Advance Pursuit

Jan 14, 2009 - Myth Debunker: Trip computers are not accurate

This myth has been floating around the car community since day one of the trip computers, even the most-informed "car guys" think that trip computers cannot accurately calculate the cars' FE (mpg figure). I always knew that's not the case because in many times the rough calculation I did in my head came up pretty close to what my car's trip computer was showing but never got around to prove it, until this morning...

I went to fuel up my car this morning and I took pictures of both the trip computer and the amount of fuel I put in and here they are:

Now a quick calculation:

300 miles / 14.005 gal = 21.4 mpg

The trip computer shows 21.1 mpg. If you ask me, that's pretty darn close enough to the real figure!

Note: The percent error is 1.42%, which is well below the acceptable (5%).

11:21 am | Categories: second opinion, my car Permalink | Alert Administrator

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