Working out Pence cost per Mile.

MissBehaving · 27 April 2007 at 3:29PM

Hi Guys
I am looking for a really simple (I am blonde) way to work out how much a mile is actually costing me!

My car is a 2.0 TDI and I always fill up at Sainsbury's / Tescos etc so that I pay as little as possible.
I claim my mileage back but only get 9p a mile. I have a company car but no fuel card.

Anyway, for the last two 'fillups' I have recorded my opening and closing mileage.
To work it out I deducted the opening mileage from the closing mileage and divided the number of miles by the £amount that I had used to fill that tank up.

EG: Opening Miles: 66321 Closing Miles: 66804 = 483 miles in total.
483 divided by £33.66 = 14.34 (14p)

I know that this is not scientific, but would it 'add' up?

I want to email my company and ask that my mileage reimbursement be looked at as I feel I am paying 'in' to do my job.

Hintza · 27 April 2007 at 3:50PM

No your cost is 7p per mile 483 x 7p = £33.81. (or 33.66/483)

But please use decent fuel if you are planning to keep the car for any length of time. The supermarket diesel is notoriously bad for not having enough of the correct additives to help prolong engine life, it is false economy. You can normally get quailty fuel from either Shell or BP at the same price(ish) at the filling stations close to the supermarkets.

My Shell station charges the same as the Asda half a mile away.

dzug · 27 April 2007 at 3:53PM

No - the other way round. Divide £33.66 by 484. Just under 7 p a mile.

You've worked out the miles you get for £1.

mcfisco · 27 April 2007 at 5:44PM

Hintza wrote: »

No your cost is 7p per mile 483 x 7p = £33.81. (or 33.66/483)

But please use decent fuel if you are planning to keep the car for any length of time. The supermarket diesel is notoriously bad for not having enough of the correct additives to help prolong engine life, it is false economy. You can normally get quailty fuel from either Shell or BP at the same price(ish) at the filling stations close to the supermarkets.

My Shell station charges the same as the Asda half a mile away.

It's a company car so not really the OPs problem

cc25 · 27 April 2007 at 10:24PM

There's some useful information on the costs of running a typical diesel car (and how they are calculated) on the AA website here.

Assuming you paid the average price per litre of diesel (95.8 pence per litre, or £4.35 per gallon), your car used £33.66/4.35 = 7.74 gallons to travel 483 miles. This gives 62.4 miles per gallon - a very good figure (perhaps too good?) for a 2.0 litre tdi engine.

For a diesel car that can average 50 mpg, and a fuel cost of 95.8 pence/litre, the fuel cost per mile is £4.35/50 = 8.7 pence per mile, very close to the 9 pence per mile your employer is reimbursing you. If you're driving a lot in town, you may not get 50mpg, and the 9 p/mile is perhaps a little low. 10 p/mile would be better for you, and is easier to work out!

Your company is probably using the Inland Revenue approved mileage rates - there is a table here . The IR rate is, yes you guessed, 9 pence/mile for diesel cars with engine size up to 2 litres, and 12 pence/mile for engines over 2 litres.

maverickfb · 14 February 2009 at 10:35AM

hi I have just registered, not sure if I have to start a new thread or not but dont mean to hijack this thread, anyway i am trying to work cost per mile I have the following: total miles 98.20, mpg 40, with around 0.90p per litre unleaded how can I work out cost per mile?

lesley1960 · 14 February 2009 at 10:41AM

times litres by 4.5 to get the cost of fuel per gallon
divide this by mpg

Hintza · 14 February 2009 at 10:46AM

You will not get a very accuarete figue on 98 miles. You want to do these measurements over longer distances. I can get my mpg down to 16 with trailer or about 25 on a good day.

The other thing to mention is the cost of petrol is really only a portion of running costs per mile.

Anyway best way to do it for petrol costs per mile is:-

Carefully fill the car to the brim and record mileage, when tank is close to empty repeat process. Yoy will now have the number of miles covered. Take the amount of fuel used (ie the litres bought on the filling station receipt) and do the calculation to get mpg. Of course you can use to calculate cosr per mile as well. Again you will get a better average if you do the calculations over a period of time and note how much fuel you use over say a month.

kevin0410 · 14 February 2009 at 10:53AM

maverickfb wrote: »

hi I have just registered, not sure if I have to start a new thread or not but dont mean to hijack this thread, anyway i am trying to work cost per mile I have the following: total miles 98.20, mpg 40, with around 0.90p per litre unleaded how can I work out cost per mile?

Use mathematics

jago25_98 · 27 November 2010 at 11:26PM

this thread is the top result on google for "convert miles per gallon to pence per mile" so I don't consider this offtopic or hijacking when I say,

how does one convert 35mpg (for example) to pence per mile (without measuring fuel use again)

anewman · 27 November 2010 at 11:59PM

In one gallon there are 4.546 litres, therefore...

Divide your miles per gallon by 4.546 to get miles per litre

e.g. 35/4.546 = 7.699 miles per litre

Then divide the price per litre of petrol by your miles per litre figure.

E.g. If one litre costs 116.9p

116.9/7.699 = 15.18p per mile

This of course only takes into account the fuel costs per mile and not other costs such as insurance, tax, servicing, tyres and so on.

Working out Pence cost per Mile.

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free