I developed a habit and can't shake it. But it's economically beneficial.

I was just reminiscing about the cars I've owned. I have never leased a car, but have been given hand-me-downs, like I had a 1993 Ford Taurus that I nicknamed “The Silver Bullet”, which was my Dad's. And I had a 1993 Dodge Caravan minivan that I used to drive back and forth to college, and for a little bit after college, which was my Mom's.

Soon after graduating I was able to afford a new car, and was in love with the Chevy Monte Carlo SS (super sport), got it brand new, paid too much money, etc. But it was fast :) I was soon in an accident and while I was fine, the car was not, and it began a whole ordeal. I owned that car for 10 years and for about 9.5 years it had issues due to the accident. Welp.

One of the issues was that the gas gauge stopped working. A lot of my time with that car was under shaky employment circumstances. I got through it but I wasn't about to pay for whatever needed to be done to fix the gas gauge. So, instead, I built a habit. And it's stuck with me through the next two cars I've owned.

In order to not run out of gas, I kind of devised a way to track it without doing much. I never really knew how many miles I'd get on a tank of gas before this, so I estimated. I would just say after 200 or so miles (at this point I don't remember), I would look to fill the tank. Then every time I filled up, I'd reset the tripometer.

I did this for a while with the Monte Carlo. It is foggy but for it to really impact me today, it had to have been for years.

Funny story. And I don't know if the gas gauge was working at this point or not. But I was driving home from downtown Philly one day, on Walnut St. My car freakin dies! Runs out of gas. Luckily the next block was the Sunoco, so it was around 21st or 22nd street. I blocked one lane of rush hour downtown Philly traffic for like 30 minutes. What a nightmare!

So that habit formed. Every time I fill up, I check the mileage on the tripometer and reset it. I don't log it or anything. But it made me aware of just how bad the mileage was on the cars I had before my hybrid. Recently, my hybrid had probably its worst MPG performance its ever had. There are caveats! Philly saw temperatures of like 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind chills below 0. The cold weather often makes the tires deflate which is really bad for MPG. I didn't go anywhere other than local, so when the car doesn't get warmed up for a long trip, it just burns gas trying to heat the car, because of course with single digit temps I'm going to run the heat. I got 31 MPG that tank and it was better than the other cars, I'd wager by far. I'm thinking the Monte Carlo got like 18 to 20 MPG (generous estimate) and the Elantra Touring (nice car, another fun disaster) probably topped out at 25. The hybrid (2019 Hyundai Ioniq) advertises 53 MPG and I know those are like ideal conditions and I never see ideal conditions, but I can get it to 50+.

It's a simple way to save money. I definitely adopted new habits when I got the hybrid and wanted to MPG max! You probably didn't want to be on the same road as me at those times :)  But I could get it to 60. There are stretches of roads that I know where I never use gas. Flat backroads see no exhaust from my car.

These days I'm not too worried. I can drive without being too conscientious and get 40+ MPG. I will still check and reset the tripometer, I won't break that habit unless I go electric. But now with gas prices blowing up, I may have to max again.