No more cheap gas, did you buy your fuel-sipper?

Counterintuitive. And 100% accurate.

The0retical wrote: If I get anywhere around 30mpg (and the MS3 will) I could literally care less. Especially if I paid a song for the vehicle.

When I went from a car that got 19 MPG on premium to one that gets 33 MPG on regular, I saved a E36 M3load. When gas dropped below $2 a gallon I was as happy as anyone else, but I've been expecting it to come back up for a while. I'll be OK.

Furious_E wrote: My XJ, lifted 3 inches and on 31" m/t's, does about 18.xx mpg. 18 highway, 18 city, 18 flogging it, 18 babying it, 18 loaded to the gills, 18 empty...

Sounds like my 4Runner.

It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

What's resale? Buy them, run them into the ground.Resale only matters if you're selling the car.

Bobzilla wrote:

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

What's resale? Buy them, run them into the ground.Resale only matters if you're selling the car.

Or, insurance payout if totaled. I've learned that one the hard way.

I just leased a Grand Cherokee with a Hemi, and have been flooring it everywhere. The fuel consumption is very different than the Accord I had previously...though not so different from the Cayman

I use vehicle resale as part of net worth: circumstances can change and dictate the a car should be sold.

Purchase price isn't a cost, the car's change in value over the time one owns the vehicle (plus time value of money "held" in the asset) is actually the cost.

Purchase price generally matters much less than actual cost of ownership.

Bobzilla wrote:

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

What's resale? Buy them, run them into the ground.Resale only matters if you're selling the car.

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

Plus it's a pretty lousy comparison since there are plenty of $3000 cars that get 32mpg.

I just don't care. I have 12 liters of v8 ls goodness in two vehicles. But one goes 2 miles a day and the other goes 10 miles a day. If I need to go any distance I have my little Toyota that gets more than 30 mpg.

KyAllroad wrote: None of my cars get great mileage but my commute is just under 5 miles each way. So due to warm-up time it isn't much different if I drive the suburban or the Miata.

Just how long are you warming up these things? More than 30 seconds to a minute unless uber cold and defrosting needs doing is just a waste of fuel. Extending idling can be damaging. Besides you gotta get the thing moving to warm the trans, diff, etc.

Hmm. Well the miata gets 21, the Vic sees 26, the jeep somehow only gets 13.5 though.

Not sure about the Vic I bought this weekend yet, but I'd say I'm covered. Being in PA, I haven't seen gas under $2/gallon in many many years.

Guess I'll be driving the SE more than the SE-R. Yeah right I drive 2,000 miles a year. No worries.

My daily trip is 4 miles. Truck averages 17.5mpg. Last time gas was 3.50 a gallon i owned a truck that got 7mpg. Ill live

Bobzilla wrote:

Then again, that means you're letting your emotions control your purchases and not your brain.

Sounds like my dating and car choices.

You guys don't budget fuel expenses under "recreation"? That's how you get around it.

dculberson wrote:

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: It depends on the resale of those vehicles and how much you drive.... you can never recover any dollars in fuel costs.

ebonyandivory wrote: What's a better use of money, a $30,000 car that gets 32mpg or a $3,000 truck that gets 13mpg?

Plus it's a pretty lousy comparison since there are plenty of $3000 cars that get 32mpg.

There are even $3000 trucks that get 30+ mpg

Carro Atrezzi wrote: Counterintuitive. And 100% accurate.

The0retical wrote: If I get anywhere around 30mpg (and the MS3 will) I could literally care less. Especially if I paid a song for the vehicle.

Yep. I have never seen this graph, but a while back I did these numbers on an Excel spreadsheet and it laid it out clearly for me that it's diminishing returns as mpg increases. I drive about 35k miles per year, commute is 55-60 miles each way depending on what route I take. The Prius I had got about 42mpg, but I really didn't like the car. My current DD, a '13 Elantra 6spd manual, gets 35-37mpg. While it's no Miata, it's not as horrid to drive as the Prius. The fuel cost difference is very minimal, and I'm happy to pay that very small difference not to be driving a toaster oven.

Trackmouse wrote: You guys don't budget fuel expenses under "recreation"? That's how you get around it.

Fuel and insurance don't figure into my fun car budget. They probably should, but I make the rules!

I've been greedy as of late with my Protegay. I put a roof rack and wind barge board on it. Guess it's time to take them off

It will go back down.

The reason OPEC opened the valves was American exploration companies were doing too well (pun intended) with fracking as the high per barrel price supported the cost of oil recovery through the fracking process.

To frack a barrel of oil is around $50-$80

For OPEC countries to pull using conventional wells is ~$20.

So you open the valves to get the oil down to about $25. Your competitors being small in comparison (most oil is pulled out of the ground is by NOT-Shell, BP, ExxonMobile etc)

So they can't sell their oil at a profit, dry up those financial reserves and the banks take them. This has already happened.

Now the strongest survived but they are hurting.

So what do? Rinse and repeat. Close the valves a little bit and make these limping companies reinvest. Around the holidays is great as fuel for heating and increased traffic drives demand up.

Now I am betting maybe a 9~18 months depending on the speed of reinvestment till the valves get opened by OPEC and the banks do their dirty work again.

Corporate asassination via your competitor's own network. That new Saudi Prince is brilliant.

Klayfish wrote:

Carro Atrezzi wrote: Counterintuitive. And 100% accurate.

The0retical wrote: If I get anywhere around 30mpg (and the MS3 will) I could literally care less. Especially if I paid a song for the vehicle.

Yep. I have never seen this graph, but a while back I did these numbers on an Excel spreadsheet and it laid it out clearly for me that it's diminishing returns as mpg increases. I drive about 35k miles per year, commute is 55-60 miles each way depending on what route I take. The Prius I had got about 42mpg, but I really didn't like the car. My current DD, a '13 Elantra 6spd manual, gets 35-37mpg. While it's no Miata, it's not as horrid to drive as the Prius. The fuel cost difference is very minimal, and I'm happy to pay that very small difference not to be driving a toaster oven.

What you guys are discussing is one reason why people want to change the measurement from MPG, to GPM, or l/100km. That way, changes will be linear to your consumption, as opposed to 1/x.

For that graph 12mpg = 8.3 g/100 mil 15 = 6.66 G/100 m 30 = 3.33 G/100 m 60 = 1.6 G/100 M.

Still- for a $200/year improvement- one still has to do the math- both are improvements of just under 1.66 gal/100 mi.

It does help push me to get the TDI back on the road since it gets about 2x the MPG the minivan does. Especially since diesel and RUG are both about the same price around here.

mazdeuce wrote:

Trackmouse wrote: You guys don't budget fuel expenses under "recreation"? That's how you get around it.

Fuel and insurance don't figure into my fun car budget. They probably should, but I make the rules!

It depends. Maintenance and fuel costs are divided up by each car. The classics by nature are recreational. If I do a long drive for a specific reason that requires fuel fill-ups in one of the normal drivers, I'll file those costs under that hobby.

Hmmmmm. Nine mpg in a truck that's been paid off for decades? Or $50k for a truck that gets incrementally better gas mileage? That there's a tough one, yep.

Ima go out and crank it up now just to partake of the sweet aroma of rich, unburned hydrocarbons.