Summary:
What is this all about?
- This application calculates a running average of the mileage for a given user. For every trip to the gas station, simply record the date, your odometer reading on that date, the amount of gas you purchased, and what you paid for it. Over the course of time, the MPG (miles per gallon) and PPG (price per gallon) should be a fairly accurate average of the mileage your vehicle gets on a regular basis.
- As it's a running total, you can add older entries, as well. If the data that you enter is correct, then those once forgotten entries will only act to make your average MPG and PPG calculations more accurate.
What should I expect?
- For calculations to begin, you need at least two entries. The reason for this is that, even after the first entry, there is no effective distance driven. (Did you drive 500 miles before the first entry or 5000 miles? How much gas did you actually purchase before the first entry?)
- The Total Fuel amount reflects what has been purchased in total, whereas the MPG and PPG calculations do not take the fuel for the most recent entry into account, as there's no way of knowing how far you will drive on your current tank of gas, until you add yet another entry, that is.
- For any given new entry with a given date, the odometer reading is compared to the previous and next entries to ensure better data consistency. If for example, you have an entry on 3/1/2019 with 10000 miles and another entry on 4/1/2019 with 11000 miles, you cannot add an entry on 3/15/2019 with an odometer reading less than 10000 or greater than 11000.