Trip Meter Blues

[guest5261]

It would be nice if I could set Trip Meter A to record my cumulative mileage and fuel economy on summer tyres, and Trip Meter B to do the same for my winter tyres. And since the handbook describes the trip meters as 'independent' I thought that this would be within their capabilities. But it isn't. There appears to be no mechanism for pausing a trip meter, only for resetting it.

Or am I missing something?

[peteo48]

Couldn't you just use one trip meter and zero it at each tyre change? You'd then have to keep a manual record of course if you wanted to monitor it over a number of years.

I'm not aware of any mechanism for pausing it.

[guest4324]

It would be nice if I could set Trip Meter A to record my cumulative mileage and fuel economy on summer tyres, and Trip Meter B to do the same for my winter tyres. And since the handbook describes the trip meters as 'independent' I thought that this would be within their capabilities. But it isn't. There appears to be no mechanism for pausing a trip meter, only for resetting it.

Or am I missing something?

It also depends if you want to accurately check the difference between the tyres because air temperature plays a big role in the fuel economy, more fuel used in winter, so you'll have to drive a couple of months with each tyre in the same weather conditions to get a reasonable comparison.

[John Ratsey]

Also don't trust the mpg given by the car's computer. In my experience it's 5% to 10% optimistic. It's best to include the fuel put into the tank to your manual record. I've been keeping a spreadsheet with all this info for several years.

[guest1372]

I'd agree that maths is more accurate than the meter, so suggest noting the mileage on the bottom of one receipt, then clipping all subsequent receipts to it until you feel it's time to generate a new running total, remembering not to include the litres from the first receipt. (Plus keep a pen for those pay-at-pump with faulty printer.)
--
TG

[guest5261]

Thanks, folks for those observations.

Plus ça change...

I had hoped that having these trip meters would mean there was no need to do anything other than pause one and restart the other twice a year when the tyres were changed. But obviously, I am looking for rather more in my trip meters than trip meters provide.

I'm not much given to manual recording or spreadsheet keeping, but  may make an exception for this. When first I had my previous Jazz, I monitored my fuel consumption in the traditional way for a short while, there being no car display to mislead. And then when I first put winter tyres on it, I did the same. So far I could see, any fuel consumption difference was negligible. That impression remained with me once I had stopped measuring it directly. The need to fill the tank always arrived more or less when I had come to expect it before the tyres were changed.

So I will see what is revealed by the rather less impressionistic approach Peteo48 suggests. Twice a year on the tyre change the readings on B will be recorded and put in a spreadsheet and Trip Meter B will then be reset. Trip Meter A, which was reset when I bought the car and has not been reset since, will provide the background average for comparison with any individual seasonal result.

I will bear in mind Stupot's, John's and TG's points, but probably not do much about them. In fact, I can't now do an actual against car-computer fuel consumption comparison before the beginning of the next tyre season. And to give the car computer a fair trial, I suppose I should spend a whole tyre season filling the tank and totting up a string of  fuel used figures. I don't see myself doing that.

In fact, I'm probably more interested in recording the total mileage travelled by each set of tyres than in recording their fuel consumption characteristics. I've had a little bet with myself that the Michelin Alpins that have just gone on the car will probably wear more slowly than the OEM Dunlop SP Sports that I have just taken off.

We will see.

[Hobo]

Trip Meter A, which was reset when I bought the car and has not been reset since, will provide the background average for comparison with any individual seasonal result.

I have Trip Meter A set to reset to zero every time I refill with fuel, I find it a useful way of keeping a check on mileage between each fill up.

[stiggysawdust]

Trip Meter A, which was reset when I bought the car and has not been reset since, will provide the background average for comparison with any individual seasonal result.

I have Trip Meter A set to reset to zero every time I refill with fuel, I find it a useful way of keeping a check on mileage between each fill up.

Yep, I do the same, or did til last week. Just managed today to set the trip on my HR-V to do the same.