[TractionAvant]

Hello All,

I cannot find a more appropriate place for this topic (moderators, please move the thread if it is out of place, thank you).

I would like to know what details should one enter in a log book for a car. Here's what I can think of;
1) Date & quantity of fuel filled.
2) Details of periodic servicing & repairs carried out.
2) Long trips could be logged with daily running, places visited with distance & time taken

My question is, should one also put in details of the daily commute? It would be rather tedious and the log book would run into shelves . Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

Kind regards

Aditya

[abhinav.gupta88]

Well you can take a look at the chart prepared by mahadev for his palio from this post and make one in excel according to what all you want to keep and what not to.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ip-report.html

[SumitB]

You should PM HVKumar and Ramkya for their advice. If possible, invite them to pen their advice on this thread for the benefit of others. Their log keeping is really excellent.

[rjstyles69]

PM akroy on the forum, he has a wonderful excel sheet which he uses. Its been posted somewhere on the forum , cant seem to find it.

[narasimha raju]

You can download Car Maintainence History excel sheet from the following link.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...een-fills.html

[Torqy]

I guess hvkumar and ramky haven't seen this thread yet.

[hvkumar]

I maintain all the log books you mention.

Daily Log:

- A small diary in the car to record daily kms run
- The same diary also records the fuel fillings (km, cost, odo reading, reserve reading)

Periodically, I transcribe all to a Excel file so I can keep dettailed reports on my mileage, kms run, etc.

Maintenance History:

- I keep all bills of workshops
- keep track of all tyre punctures in my daily diary
- write out in excel files (with classifications of tyypes of repair), and generate reports
- my log helps me track maintenance schedules (wizard file)

Trip Logs

- Write out in kachcha diaries/ scribbling pads/ note books during trip
- type it out in excel files after trip
- keep track of distances, ttimings, odo readings, fuel fillings, landmarks, and expenses

[PatienceWins]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

I maintain all the log books you mention.

Daily Log:

- A small diary in the car to record daily kms run
- The same diary also records the fuel fillings (km, cost, odo reading, reserve reading)

Periodically, I transcribe all to a Excel file so I can keep dettailed reports on my mileage, kms run, etc.

Maintenance History:

- I keep all bills of workshops
- keep track of all tyre punctures in my daily diary
- write out in excel files (with classifications of tyypes of repair), and generate reports
- my log helps me track maintenance schedules (wizard file)

Trip Logs

- Write out in kachcha diaries/ scribbling pads/ note books during trip
- type it out in excel files after trip
- keep track of distances, ttimings, odo readings, fuel fillings, landmarks, and expenses

It cannot get better than this.

[tsk1979]

The best is to maintain an online XLS on google spreadsheets.
I maintain that and enter every penny spent on fuel, repair and accessories.
This way I have an up to date counter of cost/km as well as repair/km and fuel cost/km etc.,
Have been doing so since 80K kms
Car is at 104000 now.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by mjothi

One question.
The milage can be calculated only when we keep filling the tank full for every fill right? What if we fill say 500rs in between and then tank full sometimes? In this case, how should we calculate the milage? Any idea?

I scrupulously measure mileage, full tank-to-full tank. Round off filling to the nearest round figure after the first air block on the nozzle. Gives me consistent results.


Am attaching the following:

- My Scorpio Daily Log Book: from Day 1, all day-end odo readings, diesel fillings, distance/fuel monthly summaries

- My Scorpio Maintenance Log Book: Bill-wise, Category-wise cost analysis

[TractionAvant]

WOW,

What a response!!!!!! Thank you everyone for your help. All the excel sheets are very helpful (and inspiring, might I add ). I have done about 700 Km in my new Chevrolet spark, most of it on the daily commute. I suppose it is not too late to start a detailed log.

Once again, a big THANK YOU to everyone for helping out

Kind regards

Aditya

[rkbharat]

Putting in excel/google spreadsheet etc etc should not be a problem for most computer known people. Lots of templates are already there in this thread.

Actual problem is gathering the data while you are on the move. Like Fuel fill, Travel logs etc etc.

And I think the only best way is as suggested by Kumar Saab, scribe on some note pad or small diary and than consolidate at some frequency.

Believe me, no PDA, Laptop, and other gadgets works on the move, than a simple small diary and a pen.

[vasudeva]

I travel around 350 km a week, and fill fuel every Sat/Sun., regardless of distance travelled in the week. For my new car, I have maintained this since buying the car, and so far have clocked 25K.

I mantain an excel record of fuel filled (auto lock full), cost, Rs./litre.
Service costs
Denting/painting costs
Toll charges
Dry cleaning costs.

The first 2 costs are directly related to the car. Even the 3rd one is (bigger car=higher cost) but also dependent on my own driving.
Do not maintain trivial costs such as PUC, bi-monthly or occasional washing or polishing, tyre fill charges, etc.

[supremeBaleno]

For my bike, I maintain an excel sheet (snapshot attached), which tracks every litre of fuel I put in the bike for the past 13 years, the mileage for every fuel-up, the total cost on fuel etc. The 'remarks' section is used to make note of services, oil changes, minor repairs, punctures etc.



For the car, we use a diary which is kept in the car itself. It also has a tabular column in the same format as that of the bikeRecord for keeping a tab on the fuel. Apart from this, it has a section for recording maintenance expenditure (services, other repairs etc). Another section for keeping track of expense on accessories.

There is also a section for long-distance trips done - this section is used to note down distances, time taken, other important info about the place visited or places enroute etc.

We maintain a similar diary for each of the cars.

P.S : When I bought the bike in '95, a litre of fuel was just 20bucks. Good old days.

[paranoidAndroid]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

For my bike, I maintain an excel sheet (snapshot attached), which tracks every litre of fuel I put in the bike for the past 13 years, the mileage for every fuel-up, the total cost on fuel etc. The 'remarks' section is used to make note of services, oil changes, minor repairs, punctures etc.

Attachment 23943

For the car, we use a diary which is kept in the car itself. It also has a tabular column in the same format as that of the bikeRecord for keeping a tab on the fuel. Apart from this, it has a section for recording maintenance expenditure (services, other repairs etc). Another section for keeping track of expense on accessories.

There is also a section for long-distance trips done - this section is used to note down distances, time taken, other important info about the place visited or places enroute etc.

We maintain a similar diary for each of the cars.

P.S : When I bought the bike in '95, a litre of fuel was just 20bucks. Good old days.

I had an almost exactly identical one for my bike. I just had 1 extra column to denote how much i'd driven in reserve. This allowed me to adjust the FE values correctly.