When buying a car of any types proper comparisons are needed to get the best car according to your budget. Aside from comparing the price the other best thing to do is the gas mileage comparisons. This process compares the mileage of the car per gallon of gas or more known as MPG. This is the rate of the distance traveled by the car and its rate of gas consumption. Cars with higher MPG are the ones that consume less gas in a given type of driving as in highway or city driving. With the same car, city driving burns more gas than the highway driving because of more shifting and longer time spent in a traffic jam.

Grouping the cars or vehicles with their counterparts meaning with the cars of the same sizes, types, and features can help you to easily compare the MPG of the cars from different manufacturers. Some cars include the MPG in their manuals and labels and others have the concrete data about the cars' MPG in their websites. These are the venues where you can do your gas mileage comparisons.

The first hybrid car hitting the street of America is one of the toppers in the MPG competitions. This is the Honda Insight that hit the production line in years 1999 to 2006 having 66 mpg when driven in the highway. This two-seater car is efficient in terms of gas consumption but having a limited seating capacity is not totally a practical idea. The Toyota Prius and Honda Civic might be considerable than the Insight. These two are hybrid automobiles combining a self-recharging electric battery with the powers of the gasoline. Both can run up to 60 mpg in the highway and just differ in city driving with 51 mpg for Prius and a much higher consumption for Civic.

When looking for larger vehicles such as pickup and SUV the Acura MDX whose city mpg reaches 17 and 23 for the highway is a wise choice given that it can seat a total of seven passengers. Automobiles of this type are the less expensive Ford Explorer (16 city/22 highway), Chevy Tahoe (14/17), Toyota Sequoia (14/17), Honda Odyssey (18/25), and the Chevy Venture (19/26).

These are just a few of the sample MPG comparisons that you can look for before purchasing a vehicle. The MPG can also be used in computing your prospected fuel consumption and budget for gas allocation. Given that you drive a total of 12,000 miles in a year with your car that has an average of 30 mpg, you will consume almost 400 gallons for that year. With the current price of $3.5/gal., you'll consume $1,400 for gas only in one year. With the same mileage and half the MPG or 15 mpg, you'll consume 800 gallons doubling the figures and getting $2,800 a year.

With these actual figures for prices, you can add the gas mileage comparisons in the actual prices of the vehicles that you will compare.