Reconciling the first fuel-up in a new vehicle

[AzRobbins]

How do I reconcile the first fuel up in a new vehicle driven off the lot? I need to start tracking the vehicle at 0 miles, otherwise my 'Total Miles Tracked' will never match my odometer. If I add a first fuel up with .1 miles and .01 gallons, my 'Total Miles Tracked' will be correct, but my 'Total Fuel-ups' will report one more than it should.

[pb]

Did the dealer fill it to full? You could estimate the size of the first fuel-up by using the capacity of your fuel tank.

In most cases Total Miles Tracked will never match the odometer of the car here at Fuelly. I can see how that'd be kind of neat, but the system isn't designed to have that match.

[mathowie]

The total fuel-ups won't be wrong, the dealer should fill the tank before handing you the keys to the vehicle.

When I bought a new car, I put down the mileage at signing (it was more than zero, due to test drives), and said it was a ten gallon partial fuel up. Measuring by odometer, this covered every fuel up and distance I've driven while owning it.

We may in the future provide a "new car?" first fuel option so you don't have to enter slightly bogus data to get started.

[AzRobbins]

Thanks for your response, Paul. I can only assume that it came with a full tank, but I don't know for sure. I have been using a spreadsheet to keep track of my fuel usage which will report many other statistics and averages. I had always used my data to tell me how much fuel I have 'Purchased' and how much it has 'Cost' me, not how much fuel has run through the engine. The first tank that came with the car isn't important to me. I don't want it to be calculated because I don't know how much fuel it was, I didn't have to pay for it, and it will throw off all my averages to have a zero cost tank. Instead of a first fuel up, it would be nice to be able to enter a 'Start Tracking From' point. For those of us that track all our fuel, this will make our data more accurate.

[pb]

The problem with "start tracking from" is that we don't know if the tank was full at that point, and Fuelly calculates individual MPG based on the difference from full. Without knowing the starting full point, having the starting odometer reading isn't very helpful. It's better to start with the first known fuel-up where you fill it to full and have all of the data.

[AzRobbins]

You're right; a 'Start Tracking From' point would only be useful if the user started tracking when the vehicle were empty. Perhaps a feature to allow the first fuel up data to not be calculated in the averages and totals. My problem is, if I want my 'Miles Tracked' to match my odometer, and I only want to calculate how much fuel I have purchased and how much I have spent, the first fuel up must be zero miles, no gallons, and must not cost anything. This would be fine, except that when this 'first fuel-up' is calculated with the rest of the fuel-ups, it will throw off all the averaging stats.

[pb]

Yeah, I think the problem lies with trying to get your current odometer reading to match the "Miles Tracked" stat. It's a bit misleading because we present that stat as if it's an odometer, but in reality it's not going to match your current real world odometer reading in just about any scenario.