SAguirre

Open this link first: http://steveag.home.comcast.net/log.htm

Due to my father’s habits, I have always logged my miles and all kinds of data every time that I fuel. I modified my spreadsheet since this car gives other data too. I will spare you and not show you the log of my Audi, since it is very very long after 262,000 miles of logs..

I KNOW . . . I KNOW I am a really ****-retentive person (but only in some things). You might guess why, as the head of my department at work, they call me LANA. If you read it backwards it spells ****.

This is where it is very handy to have this kind of information. When I had Fuel issues (injectors and other things) on both my Audi and my 300E and you tell the mechanic that there is something wrong. Like the MPG has gone down the tubes or something like that. Then you can show them a graph and prove it to them. Once, my MPGs had dropped after a major service (on the 300E). They then found that there was a fuel leak. The leak was not outwards, but it was making the car run very rich. Since I had to tell them numerous times about the bad MPG and then I proved it to them by showing my charts and they actually found a problem. They fixed it free of charge. The repair would have been about $400.00. The problem also had nothing to do with their previous work, but since they did not catch it and they were ignoring me (at my old dealer) they ate the bill.

Also, when my 300E was totaled this last July, the insurance adjuster was very impressed with all the history of the car. I got $9,790 for a 1991 300E with 129,300 miles on it! The best book value at the time was about $7,500.

If you are inclined to do this, I think it is worth then putting it on a spreadsheet, it has paid off twice for me!

On a side note, look at how accurate the trip computer reading is compared to the calculation at the pump. I know that there are people who say that there are differences, but after a few fuelings, it all averages out to almost the same! REALLY CLOSE!

Just another worthless piece of stuff I do. Am I alone????

Steve A.

HELL ONA HARLEY

Hey bro.... Don't you have a bicycle or something to put together tonight??? :p :p :p
Merry Christmas Steve.

SAguirre

I knew that I was going to hear from you and it would be humorous.

No, I don't have anything to assemble. My gifts don’t require assembly. They simply either get transferred by wire or they are deposited . I was just going over things with my father (who is visiting with my mother). My father, who is 70, showed me how to get an Excel file to HTML format and post it . We are soon leaving to go to Mass. However, it looks like you are not doing much either. What is your excuse??? But anyway, we don't open our gifts until tomorrow during our brunch tradition.

Have great Holydays and an even better new year. I will be out on another trip with the good old (actually new) E! First to go skiing again in Vail and then down to New Mexico!

Steve A.

HELL ONA HARLEY

Yea, No excuse's here... Kids have out grown the bikes and I was able to finish up my shopping today at the last minute (like every year). So I'm sitting here with some suds watching the puter and enjoying the evening...


B.T.W.... If your feeeling like you have a bit more of that Christmas spirit in ya, I'll be glad to email my bank account # for one of them fancy "christmas transfers"

khaug

We've always kept a logbook on our cars, altho not quite as elaborately as you. Good to catch performance problems and to record maintenance performed.

I've not yet reset the master trip computer register on our CDI, so I was impressed to see how very accurate your trip computer mpg is. Our prior two cars w/trip computer (BMW 528i and Toyota 4Runner) were/are awful: 15% optimistic.

Recently came across the logbook for the Chevelle SS 396 we owned while we lived in SoCal in the late '60s. Premium gas was then $0.37-.38/gal, and a good thing too, as it got c. 13 mpg on the highway, 9-10 around town! The good old days - NOT!

marksatex

Merry Christmas SA , Hell on a Harly- I just watch the command for the milage- I speadsheet so much other stuff the car is a big part of my relaxation.... Harley some day I am gonna figure out what you treid to teach me on getting my photo in my signiture.... Thanks! Your a great addition to this forum

HELL ONA HARLEY

Back at ya bro.....

GearHead

Wow, and I thought I was ****.

I keep all the service records and log all transactions on my computer for my TCO computation. I even kept my original windshield Maroni sticker from the purchase and the original PDI logs.... BUT have never log any gas fillup

Man, I am impressed

Merry Christmas to you and others here

NATS64

I have always logged service and fillups for my vehicles. The MPG computer on my E500 reads exactly the same as my Excel logs - 23.5. The E320 gets 24.7 MPG.

SGEM

Since we are talking gas here...I was wondering what your preference in gas company is. I tend to use Mobil Super but I have occasionally used HESS.
Just curious to know what you guys use for your "baby".

SAguirre

I have actually researched this. It really does not make much of a differrence where you gas up. The US pipeline (which services the Colorado area) mixes all the fuel together. So if Mobil, Exon, BP or whoever it is needs a few 1000 gals of fuel from texas, they have a brokering system where they have it inserted at the texas end and remove it here in Colorado. It is more complex than my explanation, but in the end all fuels in this area are the same. When I gas up here, then I just shop Octane. I also know the stations and test them with my Old Audi. If the Audi gets bad fuel, it really runs baddly.

Please understand that in areas like South Slorida, it is totally different since the companies actualy can ship their own fuel to their reserve tanks/distribution systems. Like you might know, this last summer Shell was finally caught having high sulfur in their fuel and they ruined a lot of stuff on people's cars. That did not affect any other brand of fuel in the area (mainly the Keys).

I have never been brand loyal, I have been more location, convenience and price loyal. I have driven about 1,000,000 miles if you add up all the cars I have had and I have not had many fuel problems. (a few in the Audi).

That is what I do,

Steve

SAguirre

I am sure glad I am not alone!

I am surprised that your E500 is so close to the E320. I would have then probably purchased a 500 instead. However, I do tend to punch the throttle more often than I should. If I had the 500, I am sure my average would not be as high as yours. I do wonder how much better my mileage will get with more miles and also how much the 4 Matic is actually consuming. So far, the biggest guzzling that I notice is when I have the ski rack on the car.

I think that I drop at least 1.5 MPGs and I also get a lot of wind noise above 80 MPH. Luckily, the ski rack is very easy and fast to remove and put back on. It also fits in the trunk nicely.

Also, when I saw that the computer calculations were so close to my pump calculations, I thought something might be wrong. They were really close! But it only makes sense that they be accurate if you are comparing it to a few fill ups so that the pump cut off point becomes averaged.

Thanks for your input!

Steve

airbusman

I am another that logs fuel and oil, maintenance etc. Must be from being an **** retentive pilot.... I have a 30 foot motorhome and three benz cars, a 1978 (original owner - no dash cracks 65K miles) Datsun 280z and a nice Toro lawn mower. I have given up logging my wife's ML320 fuel- she does not go with the program. My E-Klasse - every fill-up from the time I picked the car up in Europe to the last fill up here in Minnesota has been logged. The overall gas mileage for the 4matic is 25.4 MPG - I do mainly highway driving. The same goes for the Motorhome (not picked up in Europe though) and it gets 8.4 MPG whether it is going 55 or 75MPH.

One thing- oddly enough when I switched to synthetic in the Motorhome, the gas mileage actually improved about 1 MPG better. Strange. (this was logged 5000 miles since changing from dino-juice to full synthetic)

Regarding gas, I buy the cheapest "premium" or "super" gas - which incidentely was $1.69 this morning at the local no-brand station for 90 octane. IMHO, gas is gas. Read Consumer Reports. ALL the gas here comes from a local refinery on the other side of the metro area, if one gets close enough the see the tankers lined up at the refinery, one sees all brands of transport trucks filling up from the same point.

Just my 2 cents.

HELL ONA HARLEY

Our gas in california is alot different than other states... MTBE and other additives to make it burn cleaner is the reason. Different major oil companies (chevron, shell, BP, etc) also add different additives and detergents for better cleaning and leaving less carbon deposits (chevron "techron" comes to mind)... Octaine ratings also differ from state to state. I guess what I'm saying is I don't totally agree with the above statement. I will agree for the most part gas is gas, but the end product from varing companies are different according to their marketing strategies.

Barry45RPM

"Gas is gas" like all MB W211's are the same. They are not! The last thing pumped into the tanker trucks is a particular manufacturer's package of detergents and proprietary clean air/clean burn chemicals. Untill that point, all gas of the same octane is pretty similar. Once the final detergent package is dropped into the tanker, THAT gasoline now becomes a branded gasoline.

Continued use of the lowest priced Premium gas will lead to dirty fuel injectors & lower gas milage. I find just 1 tank full of BJ's Wholsale Club Gas delivers less performance (because the engine computers probably retard timing) and less MPG.

Put another way, Vodka is Vodka, but, at a bar, when you are given a drink made not using "speed rack" brand Vodka, but really "good" Vodka, you CAN taste the difference in the drink.

airbusman

I would read a Consumer Reports article about gasoline- I do not remember when it was - a few years ago, but the BTU value of the gasoline was the SAME for the octanes they tested.

So - the gasoline from Sam's club - Mobil - BP Amoco - etc etc etc make NO difference in the performance of the car. BTU value is what the gasoline is measured by. Regarding the octane value standards from different states, I am not knowledgable enough in this area to debate. I do know that each brand adds their own package of stuff to their gasoline. Yes cleaners and such, but clogged injectors?

To correct this I presume that additives could be added to the tank of gasoline - but then again that could/would defeat the less cost per gallon.


Ed

SAguirre

However, Ed! How could you put 90 Octane in your car!!! The manual specifically states to use 91 minimum. I am surprised that a precision-oriented man as yourself would ignore 1 octane (a hexane would not be that big a deal, but 1 octane is! ). I am joking here!

You know, in Florida the grades are 87, 90 and 93, but here in Colorado it is 86, 89 and 91. I was told (and it is true) that the octane has to be measured at the pump and since we are at 5,000 feet minimum, that reduces the octane rating. This is kind of how the octane rating and BTUs are the same, but then it ends there. Also, I don't remember much about chemistry and thermodynamics of combustibles, but the octane rating is not totally correlated to BTUs. Octane is the percentage of isooctane chemical structures of the fuel and indicated how resistant the fuel is to burning. The higher the octane rating is, the harder it is to make explode. This makes the fuel more compressible and better to avoid knocking. In the end Octane is Octane.

Barry, if what you say about cheap gas is true: "Continued use of the lowest priced Premium gas will lead to dirty fuel injectors & lower gas mileage." Then all of my other cars should have had fuel system problems. I make sure that my gas stations are clean and have good equipment, but that is what is important in the end. My whole family has had aver 4 cars that have reached 300K miles and we have had about 8 that have passed the 200k mark. We always put the good stuff in the engines as far as octane goes, but never by brand. The only problems we have had is water in the fuel! (Mostly in diesel). Otherwise we must have been really lucky

This should be a thread in and of itself and we should get some chemical engineers to explain all of this to us.

Steve A

SAguirre

Well I sure hope that my 4 matic gets up there like yours. I do however; do a lot of crap driving. If I take my car to work it is only one mile!! (I do ride my bike when the weather allows it!!, I do live in Boulder County and people have to do that here, you know?) Anything around town can not be more than 5 miles! So aside from my trips on vacations or to go skiing, the car does get city driving and this kills my MPG average.

My family has been involved in aeronautics and aerospace for the last 80 years! I think that is where I get this tick of keeping track of things. My mother though, will not write down her fill ups. This means that my father fills up my mother's car! Can you believe he does that after 40 years?

How old and how many miles does your 4 Matic have? Also, sorry about the Boeing joke, it is a point of contention in my family "Airbus versus Boeing" is just as fight provoking as "PC versus MAC." My brother now flies a Bombardier RJ, but the last plane we had was a DC 3 (sold in the 80s but still around) and before that a UC 78.

Steve A.

pa28pilot

OT:
80 years? Do you have any Early Birds in the family? My great-grandfather was one, and someone in every generation has flown ever since.

I think the Boeing vs. Airbus thing may be more serious than the PC vs Mac debate (and I've been a Mac developer in a previous life)...my travel agent had orders for 5 years never to book me on an A320, as I wanted to wait until they straightened the software out. To this day, it seems that pilots are polarized about whether those things are safe or not.

Of course, I'm probably the only guy who reads the airworthiness certificate as I board commercial aircraft. It's just that I feel safer when I'm in an airplane for which I can read the logs...

So do _you_ do oil analysis on your Mercedes? Can you find a dealer who can pull a decent sample?

P.S. Hello from a former StorageTek person. I used to spend a fair amount of time in Longmont...

airbusman

I have heard many rumors about the cheap gas and water. I called the State of MN and asked them about this. 2 different departments withing Commerce explained to me that those rumors and gasoline (not diesel) were hogwash. The fuel is tested, the tanks are sticked and sampled, the pumps are measured. All randomly. Diesel however is a different story - something about transport and storage, and they do measure the quality of it too. I did not go into this with them.

Well I guess the 1 Octane difference will kill my engine(s)

Almost everyone I know with a vehicle that the "required" premium fuel is listed on the manual only puts 90 octane in their vehicle. (CL500, CL600, E55 AMG, C32, a few other E, C and S Klass vehicles)

One of the vehicles has 203,000 miles on it (a 10 year old MB Gas) and another - a aquaintance' Audi has almost 200,000 miles on it. (she burns regular unleaded most of the time - even though she knows that the manual states otherwise- NEVER has had a problem with the car except that it is an Audi )

The Airbus vs. Boeing argument is not really that complex, but if I start into it, it would/will end up becoming a political argument. So I won't start.

I will say one thing though, I have flown both, and ALL of my friends that have flown both prefer Boeing/MD. (including my European pilot friends) I prefer Boeing/MD.

The biggest thing that I do not like about the fluid schedule is the 10,000 mile interval for the oil change. I change mine every 5000 miles. And the ONLY reason why I use 0w40 Mobil 1 is because MB requires/specify it for their warranty, otherwise on the other vehicles I use "Wally World" 5w30 or 10w40. It makes no difference. (Consumer Reports study of 100 cars in NYC several years ago and MPD oil study)


Ed

HELL ONA HARLEY

Agreed, There is very little difference (except additives) between brand name synthetic oils. Though personaly speaking, if your changing your "synthetic" oil at only 5000 in your (water cooled) engine, then your wasting your $$$$$. 10,000 miles or more is easily obtained and for the most part the oil after the higher milage is still good.

B.T.W..... Its the oil companies, NOT the auto makers recommending oil changes every 3-5 thousand miles...

JPM

Where are your figures for average miles per month, average fuel $ per month and fuel $ per mile? I thought everyone logged such basic info, right? Along with the record of oil top-ups and miles between them to keep track of oil consumption, and details of spending on servicing and modifications, of course. Who wouldn't do that?

SAguirre

How dare I forget that!!!! NOT!! I have that info. As a 31 yo single man, I will show you my other little balack book!

As far as the M/mo avg fuel/mo and fuel$/mile; all that can simply be done once the raw data is entered. At the one year mark is when I usually do it. As per oil consumption, I have never had a car that burned enough oil to warrant adding any between oil changes (I am not counting my 1973 super bettle since I just checked the fuel level and filled the oil on that car!).

The black book is what stays in the car and gets filled out. When I get to it it all gets merged in the spreadsheet. Like you said: "Who wouldn't do that?"

Steve

HELL ONA HARLEY

Now yer talkin bro...