Support

#Getting started

#What is OdoWorks?

A fuel, EV-charging and mileage log for every kind of car: gas, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, electric and hydrogen.

• The fuel economy your car really gets, against its official rating.
• What every mile costs, with maintenance, other costs and trips in the same log.
• No account, no ads, no ad tracking: your log stays on your phone (privacy policy).

#How do I add my car?

1. Tap Add vehicle on the Dash (for the next ones: Garage → Add vehicle).
2. Pick it from the EPA list (year, make, model, engine) for its official ratings and, where it’s certain, its tank size; or look it up by its VIN.
3. Not in the list (most heavy-duty pickups and vans, motorcycles, models sold only outside the US)? Type it in, with a target of your own.
4. Give it a paint color: its entries and charts use it everywhere.

#Where does the log start?

Set a Starting odometer only if the tank was full at that reading (a new car delivered full: 0 or its delivery mileage). Otherwise leave it blank: your first full fill-up is where the log starts.

#Do I have to choose a region?

No. Where do you drive? on the empty Dash is optional. A region presets your units, currency and date format, and brings what’s local (your state’s or province’s average fuel price, Canada’s official ratings, your part of the map). Without one, the app uses the units you pick. OdoWorks never guesses it from your phone.

#Can I look around first?

Yes: Try it with sample data on the empty Dash loads a demo garage. Remove on its banner takes it out before you start your own log.

#Where is Help?

The ? at the top right of every tab opens Help, with the page about that tab first. It has a search, Your first week, and short answers by topic. Settings is the gear beside it.

#Logging

#How do I log a fill-up?

Tap + → Fill-up. Enter the odometer (never the trip meter), any two of amount, price and total (the third is worked out), and under Did you fill the tank? whether the pump clicked off (Full tank).

#What’s on the + menu?

Fill-up and Charging first, then three groups:

• Maintenance & costs: Maintenance, Expense, Refund.
• Trips & odometer: Odometer reading, International border, Domestic border, Trip, Gig pay, Record a trip.
• Damage & accidents: Accident or incident, Damage, Condition photos.

Trip cost, at the end, prices a drive before you go. Border crossings, the accident guide and Trip cost are free.

#Can the app read the pump or a receipt for me?

Yes, on your phone; the photo isn’t sent anywhere.

• Fill-up → Read it from a photo (or the scanner): the pump’s screen, the odometer or the receipt. It checks that the numbers add up and shows what it read; Use these numbers fills them in.
• Maintenance or expense → Read the invoice.
• Vehicle form → Scan the VIN barcode.

#How do I fix or delete an entry?

Tap it in History, then Details. Change what you need and save, or Delete at the bottom of the form.

#How do I log money back?

+ → Refund (Plus) records money back on an expense or a maintenance visit, full or partial; it’s taken off that cost everywhere.

#Fuel economy

#How does OdoWorks measure MPG?

With the full-tank method, the standard way at the pump: fill the tank until the pump clicks off, and at the next full fill-up OdoWorks divides the miles on the odometer since the last full fill-up by all the fuel added in between.

Example: you fill up at 10,000 miles, add 4 gallons at 10,150 miles without filling up, and fill up again with 6 gallons at 10,400 miles. That’s 400 miles on 10 gallons: 40 MPG. In kilometers, the same tank reads in L/100 km or km/L.

#What about partial fill-ups?

Leave Full tank off whenever the tank isn’t full. Its fuel is added to the next full tank, as in the example, so the result stays right.

#Why isn’t my first fill-up counted?

It replaced fuel burned before you started logging, so there’s nothing to measure yet. Its cost still counts in your spending. Your first MPG shows at your second full fill-up (at the first if you set a Starting odometer, above).

#What counts in “miles driven”?

Every odometer you log: from a car’s first reading to its latest, across fill-ups, charging, maintenance, readings, trips and expenses. Fuel economy stays on measured tanks, full fill-up to full fill-up.

#Why does my number differ from the car’s display?

Most car displays read a few percent better than the pump. OdoWorks uses what actually went into the tank. To compare the two, turn on Settings → Display → Charts & stats → Dash accuracy (off by default).

#A tank reads far too good or too bad

Usually a missed fill-up or a mistyped odometer. OdoWorks flags it in History instead of letting it skew your numbers: add the missing fill-up, fix the reading, or say nothing’s missing.

#Electric cars and plug-in hybrids

• An electric car’s efficiency (mi/kWh, kWh/100 km or km/kWh) is the distance between odometer readings over the kWh charged in between, losses included, so it reads lower than the car’s own display.
• A plug-in hybrid’s pump MPG includes its electric miles. OdoWorks also shows its gas-only MPG, its electric miles and MPGe over all the energy it used. Add the electric miles from the car’s trip screen at each fill-up for an exact split; without them it’s estimated from your charging.
• Log home charging session by session or as a total for a period. Set your home rate (with time-of-use periods, if you have them) in Settings → Prices → Home charging, and home charges are priced for you.

#Trips and mileage

#How do I record a trip?

• + → Record a trip (Pro) starts recording with GPS; Android shows “Recording a trip” until you tap Stop.
• Add odometer adds the odometer at the start.
• At Stop, the trip form fills itself in: the distance, and where it started and ended.
• Trips can also be typed in, or brought over from MileIQ, Everlance or TripLog.

#What is automatic tracking?

Pro + Automatic tracking notices your drives and records them on its own, even with the app closed. Turn it on in Settings → Trips → Automatic tracking; the app explains what it collects before the phone asks for location all the time and physical activity.

#How do drives start?

Choose under Settings → Trips → Automatic tracking:

• Automatic: drives start and end on their own.
• Automatic + Start a drive: the same, plus Start a drive on the Dash for an instant start.
• Manual: every drive starts with Start a drive; nothing records on its own.
• Android Auto or car Bluetooth only: a drive starts when the phone connects to the car you choose (The car’s Bluetooth (Android Auto too)) and ends when you park.

End a drive once it’s stopped for sets how long a stop ends a drive, and Start on the walk to the car (off by default) measures a drive from where the car was parked.

#What happens while I drive?

A quiet notification shows the drive under way, with Business, Personal and More to sort it from the lock screen. Driving now shows it live on a map. Please don’t handle your phone while driving: sort a drive once you’ve stopped, or let a passenger do it.

#And after I park?

• The drive goes to Detected drives, with a notification.
• Sort it as Business or Personal, or mark it Not a drive or Not my car.
• Route and details shows its map. A drive across a border or a state line saves its crossings with it.
• Sorted drives become trips in your log.

#Drives are missing or start late

Android’s battery saving can stop tracking. On the Automatic tracking page, Open OdoWorks’s settings and set its battery use to Unrestricted; on Samsung phones, Open the battery saver and add OdoWorks to Never sleeping apps. Keep location on, and allow location All the time.

#Business rate and reports

• Your rate: Settings → Prices → Business mileage. In the US, the IRS rate is used unless you set your own.
• Pro adds the reimbursement report, the tax tools (the IRS’s standard rate against actual expenses, CRA’s business use in Canada, Mexico’s business share) and gig work: what each platform paid against what the driving cost.
• The mileage CSVs are free, like every CSV export.
• Check tax figures with a tax professional before you file.

#Car costs and records

#Maintenance and expenses

+ → Maintenance (Plus) logs a visit with its items, cost and next due; Settings → Alerts → Reminders → Maintenance due tells you when service comes up. + → Expense (Plus) covers insurance, registration, payments, parking, tolls (with the toll authority and your tag) and more, repeating if you like.

#Documents and renewals

In Garage → Edit → Documents & renewals (Plus), keep insurance, registration, inspection and the like with their photos, and get a reminder before each runs out.

#Safety recalls

Free, for each car you still own, for owners in the US, Canada or Mexico (or with no region chosen):

• Once a week, OdoWorks checks NHTSA’s US recall list for the car’s year, make and model. Only those are sent.
• It can miss a recall or list one that doesn’t apply: check your VIN at nhtsa.gov, with Transport Canada, or with your dealer.

#Tires, damage and accidents

• Tires (Plus): each set’s miles, tread readings and rotations, and when it nears the legal minimum. Always check your tires yourself.
• Damage and Condition photos (Plus): dents, scratches and chips with photos and when they were repaired, and walk-around photos of the whole car.
• Accident or incident (free): a step-by-step guide that saves as you go, with a report you can share. In an emergency, call your local emergency number first.

#Loans, leases and value

• Garage → Edit → Loan or lease (Plus): the balance, the payments left and the payoff.
• Garage → Edit → Value & depreciation (Plus): what the car is worth.
• Sold it, on the same page, is free: the day and the price. A sold car keeps its log, and on Lite it still counts as one of your two.
• Payoff and value figures are estimates.

#Rental and borrowed cars

• Add a rental or Add a borrowed car in the Garage (Plus): the company or whose car it is, where and when you picked it up, and its odometer in miles or km, as its dash reads.
• While it’s out, new fill-ups, charging and expenses start on it. Return on its card takes the date, time and odometer you handed it back at. Undo return puts it back out.
• Condition photos at pickup and at return stay on your phone with the car.
• A borrowed car can carry what you agreed with its owner. Settle up works out what’s owed for its days and distance, less what you’ve logged as paid to the owner. Return and Settle up work at every level.

#Travel, regions and units

#Units

Miles or kilometers; gallons or liters; MPG (US), MPG (UK), L/100 km or km/L, in Settings → Region → Units. Electric efficiency follows. Change any of them at any time: nothing stored changes, only how it’s shown.

#Region and Automatic

In Settings → Region, Set by me (the default) keeps the region where you chose it. Automatic (Plus) moves it to where your newest entry with a place was, so the flags, the local prices and the units follow you; your currency and tax rules stay as you set them.

• Home and away (OdoWorks Plus): add a Home region in Settings → Region, then choose in Settings → Region → Units whether each kind of unit shows as where you are or as at home, or Show both.

#Border crossings

+ → International border or Domestic border (free) logs the odometer and the place you’re entering. With Automatic, the Dash welcomes you there; Settings → Region → Welcome messages turns each kind on or off, sends them as notifications if you like, and sets how often.

#Where do the average prices come from?

Built into the app, refreshed with its updates:

• US: the U.S. Energy Information Administration (fuel, and home electricity).
• Canada: Statistics Canada’s monthly average for your province.
• The EU’s 27 members: the European Commission’s Weekly Oil Bulletin.
• UK: the government’s weekly road fuel prices.
• Norway: Statistics Norway. New Zealand: MBIE. Western Australia: FuelWatch (Perth’s stations).

Elsewhere there’s no average price card.

#Paying in another currency

Choose the currency on the entry. The amount is kept as paid and converted at that day’s European Central Bank rate (a currency fixed by law to one the ECB publishes, such as the CFP franc to the euro, at its fixed rate over that one’s; another the ECB doesn’t publish, at that day’s rate from currency-api, from March 2, 2024).

#The Passbook and stats

• Stats has the charts: fuel economy, money, charging and, with Plus, cost of ownership, trends, habits, places, emissions and Compare, over any range from a week to all time.
• The Passbook (top of Stats) is your lifetime record: miles driven, milestones, records and achievements, free. With Plus, every country, state and province you’ve logged in with its flag and figures, stamps for border crossings, and the map of every stop you can drag and zoom (its streets come from OpenFreeMap, only once you open it).
• Share my driving makes an image of your year to share (free).

#Reminders, widget and shortcuts

• Settings → Alerts → Reminders: a fill-up check, a monthly home-charging total, entries that need a look, fuel economy drops and the weekly summary (free); maintenance due and renewals (Plus); the monthly recap (Pro). Each is off until you turn it on; the weekly summary comes on Sunday evening unless you choose another day and hour.
• On Android, add the OdoWorks widget to your home screen, and hold the app icon for shortcuts to a fill-up, charging, a trip or Trip cost.

#Backups and moving to a new phone

#Where is my data?

On your phone only. OdoWorks has no account, no server and no cloud sync. Uninstalling OdoWorks deletes your log, so before you uninstall, reset the phone or move to a new one, export it (below) and keep the file somewhere off the phone.

#How do I back up?

• Export everything (free): Settings → Data → Your data → Export everything (CSV). Save the file somewhere safe (email it to yourself, or save it to a cloud drive).
• Automatic backup (Plus): Settings → Data → Automatic backup. Once a day, when you open the app, it saves a fresh copy on the phone; on Android you can also choose a folder, for example in a cloud-storage app. Back up now makes one at once, and Share the latest backup sends it where you choose.

The file holds every vehicle, every entry and your settings. It doesn’t hold photos, receipts and other attached files, drives still waiting in Detected drives, each drive’s map, or the reminder, welcome and tracking settings: set those again on a new phone.

#How do I move to a new phone?

1. On the old phone: Settings → Data → Your data → Export everything (CSV), and save the file where the new phone can reach it. Sort your detected drives first.
2. On the new phone: install OdoWorks, then Settings → Data → Your data → Import a CSV and pick the file. Entries already in the log are skipped, so importing twice does no harm. Photos and receipts stay on the old phone.

#I deleted something by mistake

With the automatic backup on: Settings → Data → Automatic backup → Restore a backup from this phone. Restoring adds what’s missing; nothing already in the log is doubled.

#Importing from other apps

Settings → Data → Your data → Import a CSV reads the exports of Fuelly, Fuelio, Drivvo and Road Trip MPG (free), and a plain spreadsheet with a date, an odometer, the fuel and the total for each fill-up. Fill-ups, charging, services and costs come in, in your units, and each vehicle is added to the Garage. Fuelly, Fuelio, Drivvo and Road Trip MPG are trademarks of their owners; OdoWorks isn’t affiliated with them.

#Starting over

Settings → Data → Start over → Erase everything deletes every vehicle and everything logged, with its photos and the automatic backup’s copies. Export everything first if you want a copy.

#Updates

OdoWorks updates itself when it opens (Settings → Data → About → Check for updates). Some updates come as a new version in Google Play or the App Store instead: update it there, and your log stays. Don’t uninstall first.

#Plans and subscriptions

#What’s in each level?

• Lite (free): the whole fuel and charging log, photo reading and the VIN barcode, the Dash and its price cards, safety recalls from NHTSA (owners in the US, Canada and Mexico), the main stats, the Passbook’s cover and achievements, border crossings, the accident guide, Trip cost, the widget (Android), two vehicles, every CSV export, and imports from Fuelly, Fuelio, Drivvo and Road Trip MPG.
• Plus adds maintenance, expenses and refunds, cost of ownership, value and loans, tires, damage and condition photos, documents and renewals, rental and borrowed cars, the full Passbook, deeper stats and Compare, station pages, battery health (electric and plug-in), Home and away (a home region beside yours, each kind of unit as at home or where you are, and the automatic region), the daily backup, the vehicle history PDF and unlimited vehicles.
• Pro adds trips and business mileage, one-tap trip recording, odometer readings, gig work, PDF reports and the tax tools.
• Pro + Automatic tracking adds every drive noticed and recorded on its own.

No ads and no limit on entries, at any level. Every feature, plan by plan: Pricing.

#What will it cost?

Planned US prices; the App Store and Google Play set the price in your country, and the app shows it before you buy.

• Plus: $7.99 a year, $4.99 for 6 months or $0.99 a month.
• Pro: $21.99 a year, $12.99 for 6 months or $2.99 a month, or Pro for life, $79.99 once.
• Pro + Automatic tracking: $56.99 a year.
• First month free for new subscribers to Plus, Pro or Pro + Automatic tracking, as each store allows (on the App Store, once across Plus, Pro and Pro + Automatic tracking, which share one subscription group); it becomes paid unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends.
• Pro for life includes the Plus and Pro features we add later, for as long as we offer OdoWorks. It doesn’t include automatic tracking (lifetime owners will be able to add it for a yearly fee) or features that need our servers.

#How will I restore a purchase on a new phone?

Once purchases open: install OdoWorks with the same Apple ID or Google account, then Settings → Your plan → See the plans → Restore purchases. A purchase stays with the store it was made in.

#How will I cancel?

Subscriptions will renew automatically until you cancel, and the store manages them, not OdoWorks:

• Android: Google Play → your profile picture → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions → OdoWorks → Cancel subscription.
• iPhone: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → OdoWorks → Cancel Subscription.

Cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date to avoid the next charge; you keep the level until the end of the period you paid for. Deleting the app doesn’t cancel a subscription.

#What happens to my data if a subscription ends?

Nothing is deleted, and you can still export all of it. Adding new entries of a paid kind and the paid views need the level again. Also:

• More than two vehicles: you pick the two to keep in use; the others are parked, with everything logged kept.
• Repeating payments pause; when you subscribe again, the Dash asks whether to add the ones that came due.
• Home and away and the automatic region stay saved and stop applying.
• Automatic tracking pauses; drives already found stay in Detected drives.

The automatic backup, if you turned it on, keeps running every day. Turned off, it needs OdoWorks Plus to turn on again.

#Refunds: how will they work?

Once purchases open, the store handles refunds. Android: within 48 hours of buying, through Google Play; after that, email us. iPhone: reportaproblem.apple.com.

#Permissions

OdoWorks asks only when you use the feature that needs it, and works without any of them:

• Location, while using the app: to find the station and address for an entry, to add a place to a record, and to record a trip you start (Android shows “Recording a trip” until you tap Stop). Once it’s allowed, a map’s Where you are uses it too.
• Location all the time, and physical activity (Android, automatic tracking only): asked when you turn it on, so drives are noticed and recorded with the app closed.
• Nearby devices (Android): only when you choose your car’s Bluetooth for automatic tracking.
• Camera and photos: scanning the pump, the odometer, receipts, invoices and the VIN barcode, and attaching photos. Reading happens on your phone. On Android the app also asks to read where a library photo was taken.
• Notifications: the reminders you turn on (the weekly summary and the welcome messages among them), the trip recording’s notification, and automatic tracking’s drive notifications.

#Troubleshooting

• A photo wasn’t read. Fill the frame with the numbers, hold the phone square to them and tilt it a little against glare; in the dark, turn on the light. Or tap the round button to take it: you see what it read before anything goes in. Photo reading works in the installed Android app.
• No station was found. Station names come from OpenStreetMap, which doesn’t know every station. Pick it from the list or type it in.
• The map shows no streets. The map you can drag and zoom needs a connection for its streets; the overview and the list of stops work offline.
• The app asks about an odometer, an amount or a price. A reading far past the last one, more fuel than the tank holds, more kWh than a charger could put in (“Energy looks high”), or a price far from what you usually pay gets a question before it’s saved. Fix the typo, or say it’s right.
• An amount says it’s waiting for a rate. Its day’s exchange rate hasn’t been published yet; it converts once it is.
• Reminders don’t come. Check that notifications are allowed for OdoWorks in your phone’s settings; Settings → Alerts → Reminders says so when they aren’t.
• Something else? Most screens are explained in Help (the ? at the top right).

#Contact us

Email: coming soon

When you write, include your phone model and the app version (Settings → Data → About). Please don’t send your backup file unless we ask: it holds your whole log.