How to account for accidentally resetting trip meter

[MarcGSR]

Hi,

I've been religiously tracking my family's fuel up since I signed up. Unfortunately, the dealership had Jen's car and reset the trip meter so I have no idea how many km were on that tank.

How can I add a new fuel up without messing up the data? When tracking with the trip meter, it asks you to enter 'Kilometers since last fuel-up'. However I have no idea what the km were of our last full fuel-up. I can't guess or enter 0 as it throws the numbers right off.

When tracking via odometer readings there is an option for a missed fuel up. Is there anything like this when a vehicle is set to track via trip meter? Selecting 'This is a partial fuel-up' wouldn't help as it was a full fuel-up.

Regards,

Marc

[Jay2TheRescue]

I would not enter that tank into your log. Personally, I always record my trip odometer readings before dropping off my vehicles for service so if it is reset, I can still do a little math and enter the tank.

[RobertV]

Most dealerships, at least here in the US note the mileage when the vehicle is received. This is usually noted on the write-up of services performed. Perhaps a little subtraction might give you a relative idea of how many kms were traveled prior to dropping it off?

Otherwise, skipping it would be your only option.

[Draigflag]

Yea skip it, or if you want to still keep the cost factor, then just add the litres and price but check partial fuel up. I had the same thing happen to me when I changed my battery, just happened to be the best tank ever. But I kind of guessed mine, I knew roughly what it was.

Sometimes I want to reset my trip meter mid tank, so I reset it when it hits a round figure such as 700, then I just remember to add it on come fuel up time.

[MarcGSR]

But how does one 'skip' a fuel-up when it's asking for 'Kilometers since last fuel up'? You must input a figure in there.

Our next fuel up, after the trip meter was reset, was a partial fuel-up but I cannot log it in Fuelly as the 'Kilometers since last fuel up' are unknown and without logging this fuel up as a partial-fuel up it will throw the numbers of our next fuel up way off since Fuelly will not know the last fuell-up was partial.

I performed a full-fuel up yesterday but since the last fill was an un-logged partial fill in which we traveled only 317 km. When inputting 'Kilometers since last fuel up' as only 317 km when this was in fact a full fuel-up, it throws the data wayyyy off and gives me an extremely high fuel consumption figure since I could not enter the last trank as a partial fill up. When I try to input our new full tank fill, as I said, it throws the numbers way off.

[Jay2TheRescue]

What you do is just fuel up the vehicle, reset the trip odometer, and not enter that fuelup in Fuelly. Restart entering fuelups in fuelly with the next fuel stop.

[pedorro]

Curious -- Other than calculating the MPG on the first fuel-up, is there an advantage to tracking via the trip meter instead of the odometer? I've noodled it quite a bit and it just seems more risky to me due to the very topic of this thread.

-Lee

[Jay2TheRescue]

There are problems with running by odometer reading... If you forget to enter a fillup the next time you get fuel it looks like your mileage doubled.

[Draigflag]

The trip odometer is better in my opinion, as it allows you to add fuel ups whenever you feel like it. Perhaps you might add a few partial fill ups during the week, but only want to add full fuel ups, well that's fine. Or perhaps you only want to keep track of a long road trip? That's fine too. You can add 1 a week or 1 a year if you want. It only takes 1 missed fuel up to skew all your data using the odometer reading.

[RobertV]

Before I started using Fuelly, and at the time, having a very inconsistent/unreliable fuel gauge, I tracked my MPG using my Trip Meter.

But when I joined Fuelly I found it much easier to keep track of fuel-ups using my Odometer. Granted, even after replacing my fuel pump and fuel level sensor/float, and now having a more reliable gauge(as reliable as it came from the factory, which isn't saying much... lol), I still reset my Trip Meter at every fill-up. Perhaps this is just out of habit. But it also gives me a real-time estimate of how my fuel economy is for that particular tank.

For example, I don't drive my car as often these days. I filled up recently only because my gas gauge was reading about at the 1/4 mark. However, my Trip Meter said I had easily another 100 miles or so to go before empty. My last fill-up shows a drop in my MPG, which threw a red flag for me. I realize when I do drive, it's now mostly short trips, with city driving, which does a number on economy as it is, but I also decided to start looking into other issues. Turns out, my o2 sensors are acting funky, and causing the car to run rich. Yay for dumping fuel unnecessarily.




TL;DR-
Both methods of tracking have their advantages. I use both. For Fuelly, I prefer Odometer.