How to calculate your car’s mileage? A step by step guide

While Indian consumers are increasingly focusing on the features and technologies on offer from the new vehicles, a certain number of vehicle buyers are still focused on the mileage a car offers, as it is a key part of a vehicle's practicality. In fact, the majority of entry-level vehicle buyers and first-time car buyers focus on this factor. Auto manufacturers understand this consumer psych and they emphasise the ARAI certified fuel efficiency figures. In real-life, the fuel efficiency figures are usually lower than the ARAI certified numbers. Hence, you can try checking the real mileage of your car.

While the modern cars come with real-time mileage indicators in their instrument cluster MID, old cars don't show the figure since they don't come with such instrumentation.

Here are the steps how to calculate a car's mileage.

Fill fuel tank

Fill the car's fuel tank to the brim from a pre-decided fuel pump and a particular dispenser. Most of the fuel dispenser nozzles come with an automatic cut-off system. This allows the refuelling system to cut off once the fuel level reaches the fuel tank's upper part. Continue filling the fuel tank until the dispenser cuts off fuelling itself. Note the fuel amount that went in.

Reset trip meter

After the fuel tank is filled to the maximum level reset the trip meter on the instrument cluster to zero.

Drive around

After topping up the fuel tank to the fullest and resetting the trip meter, start driving. It is recommended to drive around a minimum of 250-300 km before refuelling. This could take days to go for refuelling again, but if you are burning more fuel before refuelling, it will require you to refill with more fuel, which will allow getting a levelled estimate.

Follow speed limit

While driving around, maintain the speed limit. Driving faster makes the car consume more fuel, burning fuel quicker. Hence, it is recommended to drive around maintaining the speed limit to get the actual fuel economy reading from your car. Continue this till the fuel tank goes empty or almost empty.

Calculate mileage

After consuming most of the fuel in the fuel tank calculate your car's mileage by dividing the number of kilometres driven as per the trim meter by the quantity of the fuel consumed.

The formula is simple - Car mileage = Kms driven/ Fuel consumed

How to calculate your car's mileage

Step 1 :

Fill fuel tank

Step 2 :

Reset trip meter

Step 3 :

Drive around

Step 4 :

Follow speed limit

Step 5 :

Calculate mileage