| News: May 30, 2025 |
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My 2013 Mercedes S 350 BlueTEC 4Matic is now almost 11 years old.
It is interesting that my average mileage has not changed in the last 62,000
miles.
The summary:
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| News: June 30, 2020 |
| I have had my 2013 Mercedes S 350 BlueTEC 4Matic for almost six years.
It hit 112,000 miles today. I have averaged 28.8 mpg over the life of the car
so far, paying an average of $2.84/gallon, and this works out to $0.098/mi. I set a new record today of driving 806.5 mi on a single tank of fuel. I drove from Idaho Falls ID, to St. George UT, and back up to Santaquin UT on the one tank. I also put more fuel in my tank than ever before after doing this: 25.1 gallons! It is a 21.9 gal tank officially. |
| News: July 18, 2015 |
| My new S Class diesel is now a year old, and it just hit 27,000 miles. I averaged 29.3 mpg over the year, with a fuel cost of only $0.112/mile. My best tank was 35.7 mpg, and I have seen up to 755 miles on a tank, but I think I can do better. |
| News: July 18, 2014 |
| Today was a bittersweet day: I traded in my 2006 E 320 CDI after 241,822 miles. It has been a great car, but the A/C began having problems and as we have been on our Freedom Tour, we need A/C. So, I bought a brand new Mercedes 2013 S 350 BlueTEC 4Matic in Fairfield CT. This S Class diesel may be able to go even further on a tank than my E Class. |
| News: July 11, 2014 |
| Today my Mercedes E 320 CDI passed the average distance between the earth and the moon, which is 238,855 miles! This was about 50 miles west of Missoula MT at 11:00am. |
| News: February 20, 2014 |
| Today my Mercedes E 320 CDI turned 225,000 miles. I have been driving 120 miles a day a lot recently and it has been often turning in 40-41 MPG on this drive if traffic does not slow me down too much. |
| News: September 5, 2011 |
| 909 MI @ 67 MPH @ 38.7 MPG = 2356946 MI^3/GAL/HR There is a new winner for length, speed, and mileage combined! This trip was when I drove from Spring Lake Utah to the Silver Cloud Hotel in Bellevue WA via I-84, once again in my Mercedes. |
| News: April 12, 2011 |
1009 MI @ 66 MPH @ 35.0 MPG = 2330790 MI^3/GAL/HR
I have been thinking about a figure of merit for a single trip.
The idea is to multiply the trip distance by average speed by fuel economy to get
a figure of merit that represents the best blend of distance,
speed, and economy. Using this criteria I searched through 59 trips and found
a winner:
awk -F\t '$4 == "" && $5 == "" && $3 > 0 && $6 > 0' e320.txt |
awk -F\t '{ printf("%0.f\t%s\n", $3*$6*$7,$10)}' | sort -n
The miles greatly swamp the speed and economy in this first pass at a figure of merit. So I
divided the distance by 10, multiplied the mpg by 3 and left the speed alone so that all three
measured values were of the same order of magnitude, using this script:
awk -F\t '$4 == "" && $5 == "" && $3 > 0 && $6 > 0' e320.txt |
awk -F\t '{ printf("%0.f\t%s\n", $3/10*$6*3*$7,$10)}' | sort -n
and this same trip still won!
Can anyone beat my scores?
Here is the challenge:
Drive as far as you can at the highest speed possible but simultaneously at the highest efficiency possible,
and can you surpass this?
Variations would be to see how high a score could be achieved on a single tank of fuel, or at a single stretch in one day without naps, or over many days with stops. For example, I drove through all 48-states in 24 days. Here is how that trip would stack up:
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News: April 11, 2010 |
832.9 miles (1340 km) on a single tank of diesel in my 2006 Mercedes-Benz E 320 CDI.
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Created: 3 May 2011 Modified: 30 May 2025