Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
When gas was 90 cents a gallon?
Lets assume you bought the Cherokee new, since you really did not answer my simple question.
Lets also round off your mileage at 500k and your mileage at 21 MPG.
23,809 gallons of fuel.
Now lets assume the average cost of fuel was $2.00 per gallon.
$47,618.
Double your average mileage and save $23,809 over that period of time.
I have no choice but to use E10. The closest station with E0 is Washington DC, 180 miles from here.
In spite of that you can see I am getting pretty good mileage in the vehicles I am driving.
In fact the fuel cost calculations I just made using assumptions (for lack of facts) mean you have spent more money on fuel in one vehicle than me and my wife have spent for every drop of fuel we have purchased since we were married in 1989.
Possibly more money than we both have spend driving in our lifetimes.
The same economy you strive to achieve today was a part of my calculations when I bought a new 1984 Honda CRX that averaged 44 MPG for 50k miles, and gas was cheap then.
I think you have made your point about ethanol, and I actually agree with most of your conclusions. To minimize the losses due to Ethanol you need to have a knock sensor and advanced timing to allow the higher octane to help mitigate the mileage loss.
I'm done here.
I hope you continue to strive to get healthier and use a lot less fuel. It's sad that when times were good you did not anticipate that they might end, or you could have saved and better invested money for the bad times. That is what my wife and I did, and many of our friends thought we were crazy to not spend as fast as we earned.
They are not laughing now.
regards
Mech
|
I can't tell if your insulting me or not. Whether your trolling or not or whether your just not very nice/snobby or just misread something I said that rubbed you wrong.
as for facts. I can not give you facts. what part of I did not retain records from then was unclear to you? I could have "estimated" as you did but then you would yell at me for guessing and not giving you facts. So I abstained.
I would say $47k is very conservative - I probable spent a LOT more than that in fuel in the last 14 years but I really have ZERO means of even estimating it without knowing the average fuel costs each year how many miles etc.. it would be a wild guess. SO I did not guess.
Remember I was 16 years old. Gas was under $1 a gallon. I had a lot of commuting to do and had hobbies I liked and could not afford TWO cars.
I paid for my first and every car since then 100% on my own. My pop assisted me with the "down payment" on the cherokee which I paid back in 4 or 5 months including making my payments on the car.
Otherwise no help at all. Did it all myself.
22mpg is NOT bad for a car that is both a daily driver and a commuter. I tow a lot (dolly trailer camper etc..) an economy car is simply NOT AN OPTION as an only car back then. Period.
This cherokee owes me nothing. I don't think I put more than $1000 into it over its entire lifetime not counting optional upgrades and normal maintenance.
New? your kidding right? maybe this is just a confusion so let me clarify. I was born in 76 the car was made in 88 I was 11/12 years old when this car was made :-) and it already had 92,000 miles on the clock.
I got it for what was a "song" at the time. $4500 (remember I could NOT afford 2 cars insurance would have murdered me even if I could afford two payments) and the one car needed to do everything I asked of it.
I actually USED the "utility" in my SUV a lot (and a cherokee is a very tiny SUV its almost as small as my Metro and not much heavier either)
I still have and drive that Cherokee to this day. It still serves functions my other vehicles simply can not perform.
I will reply more later when I have dwelled on it more since you did put a lot of effort into the post and i don't want to jump the gun.
We can not pick up our family business and move it. Its complicated but it would be legally impossible to do. IT is what it is it is where it is and we live where we live (moving would cost orders of magnitude more than the gas does for our entire lifetimes we ownt he home we don't rent and only an ..... or a person unable otherwise or someone with a GOOD job lives in NJ. the costs of living their are just insane) Just the insurance increase would far exceed the savings in gasoline.
I am stuck with the commute till we get rid of the business its that simple.
even driving a metro averaging 50mpg I still spend more money on gasoline each year than your average person does no matter what they drive.
Average person would have to get 15mpg max just to equal what I spend on gas in the metro ($2104 roughly at current prices)
anything higher than 15mpg and they are spending less than I do (average citizen drives 12,000 miles a year thats $2104 at 15mpg)