Now that the database has zip codes in it, I think it'd be cool if I could compare mileage to people in my area.

The idea of the zip code was that people in similar zip codes at least have similar weather because Zip codes are actually geographic.

The first 3 numbers of the Zip indicate a geographic region (this is why satallite dish companies can let you align your dish by having you enter your zip code). The next 2 numbers of the Zip are simply assigned to each town or small city, or each sub-section of a larger city based on alphabetic order.

e.g. I live in Dearborn, MI. The geographic area is "481". Since my city starts with a "D" it has Zip codes of 48120-48124. Allen Park, MI starts with "A" so it is the "01" city in the region (48101).

If I could tell the Real Mileage database that I'd like to view all cars that have zip codes that start "481" then I could get a comparison of how I stack up against my neighbors who would have the same whether conditions that I have. If the database let us just use the first 2 digits of the zip "48", then I'd be able to compare against everybody in a much broader region of the state and not just my metro area (for example, the area north of the metro area has zip codes that all start "480" instead of "481".

Is there a way to do searches like this with the database that I've just missed?

No, there's no such system right now. I think it could be useful in the future, but until there are several thousand contributors it would decrease sample size too much to really provide any accuracy.

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Jason, thanks for the quick reply. Hopefully some day we get enough people to make it worthwhile.

Regards,
Tim

Tim I love your idea but even if there are 10 others posting from Jacksonville, I can guarantee you I'm the only one from 32211 - it's a big big city both geographically and populatively.

Still, I'd love to see the trends of geography: what does the AC do to our AZ folks? How severe is the MPG decrease each rainy season in WA?

Jason, I know in some cases it would almost be silly since it's half a globe from one side of TX to the other, or topographically opposite from the Bay Area to San Diego, but would it be possible to have a breakdown by state? Some data would be better than none, and the smaller or more like-climated a state is, the more accurate that data would be regardless of ZIP. AND you'd only be responsible for creating 50 categories, most of which would provide adequate sample size even right now. What do you think?

Yeah - so my thought's are similar in that if I tried to filter on "48124" then I'd be lucky if there's even one other person in the database. So the idea was to drop digits because ZIP codes happen to be geographic -- getting more specific as you add digits from left-to-right.

I suppose it could be done so that you don't even enter the mask -- since there's really only (at most) 4 rows of output anyway, might as well automatically just show you all 4 of them . E.g. let you enter your whole zip code and then returning something like this:

You search on "Prius" and Zipcode "32211" and it returns.

Zipcode mask 32211 contains 1 cars. Avg MPG = 52.7
Zipcode mask 322** contains 3 cars. Avg MPG = ___
Zipcode mask 32*** contains 12 cars. Avg MPG = ___
Zipcode mask 3**** contains 25 cars. Avg MPG = ___

Well... you get the idea. It would just give you a feel for how you compare to the broader average of owners that live in *roughly* your vicinity.

My own motivation is that its' really hard for me to compare my FEH to others when I know that the majority of owners are on one coast or the other and I'm in the middle of the country with radically different whether. My summer tanks consistently average the high-side of the window-sticker fuel economy, but my winter tanks lose about 25% of my fuel economy due to the frigid weather that the west coast or the south never has (well, that combined with my short trips not allowing the engine or batteries to warm sufficiently to get the good economy.) Being able to filter the vehicle average fuel economy in the database to just my region would give me a better view of how I'm doing.

The next challenge is that the database doesn't have dates or seasons -- so we can't yet compare "summer" tanks to "winter" tanks.

I like the idea of regionalizing also - I'm forever trying to find out who else lives in New England (not just Maine, although that would be nice) so we can compare how we do come wintertime with all our snow to those that live in the deep south or in the desert.

C&J the Gas Pirates

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Well, you could always compare yourself to me. I live in Macomb Township, and currently commute twice a week to Dearborn.

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