Most families guess which car is cheaper to run. The "economical" small car might quietly cost more per kilometer once you count repairs and short, fuel-hungry city trips. The only way to know is to track each vehicle on its own.
Log each car separately
In FinMan you can add multiple vehicles and keep their records apart. For every fill-up, record the litres, price per litre, total and station. Add an odometer reading regularly — at minimum at each refuel. That mileage trail is what turns raw spending into a per-kilometer number.
Tip: snap a photo of the fuel receipt and the dashboard. FinMan's AI reads the litres, price, total, station and mileage and fills the entry for you — no typing at the pump.
What "cost-per-kilometer" should include
Fuel alone is only half the story. A true comparison adds the boring stuff:
- Fuel — your refuels and consumption.
- Maintenance & repairs — services, tyres, brakes.
- Other car costs — anything else you log against that vehicle.
FinMan combines all of these into a real cost-per-kilometer per car, not just litres-per-100km. A cheap-to-fuel car with frequent repairs can lose to a thirstier but reliable one.
Make the comparison fair
Two numbers only mean something if they cover the same ground:
- Track both cars over the same period — a few months, not one tank.
- Keep odometer entries consistent so distance is accurate for each.
- Don't skip small refuels — partial fills still count toward consumption.
- Tag repairs to the right car so costs don't blur together.
Reading the result
After a few months you'll see each car's fuel consumption and full cost-per-kilometer side by side. Common surprises:
- The second car sits unused but still racks up cost-per-km because fixed repairs spread over few kilometers.
- Short city trips push consumption far above the highway figure on the sticker.
- An older car with cheap fuel still wins once a newer car's servicing is counted.
With real per-car numbers you can decide what to do: sell the dead weight, switch which car does the daily commute, or budget for the repairs that are quietly inflating one vehicle's cost. Use the bot's /car flow to log a refuel or mileage in seconds, and let the totals build themselves.