork musket , August 19, 2008 6:55 PM]

Haha yeah, I've got an 08. Every time I make a payment I feel like the dumbest person ever for buying it, but every time I turn it on I get a giant grin on my face and feel like the smartest. Hopefully next year I can afford some go-fast toys for it. The Evo X is really nice as well, definitely more aggressive looking.

[#4 posted by ROSSINDETROIT , August 20, 2008 5:36 AM]

Hypermiling is an eye opening experiment. I have a 97 Honda CRV that I've driven from 33,000 miles to its current 127,000. My average tank is 24 mpg with a best ever of 28 on teh highway. Worst is 21 mpg short tripping around town in the winter.
On Monday I had to drive from Detroit to Indy and back, 690 miles. Experimenting with lower speeds, AC off and drafting when possible I did the southbound leg of 347 miles on 11.9 gallons for 29 MPG. I tried a little harder on the northbound leg and did 342 miles on 10.08 gallons for 33.9 MPG. That's 31.4 MPG for the round trip, 3.4 MPG (12%) better than my best to date.
The lower speeds added 90 minutes to the trip time. 10.7 hours versus an estimated 9.2 at my typical speeds. The higher gas mileage saved $20.50 so you could say I 'earned' a little over $13 hour for the extra drive time.
I was amazed to be able to achieve nearly 34 MPG in the CRV. It's a pretty good sized vehicle and only slightly more aerodynamic than the garage. This was a useful experiment, and although too much of my driving is local short trips hauling significant weight for me to be able to exploit the high mileage tricks very often it's good to know the potential for saving gas on longer trips.

[#5 posted by Chuck Steel , August 20, 2008 5:37 AM]

This site needs a way to import data from a csv file. If they have that functionality, I'm not finding it. I don't have all of my fuel ups entered into a spreadsheet, but I have some of them from my records, and it would be nice to not have to manually enter that data again.

[#6 posted by Honad , August 20, 2008 8:02 AM]

Chuck Steel - I believe they are working on that functionality. There hasn't been a update on the release date of the feature though.

You can currently go the other way of course, downloading your site input into a CSV.

[#7 posted by fylateri , August 21, 2008 6:21 AM]

I have a Scangauge II in my Civic Type-R. I now know that it costs $0.07 to pull away from the lights with a redline first-second gear start (EU gas prices). Takes care of the paperwork, anyway, and I have per-tank, per-day and per-trip gauges for more or less any engine/fuel stat you'd want.

For the most part it means that I use less gas since I can see cost per mile, per journey, liters per hour...