Fuel Cost Comparator
The premium has to repay itself in fuel. Check whether it can.
A thriftier engine earns its keep one gallon at a time, at your mileage and your pump prices — not the brochure’s. Enter two vehicles and see the annual gap, and how long a price premium takes to come back.
- Your miles, your prices
- The break-even in years and miles
- Honest about what fuel doesn't cover
Two vehicles, your numbers
Nothing is prefilled — pump prices are the definition of a perishable figure. Heavy-duty pickups carry no EPA label at all; their MPG comes from your own logging.
Before you buy
Check any VIN — free, instant, no sign-up
Decode the year, model, trim, plant and engine, then check NMVTIS for title brands and NHTSA for open recalls. The repair does not show on the paint. It shows in the record.
Sticker figures, honestly
Use the EPA combined figure from the window sticker for each vehicle — and know that heavy-duty pickups carry no EPA label at all, so their numbers come from logging real tanks, not from a brochure.
The mileage the maths turns on
A premium repays through gallons not burned, so the break-even is a function of your annual miles. Drive little and the thriftier engine may never pay for itself — which is an answer, not a failure.
Fuel is not the whole bill
Maintenance schedules, diesel exhaust fluid and repair costs differ between engines too. The pump-price gap is the measurable start of the comparison, and the guides below carry the rest.
