Hi,

I have a really dumb question. My drive from home to work is 17.3 miles. Yesterday it was raining and my trip meter showed 17.7 miles for the distance traveled.

Is the extra mileage somehow associated with the rain (maybe I was drifting more)?

Thanks for any feedback.

 

Perhaps you should run "test" at least a few more times so that you can have some days with no rain and see if the discrepancy is still there.

However a 0.4 mile difference in a 17 mile commute is not something I would consider significant unless your return trip happens exactly in the same lane as your drive to work.
You can probably verify this in most GPS units as well. My GPS reports slight differences between both directions and I travel much less than 10 miles each way.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

Maybe there is more tire slipage so the wheel registering milage is spinning slightly more than normal. That could explain difference. Although .4 miles is a lot.

 

Thanks for the replies. I have about 60 trips logged and they were all 17.3 except for the day that it rained. And then yesterday (not raining), the mileage was 17.8.

Not sure what is causing this, but my mileage seems to be off as well...I can usually get into the 50s (based on the mpg display) and now it is 46.

 

How much harder is it to walk on a waterlogged street or sidewalk vs. dry? Well, the same is true for your car. Standing water causes more resistance, whether to your feet or to your car's tires, requiring more force to overcome. So mileage naturally suffers in the rain.

 

Agreed that mpg will suffer in the rain, that goes without saying, but the road doesn't become 1/2 mile longer because of rain.

 

Check tire pressure? A change in pressure = change in size = odometer descrepancy = worse mileage.

 

I did check the tire pressure and it wasn't noticeably different.

This has me perplexed as it seems to happen a few times in different conditions. There are a few routes (like this one) that I take all the time. I log every drive and have pretty good data points, I think.

I guess I will see if they can look at it when I go in for my first service.

Thank you for all of your input!