anyone else looking forward to the influx of new users?
 

My personal belief is gas is going hit 4 bucks by end of the summer.

I think this will drive traffic to this forum, I'm kinda looking forward to it.

Personally, I think gas should be higher, not that i want to pay for it, but to encourage people to use less of it. I know it's a fine line, because high gas prices hurt the poor and small business the hardest.

Anyway, looking forward to all the questions and being able to help people get better MPG.

what your thoughts on future gas prices?

If there is, it's going to be a million people trying to fix the aero on the SUVs they bought (who would ever have thought gas prices would go UP???)

Attracting people who will look through previous topics, think about it and then contribute would be nice.

Unfortunately, I expect most of them to ask things that have been asked a million times before and then not accept the wisdom given here by people who have already walked the same path. Or they will think whatever they want to do should be easy, quick and cheap, when it will be none of the above. OOOOOOOooor they will go on about free energy and/or whatever crazy gimmic they saw on youtube(HHO?) and refuse to believe it doesn't work...yeah, noobs like that? I can do without those.

"I want to get better mileage from my V10 Super Doody Dually while going solo at 85 mph and using the Autostart every time it is stationary. I just know I'd get 40 mpg if it weren't for that dang corn fuel that I'd rather feed to the children!!! How do I disable the cylinder deactivation?"

I enjoy speculating and suspect your hunch is correct. As the economy goes into hyperdrive, demand for energy will also increase.

Most people looking for tips to increase MPGs want something like "replace your spark plugs with these unicorn ones". They want to buy their way (but not too expensive) into solutions.

Regarding reducing fossil fuel burning and foreign oil dependence, I maintain that the only way to do this effectively while presenting the least disruption to the economy and providing the smallest footprint for political corruption is to increase the cost of fossil fuels via taxation.

Schemes like paying wealthy people to purchase EVs are braindead. Only corrupt or ignorant people would pursue such a dumb idea. It lacks any specific goals, so you know it's nonsense.

Environmentalists (the real science type), Medical Doctors (experts in how air quality affects the body), National Security Experts (those that understand risks of foreign oil dependence) and Economists should collaborate to define consumption targets and then develop a tax schedule that phases increasing taxation to meet that agreed upon and clearly stated goal. Tear up all the other nonsense schemes that are mostly regressive tax breaks to the wealthy. Let the market do what it does best to solve the problem of gradually increasing energy prices; innovate.

https://i.postimg.cc/d32K7xRB/DC6-C6...CA215724-C.gif



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That's a statement, but not a refutation. What scheme would be more effective, less prone to corruption, and disrupt markets the least?

Using a proven liar to make a point- what am I missing here?

my favorite is the windmill on the roof.

Mine too! But the roof needs to be hemispherical to be most efficient.

The point?

I agree, only the upper middle class can afford EVs and take advantage of the tax credit, but it funds the R&R of EVs.

Where I live in Mid Georgia, 9 out of 10 vehicles are trucks....including mine.
These Vehicles are going to around for a long time, even if production stopped today. There is going be massive interest in increasing the economy of these trucks.

I'm generally against taxes and favor free markets. But I wouldn't be opposed to a increase in fuel taxes and a tax on tires.

I'd rather have a tax on tires than Government tracking me to see how many miles I drive. This would allow them to tax EV drivers for road repair.

Not really.
HHO generator scams, vortex generators, gas pills, run your car on water scams.

Tractor trailers cause almost all the vehicle related damage to the highways. Slapping additional taxes on motorists isn't going to make the roads better. If I thought paying more taxes would result in more or better services, I would. Doing so would be doing the same thing and expecting a different result. If you give the government more money it appears to fuel fraud, wast, abuse, lavish salaries, encourage insolvent retirement programs, bloats the bureaucracy upper ranks making them top heavy, then to justify their existence these people who don't appear to do any work just sit around dream up more/new red tape, which leads to government over reach and a system so convoluted it takes years to accomplish anything and it gets to the point where no one in the department can explain how any of it works.

Roads being a public good should be funded out of general funds to force accountability, and indeed 90% of road funding is not from registration fees or gas tax
as long as a special road registration tax exists it can be used as an excuse to avoid budgeting appropriately and avoid liability for choosing not to devote money to roads.
If road taxes and registration did not exist you could vote out legislators who choose to budget other things over roads or have a conversation about what is getting the overall tax money.



A used BEV can be had for $2000 on up
But who is going to pay a $665 title+registration on a $2000 car that can’t drive more than 50 miles at a time in good weather?
Would be similar to saying a moped instead of paying a biannual fee of $23 should instead pay $665 because it gets too good of mpgs

In Wisconsin there WERE people who bought the $2000 BEVs before the taxes kicked in, they disposed of them after the tax took effect

Instead of subsidizing the purchase price just get rid of the extra taxes on the car and some people will buy the old limited BEVs
If we want to tax BEVs we should be looking at luxury taxes (not road tax) if we are indeed worried about evs over a certain price point not paying their fair share (whatever that is)

You would likely find that in many areas very few have paid for an expensive bev.
There are only 3500 BEVs out of millions of cars in my state, seems irrelevant to road funding.

The tax credit ultimately allows the manufacturer to increase the sales price and pocket the profit (or lose less profit to meet emissions regulations by selling EVs). We saw the price massively reduced for both Tesla and GM EVs once they lost the federal tax eligibility. In fact, the Bolt can be had now for quite a bit less without any subsidy (~$24k) than before when the subsidy was in place.

I'm for taxation when a specific anti-social behavior needs to be curtailed, or when crucial services are required and best handled at the governmental level rather than privately.

If a heavy tax on tires were levied, people would run their tires to the steel belts, wheel theft would increase, and harder compounds that compromise handling performance would be preferred. Taxing tires is another one of those "schemes" I keep talking about where people try to be too smart by taxing at the micro level (specific products) rather than at a high level (income or sales tax).

As pointed out below, the correct way to fund infrastructure is from the general fund, because it's crucial and everyone depends on it.

It cost more to dream up an extra fee, implement, and administer it for so few BEVs than they will ever recover.

I'm glad new mexico isn't as sophisticated as some of those high tax states.
If they implement an absorbent EV tax I'll sell the leaf and get a diesel gate VW that hasn't been "fixed" and then modify the fuel system to roal coal on demand.

Not all EVs are $50,000 - $100,000

Last month the 260 mile Bolt EV was $26,000 with 0% financing for 72 months.
Hyundai Ioniq EV for $33,250 - $7500 credit = $25,750.
Nissan Leaf $32,700 - $7500 = $25,200.
The Mini EV for $30,000 - $7500 = $22,500.

Add in state and utility incentives and some EVs drop below $20K.

Plug in hybrids are another option with some reasonable prices:

Ford Escape PHEV $32,650 - $4840 = $25,810.
Prius Prime: $28,200 - $4500 = $23,700.
Ioniq PHEV: $26,700 - $4500 = $22,200


The US vehicle fleet averaged 24.9 mpg in 2019. Say a set of tires last 50,000 miles

50,000 / 24.9 mpg = 2008 gallons of fuel x $0.184 federal fuel tax = $369 in fuel taxes. That is how much tire tax would need to be added to a set of tires

I can see that big of a lump sum payment being popular. It would be even less popular if you got a non-repairable flat the week after you got a new tire and had to pay another $92 in tire taxes.

The federal government would not need to track location to collect a fee per mile tax. We have the option of a fee per mile in Oregon. One way does track location and only bills for miles driven in the State of Oregon on public roads. The other doesn't track location and only reports miles driven base on the car's OBDII data.

True. My mother-in-law bought some off-brand tires with a 100K mile warranty. Hardest compound tire I've ever seen and they were dangerous when new. Driving on wet roads was like driving on snow.

That's the correct way to fund everything.

Good to see the Ioniq prices coming down to reality. It was way overpriced for the battery size offered, and still is to some degree. On the Bolt forum people are getting a new 260 mile range EV for low $20s.

Somewhere around the $20k point I'm tempted to get my first new vehicle. I'm holding out to see what will happen to used Bolt prices once the 6+ months of pent up inventory is released (stop sale ended).

This month's GM offer is $10,500 cash back. Add in the $2500 Oregon rebate and you are at $23,000. No other Oregon or local rebates that I know of. (The $3000 Costco discount expired last month)

For some reason PGE only does rebates on the Leaf. I've seen them kick in up to $3500

gas prices vs. forum activity
 

I'll be kind of surprised if it happens.

We've seen two major influxes of new members when gas prices spiked significantly in 2008 and then again in 2011/12.

Going strictly by "hits", EM peaked in 2012. Hits declined pretty steeply each year since then, leveling off in the past few years at roughly 1/6th of 2012 numbers.

But things have changed quite a bit since 2008-2012.

1) The biggest change: the average vehicle's fuel economy today is A LOT better than it was back then.

2) And back then there were no mass market EV's. (Never mind cheap, used EV's!) And far fewer hybrid options. (Never mind cheap used ones!)

3) Also: forums as community/info platforms have been declining for years. People would much rather peck at their phones on InstaFaceTokApp than create a forum account and interact with a website. (We had a member join MirageForum last week who said he was seriously surprised to find an active "old school forum" for the car!)

4) Also also: the usual correlation between gas prices & forum traffic seems to have broken. Despite the sharp rise in gas prices from the lows of 2019 there hasn't been a corresponding increase in membership or visitors lately. (OK, that may be because prices haven't hit psychologically important numbers yet.)

All that said, I'll be genuinely surprised if we see a meaningful up-tick this time. Sure, we'll get a few noobs, and that'll be fun. The place definitely takes on a different vibe when it's not just the hardcore been-there-done-that efficiency nuts hanging around.

I just starting post again because I went from having fuel efficient cars to a truck.

So many trucks, people are not going to be unable unload them. I think they will be looking to improve mpg.

And if they do math a 2 mpg improvement on a truck that gets 16 mpg saves more money than 5 mpg improvement on a car that get 30 mpg

I've been mostly talk, and little action.

Over the years I've done grill blocking, Scangauge, messed around with capacitors and LiFePO4 batteries, overinflated tires a little, and not much else. I bought most of what I need to install an alternator cutoff switch in my Acura, but I hardly drive anymore.

As I get closer to owning an EV, my eagerness to experiment on ICE vehicles wanes. I'd still like to get that alternator cutoff switch going, and do a bit more fiddling with LiFePO4 batteries in the Acura since it needs a better setup than I have installed, but I don't have any other plans for mods.

Myself also. The biggest shift was going from 34mpg in a $6K Superbeetle to 45mpg in a $1K XFi.

I've had rattle cans to paint the wheels for a month now.

Same here. When I was getting 45 mpg to 100 mpg with a Prius and Spark EV there are very few mods that make any financial sense. Tire pressures, grill block and don't drive like an idiot about does it.

I don't drive the van enough to care that it gets 15 mpg around down and 20 mpg on the highway.

The TDI is averaging a disappointing 37 mph but again, that isn't bad enough to spend money on fixes. I also don't expect to have it more than a couple more years.

I get that some people's hobby is to improve MPG just like some people want to increase HP and saving money isn't the point. I'm not one of those people.

I am - I'll be modding an EV for improved efficiency & range if/when I ever get (another) one.

Not even a displacement-biased taxation scheme, such as what applies to Brazil, the European Union and Japan for example, would be guaranteed to decrease fuel consumption due to the American market favoring commercial vehicles that are often exempted from such regulations or less affected by them in order to not cause too much disruption to the economy.

That isn't surprising considering you founded this website.

That is not true. HD vehicle have fuel economy standards just like cars and they are steady increasing. The USA also has specific taxes for commercial vehicles that don't apply to personal vehicles. At the federal level:

• A 12% excise tax on the purchase of a new commercial vehicle
• Tire taxes that average $25 per tire
• A year use tax that is between $100 to $550 per year depending on weight

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At the state level there are more. For example here in Oregon commercial vehicles have a weight - mile tax. It varies from 6.5 cents per mile for a 26,000 lb vehicle to 21.5 cents per mile for a 78,000 lb vehicle.

Oof, lots of counterproductive taxes in the commercial sphere.

Taxing tires is the dumbest idea ever. Probably a contributing factor for why retreads are common.

The excise tax needs to be eliminated also.

Can't argue against a weight tax, though with enough thought I probably could.

Worse than retreadings are the regroovings I often see in Brazil.


I was refering to light-duty CVs, such as pick-ups and vans, and SUVs even though they're not strictly commercial.

I used to work with a guy that previously worked for Michelin for more than a decade working on commercial tires. According to him a commercial tire can be used 9 times:

1. The original tread
2. Face on a lathe and groove
3. Face on a lathe and groove
4. 1st Retread
5. Face on a lathe and groove
6. Face on a lathe and groove
7. 2nd Retread
8. Face on a lathe and groove
9. Face on a lathe and groove

For each regroove or retread a mark is burned on the side of the tire. According to him retreads aren't a problem if they are done right. They fail for the same reason that original tires fail - overheating due to underinflation.

Except prime tires don't puke up their tread when they overheat...

Seems dangerous and common enough that retreads come apart that there should be pressure and temperature monitoring on them. Makes no sense to have pressure monitoring on passenger cars because they only have 4 wheels, and it's plainly obvious when the tires are dangerously low due to handling differences.

Just yesterday a guy had pulled halfway onto the shoulder and stopped on a country road (55 MPH limit). I was angry that he was backing up traffic and creating a dangerous situation, but then realized he was pulling half a tire carcass off the road, which if hit, would have caused major damage for most passenger cars.

They still come apart - just in smaller pieces.

https://h7f7z2r7.stackpathcdn.com/si...oseup-0701.jpg

The EU agrees with you. TPMS will be mandatory for commercial vehicles in 2022.

There is nothing on the horizon here in the USA but TPMS systems are a pretty common option for large fleets. Tires are expensive - TPMS is cheap. Even aftermarket TPMS is only about $1000. Having a service truck come out to change a one tire on the side of the road can cost that much.

ATIS is also popular (Automatic Tire Inflation System). ATIS has the advantage because slow leaks are continually topped off by the truck's air system so you have longer to make it to a service center for the tire to be fixed.

https://h7f7z2r7.stackpathcdn.com/si...-plus-0701.jpg

ATIS is quite widespread in Brazil for heavy-duty commercial vehicles, yet it's often fitted in a different way with some pipes hanging more visibly on the outside. It's easier to notice on the front axles of the trucks in these pictures.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GTiiIi1dG.../Imagen077.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PxQEtU_Ls...15577866_f.jpg


But these tyres are regroovable as a design feature, while for tyres meant to light-duty vehicles it's not the case. Yet it's quite a common practice. A friend who opened a tyre shop after we finished high-school told me it was widely sought after.


I'm sure most tyre repairers in my country "forget" this procedure.

Hey guys! Have I ever told you about the M1083?! It has something like that! :)

Remember my thread about how long it would take to replace my heater core? I mentioned it should have been called "How long will it take me to start?"

I completed it, but needed to redo it, and I don't even know how long it has been.

I keep working on other projects.

Until I got a girlfriend in the Phoenix area I bought gas every two months. My MPG is lower than ever (barely above the EPA estimate for mixed driving), but I have never spent less!

The guy who sold me the Civic bragged that he got 13 MPG. So, there are those idiots, but humans can become accustomed to almost anything, including paying far too much gas money.

Metro, you aren't offended that RedPoint protests dependence on Canadian oil?

I hear that he has a vendetta against maple syrup, too! :D

Oh yeah...https://i.postimg.cc/d32K7xRB/DC6-C6...CA215724-C.gif

CTIS has been a military option since the 1970’s
Used to be standard on old split rims right alongside LH/RH directional lug nuts.

Works well on the 16r20 and 20r20 MXV Supersingles


There is also central lube grease options, good lord are those irritating to setup.

Was that on Caterpillar's M520 Goer?

Are you saying I was wrong to ask the question, or do you just like reposting redneck's memery?