Tran Harry – The Economy Needs A Fix

I have been on the market for a well built, user friendly, gas mileage tracker. If you have been following my blog than you know that I am a person who is very concerned about gas mileage and try to live a very gas efficient lifestyle. Just the other day I was introduced to this product called GasDandy and the creator of this product promises me the following:

The GasDandy™ gas mileage calculator records important data that keeps your vehicle healthy. Track Fuel Expenses, Record Gas Mileage, Odometer Readings, Fuel Costs, Fuel Purchase Dates, Oil Changes, Tire Rotations, Business Mileage and more!

GasDandy is free to try now, but you won’t want to let it go.

Pros:

• Very simple user friendly interface that ask for basic information
• Has a graph which tracks miles per gallon to reveal sudden drops in mileage
• Keeps track of gas miles driven, miles per gallon, oil change intervals, tire rotation schedule, notes for business miles
• Can track up to 3 cars for a personal version, great for those who mix their car maintenance schedules up often
• Priced right at only $17.95 (Originally $19.95) for up to 3 cars for the entire family, making it only $6.00 to keep track of each car

Cons:

• Would love to see it track more routine maintenance such as tune ups, minor and major
• Would love an incorporated carbon credit calculator to show environmental impact of gas used

Follow me as I take GasDandy on a test drive.

As I open up the simple to install program, this is the main menu page. In order to get started with using GasDandy I have to start by entering my vehicle’s information. This includes simple information as the Make and Model of the vehicle to identify it from your other vehicles, you are allowed up to 3 vehicles on a personal account, and the starting odometer that you will be tracking. Other optional settings you can change in the menu include setting the intervals for when you want oil and tire change reminders, I put my oil at 3,000 mile intervals, while my tire rotations at 5,000. As you continue to add miles to GasDandy it will remind me when that next oil and tire change will be coming up.

Here is the simple to follow view of my Honda Civic Del Sol:

So while I was already on an empty tank of gas when I purchased a copy of GasDandy, I tried out filling out the fields from my first full fill up.

Here I am entering the data that is necessary to calculate my gas mileage:

So from my receipt I am asked the price of the gas that I purchased, the gallons, and the date of the purchase. The last thing that GasDandy will ask me is my new current odometer reading. This will tell GasDandy how many miles you have driven between your last fill up.

After clicking submit, I get the results of my mileage between my last fill up and the fill up that I made on 03/22/2009.

As you can see GasDandy then does some calculations and presents the data to you in a very easy to use and very easy to understand fashion. The most relevant information that I see on the display is the following line:

Your gas mileage was 1.27 miles per gallon and you have driven 12 miles since last fill up!

GasDandy will give you the mileage per gallon up to the 2nd digit, and also tell you how many miles between fill ups you have gone. Another interesting feature is the top right where it says oil and tires. With 12 miles out of the 3,000 and 5,000 that I have set for oil and tires respectively you won’t see any differences, but if you were to put more miles in than you will get a fill bar which will start to fill up the bar until it reaches the appropriate time to start changing your oil or tires.

While I can definitely guarantee that I am not driving any Eco-Destructive Hummer, the only reason I’m getting 1.27 miles per gallon is because like I said I had started this experiment with an empty tank, otherwise I am sure it will show my mileage to be much higher than stated.

For the second part of my review (which will be during my next fill up) I may plan to remove my initial odometer reading and use the one that I have on my first fill up to get more accurate data. I wonder if it will affect my data for the long term. So check back in about two weeks when I will be doing my next fill up and I will let you know how I feel about using GasDandy as my main gas mileage tracker.

Overall, at $17.95 (Originally Priced at $19.95) for a personal version I would say you get great mileage out of this simple and effective program that will help you keep track of your gas miles, gas expenses, oil change intervals, and tire rotations.

GasDandy does all the math for you.

I would recommend anyone whose a car owner to give GasDandy a free download. Try it for a few days and you won’t be disappointed.