Helpful apps for road warriors – Part 1: Fuel management

Appraisers spend a lot of time driving. But what most appraisers don't think about is the impact that drive time has on their business. Your car, and the time you spend on the road, directly affects your income. So we've rounded up some useful apps for your review that could help you get more out of your car and time. We'll be reviewing them in this three-part series of apps for road warriors covering fuel, routing, and maintenance.

Fuel management

Let's talk about gas. It makes everything go, and if you buy it at the wrong place you'll quickly spend more than you need. Plus, if you don't have a good understanding of your car's fuel efficiency, then you can't make an educated decision on whether or not you might save even more by upgrading to a vehicle that gets better gas mileage. We've got you covered with 5 apps that can help:

• GasBuddy – This popular app shows you the nearest gas stations and their fuel prices. It even lets you sort stations by cheapest gas to let you maximize your savings! GasBuddy’s database of prices is based on user submissions and it rewards users for posting gas prices with daily drawings of $100 in free gas.
• Gas Guru – Created by Yellowpages.com, Gas Guru is similar to GasBuddy above in that it helps you locate the least expensive gas station around your area. But it also offers a unique feature that lets you check and compare gas prices around your favorite areas (like home and work) to know whether you should fill up when you depart one location or arrive at another.
• Pure Gas – If you prefer to use 100% ethanol free fuel, this useful app will point you to the nearest station that offers it.
• Gas Manager – If you have more than one vehicle, this may be the perfect app for you. It helps you monitor gas consumption, mileage, and expenses for each vehicle and also gives you an overall comparison between the vehicles.
• Road Trip – This comprehensive iPhone/iPad app isn't free, but its deep feature set lets you easily enter and track your fuel efficiency. Additionally, it can track multiple vehicles, and can even be used to track vehicle types that rate in usage hours instead of miles (like your boat or lawnmower if you wanted to).

In the next post, we'll talk about apps that help you plan your route more efficiently.

Happy and safe travels!