Lakedude,

I understand you cannot eliminate just the low tanks, I know it wouldn't be right, I just meant cars that had virtually NO entries (less than 3 or 5). That would not include Little Red Beauty at 92.8. but it would include Longranger at 81.1 ... until there are more tanks (there isn't even one yet).

a whole year cycle shows a persons true average for their location and conditions. Even at 100 mpg, 10,000 is around 10 tanks. An 'average' person puts 12-15000 a year.

I don't want you to think I want to skew the average up and have a false average, and let people have misconceptions of what the car really does. Some WILL get in the 40s like the elroy jetson car with 25 tanks ... but there are 4 other cars under 50 with 1 or 0 tanks and there are a couple in every group of 10 mpg that are under 3 tanks.

I think it would be fine to keep a car in the overall average even if they got 30 mpg, if they had enough data to present it as a real average over a length of time. There are so many factors that can mess up a first entry, etc.

I would say statistically, it would be more valid, since the way the total average is calculated, that they have a certain amount of tanks before they are counted towards the group average. I would passively agree that it is close to even by eyeballing it, but I think in general, it would give every model a more 'real world' average (or as real world as a hybrid forum can get). otherwise, an average on miles vs gas used of all cars should be used for the number. This way, someone who has driven 200 miles on their first tank to average 20 mpg doesn't drop the whole Insight average far down, nor does someone who had one extremely good first tank driving 1500 miles getting 150 mpg bring the average way up (we all wish).

I think if you did it either way, the Insight 5-spd average would be closer to 70 mpg. If I get the time tomorrow, I might go through all of the databases and do an average as it is done now minus the cars with less than a certain number of tanks. Depends on how much I need to get done.