I'm talking about the display between the RPMs and Spedometer. One option is to have it display the average miles per gallon and average miles per hour.

Seems like I can drive 70 down the highway for 20 miles, and then get into the city and drive for 5 minutes and my average miles per hour drops to like 17 miles per hour and stays there until I reset it.

Can somebody please explain the math there to me? Does slowing down just kill the average somehow? Is it like dividing by 0? Or is my display just screwed up?

I feel like a dumbass for not getting this. But I figured I'd ask for some help here.

Thanks.

Later.

 

Maybe it takes into account the time you are at 0 MPH while at a stop light.

 

Good question. Someone on the 29.1 mpg post just said the same thing to me, that this was super accurate. It does seem pretty close to what I've been getting for MPG lately, but totally agree with you, as soon as I slow down, BAAM, it kills mpg. Far far quicker than my totally blind man-logic tells me it should.

 

True. Good point. But that would be dumb of them.


No I'm talking about miles per HOUR, not per gallon.

 

I have noticed the same thing with BOTH miles per hour and mpg. Where does the averaging come from anyways? Is it since you last refueled, last reset the averaging tool, last turned the car on?

Just wondering.

 

I assume that it's from the last reset.

 

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It is




.

 

vqsmile - Thank you for the explanation.

Well, I won't be using that display anymore.

 

But why? It's THE most accurate meter in the car.

Also, I don't understand your comment about it being dumb to include idling time (at 0 mph) into the average mph calculation. Since miles per hour (mph) is nothing but distance divided by time, then preferring not to include portions of that time is akin to preferring not to include select distances also; obviously doing that makes the whole thing meaningless. It's very nature of being highly accurate is because it is so scrupulous.

 

I don't know, I suppose I just want to know that when I'm moving, how fast am I going on average. I mean, why not also include the time that my car is off sitting in the driveway while I'm asleep? Then it would be even more accurate! But it would be silly to factor in the time while the car's motor is off. I take it a step further and say that it's silly to factor in the time when the car is at a dead stop.

Then again, if I were stuck in a miles long traffic jam I'd want it factored in. I don't know. I guess it depends on your style of driving. I commute, basically, so I'm more interested in knowing my average speed on my commute. Not my 80mph average commute for 30 minutes plus the one 3 minute stop light that brings the average speed of my trip to 12mph total.

I guess the answer for me is to just reset it a lot and factor the miles per gallon in my head, which isn't that hard since I fill up each time I'm at the pump.

 

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^^

Haha. Thanks. Like I said, I'm an English major.

In that last point, I was just trying to say that if I wanted the sampling of how fast I was going on average between two points without stopping, I could just reset it at the beginning of the trip. But then I'd lose the mpg reading as well. But I could just do the mpg in my head, so no loss.

But I appreciate your points. On a side note about mpg, I've had my car for less than a week, and it's my first "fast" car. My mpg is literally hovering around 14 right now. I can't keep my foot off the pedal, haha. I'm hoping this goes away in time.