Rising Gas Prices = More Ecomodder Interest?
 

Now that the president has succeeded in slowing down domestic petroleum production and the price of fuel is rising, I wonder if it will spur interest in fuel economy again.

I see that the price per barrel in the oil fields has risen to $80. :-0

Presumably there will be an increased interest, yet so many folks are more easily fooled into buying some "miraculous" device promising to increase their mileage rather than a more logical approach, which may involve either changing their driving habits or looking for some mods leading to an actual benefit to overall efficiency.

Always.

We'll see. The prices of everything are going up and wages seem to be too. When you see McDonald's hiring at a starting wage of nearly $20 an hour you know that there's been a pretty big inflation.

With all the rest going on I wonder how much people will look to saving money on their vehicles

Remember in 2018 gas prices were under $2 a gallon in some places and tons of people went out and bought gas guzzlers and there is a new/used vehicle shortage.

I saw an interview with the energy secretary about higher gas prices.
She is clueless. Aerohead would make a better energy secretary.

Considering more $100,000 vehicles and multi million dollar 400sqft homes have sold now than ever before
(I expect not). Unless those being left out of the feeding frenzy need to save $$$

I would support Aerohead for energy secretary

The thought for the last 40 years is to just make things more efficient to build bigger

Our levels of energy consumption do affect worldwide prices and availability, should get everyone on the forum to send Biden a note to put him in as a special advisor to the energy secretary, I doubt he would like the job though

Just because you can finance it doesn't mean you can afford it.

I would imagine we would be close to a recession. Gas going from 1.60/gal to 2.90/gal here and property values have gone up 35% in the last 18 months therefore rents are going up. I imagine a lot of people will start to feel the squeeze. Seems like with all of the pay changes and inflation it will mostly affect the "middle class"(?) (who would've guessed)

What do you mean by "need to save $$$". On the one hand it's going to be near impossible to save with rents skyrocketing so much. Sure, you can now get $20 at McDonald's, in a town where it's hard to find a two bedroom for under $2,000. Fuel, cars, food and everything else has gone up too.

The point is that were being affected by inflation. And during times if inflation is a bad time to save money. I've seen houses go from $100,000 to well over $500,000 in a few years. How is saving going to help when what you're saving for just keeps going up in price.

People's only hope is to leave the middle class. Either make more money per hour so they can afford the prices of everything, or forget it and get help from the government.

Right now there's a huge need for workers. I know several business owners that say they just can't get people to work. But purple know there's no point in making up to $15 or even $20 an hour anymore. What's the point in making an amount of money that can't afford you rent for someone's closet to sleep in but is too much to get governmental help?

With that said, getting better fuel mileage could help a little. But it's in the bottom of the barrel right now. If you can afford a little tiny two bedroom for $3,000/month, you can afford $3.90/gal gasoline.

I didn't see it, but I'd rather someone be honest about the full measure of their policy decisions even if it goes against my values than to be lied to.

Politics is at a point where half of the things said are dishonest and meant to deceive. We love the lies though, so keep 'em coming. While we're free-falling we can enjoy the weightlessness.

Saving money on purchases does not mean anything goes in the bank

Aka being frugal may be necessary to survive Stagflation gate

Auto financing is the only way car companies are viable. If customers had to pay cash car companies wouldn’t be in business.

I doubt that's true. There's plenty of profit built into most models. Financing is bonus money.

Best comparison, for some one who cares, would be GM manufacturing vs GMAC (now Ally_Financial.

Yes there is “profit” billed into each model but the corporate overhead is mind boggling.

In 2018 Ford sold 2,490,175 cars and had a PROFIT before taxes of $4.335 billion. That’s a little over $1700 per car profit BEFORE taxes. And that’s corporation wide so that’s parts too.

Note this does not include dealers who’s profits are not part of “Ford”.

If there was no such thing as auto financing who could afford $50k pickup trucks? Not many people.

Side note: Cummins purchased back all of their distributors in the USA and formed a new profit center called “Distribution”. They wanted those profits from their former distributors at the corporate level, not having all their distributors turning into multi-millionaires.

What percent go with manufacturer financing (is that different than dealer)? Usually people are picking between 0% APR, or cash back from the manufacturer.

The Tesla direct to customer model will supersede the legacy model of independent dealerships. That middleman takes too much of the pie.

The Tesla direct to customer model will supersede the legacy model of independent dealerships. That middleman takes too much of the pie.[/QUOTE]

Exactly what Cummins thought.

Tesla needs to get way more stores. It's one thing to own the stores when you have 500 in the whole world and only 100 service centers. Ford has 5000 of each in just the US alone. Even in a big city having a Tesla service center isn't compelling if it's a 2 hour drive away in traffic as most big cities will have 10 Ford service centers in that same radius, one will be 10-20 mins away.

If I bought a new vehicle it might be from GM because GM is the only one with a dealership/service center within an hour from my place. If there's a recall or problem covered by the warranty it's kind of a pain to have to drive or have the car towed to a place that might be two or three hours away.

On the other hand, the way GM has handled the Bolt fires is kind of uninspiring. And Tesla hasn't had the best customer service either, even if they were close.

When I had a problem with the Leaf I had to drive it over an hour away to a Nissan dealer, who then told me that they couldn't do the work there since they weren't EV certified after I had not only made the appointment weeks earlier, but had made it to the appointment at the dealership after battling a snowstorm.

I imagine the typical repair experience is a bit better with Tesla than GM. The techs working for Tesla know that product and don't deal with any others. GM mechanics mostly know nothing and their incompetence is obvious on forums. If a battery issue is suspected, it shouldn't require the customer giving the mechanic a printout of voltages to inspire the mechanic to investigate various battery parameters.

I'd prefer to have a mobile mechanic dispatched to me than to bring my car in somewhere. I've never brought my (company) car anywhere and spent less than a few hours there. I couldn't get wiper blades changed in less than a couple hours. At least if the mechanic comes to me, it's their time they're wasting.

All of this is speculation though because I've never brought a car I owned in for anything and never had major car issues, or things I couldn't easily fix myself. When I purchase a vehicle, I don't want a relationship with the dealer; I want to never see them again.

And some of it is speculation for me too as I've never bought a new car.

I wouldn't mind having a relationship with a dealer if they at least seemed to care about me. There are places (stores, shops, etc.) that I go to even though they're a little more expensive just because they're nice and seem sincere. I avoid others because even though I can get what I need at a lower price simply because they treat me like it's a real bother to sell me the product or service I'm paying for.

I remember seeing at least one mechanic who did exactly this, with his Honda Cub and a cargo box where he carried the tools.

Just say no to the dealerships if you don't have a car with a warranty. I find local mechanics or fbm mechanics can do just as good of a job or better for a better price. Rock Auto is really all you need for parts. The local dealership will tell me they will order them and they will be here in 1-2 days and I can do that myself. The biggest eye opener to me was it was going to be like $1900 in parts and labor for a timing belt kit on the sequoia. The Aisin kit (timing belt, idlers, pullies, tensioner, water pump, seals etc..) from rock auto was $189 + $30 coolant. A local mechanic wanted $400 to install (but i did it myself).
Labor wise the local mobile mechanics are about 40-60 an hour. Toyota is $120+ tax so $132/hr here.
*Aisin makes Toyota's parts.

All my vehicles have timing chains, so no regular maintenance there.

I did bring my truck to a Cummins shop to do a general evaluation of the powertrain once, but I was young and didn't know anything about diesels back then.

One thing I'd never try myself is fiberglass repair. I tried a few times to work with the evil stuff and suck at it, so I'll happily pay to never mess with it again. If I cared about appearance, I'd probably hire that work out too. Anything that is more of an art than a science is better handled by the artist.

Maybe I should go to Arkansas for all my mechanical work I can't do. Here it's $150/hour for a no-name shop. I've never even heard of a mobile mechanic in the area.

Generally my experience with any mechanic has been poor. Like when I paid over $300 for an alignment to find out they striped out the bolts and nuts that hold the struts to the steering knuckles and just left it like that.

I'm less than pleased to deal with timing belts, even though it's quite easier for an inline engine. At least these tend to cope better with a shorter belt without the tensioner than a V8 would.

Going to an independent shop that works on Teslas is even more few and far between. I bet there is literally only a handful. On top of that they make it as difficult as possible to get parts or access to information on systems.

I normally do all my own repairs and maintenance unless it was under warranty.

I'm getting to the point where I'm buying new or used still under factory warranty because I'm tired of working on cars, but I still don't want to pay $1000s for repairs.

If a company didn't have a warranty shop in my town, I wouldn't even consider buying new. We bought a used Kia once that still had factory warranty but no Kia service here at the time. It broke and they paid to have it towed 230 miles under roadside assistance, but when it was done I was responsible to go an get it myself. Now I just bought a used Lincoln still with 2 years of warranty left and the dealer is a mile away. That's convenient. I could easily walk to or from service.

Ps. On topic. It is a 400hp Lincoln that needs premium and gets 20 mpg combined, replacing the PHEV that got 82 mpge combined. Costing me over $1000 per year more in fuel according to the EPA. It won't really be that much but probably about $700 more.

By that logic I should drive an Arcimoto FUV. The factory is over on the West side.

A friend reached out today asking for help buying her mom a car. Apparently she "had" to move an hour away from work (she makes good money as a nurse), but her vehicle gets 15 MPG.

Funny how when gas is cheap for 3 years, people buy tanks, but once it crosses $3 everyone wants to get a Prius. Do people not realize fuel prices fluctuate? Anyone whose budget depends on stabil fuel prices is doing life wrong.

What did you recommend? The 1979 Dasher diesel is a good freeway car.

Is that an hour further, or is it already 45 minutes?

Nurse? Maybe she's laying plans to get out of Dodge.

I might be recommending the better of my parent's 2 Camrys. It's a 2003 with 203k miles. We need to downsize our fleet.

She showed an ad for a rebuilt title 2007 Honda CRV, and a 2009 Camry hybrid.

I love helping people, but this is a case where the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's not that there is one or two issues to deal with; it's continually doing life wrong due to a miscalibrated reality filter.

How can young(ish), attractive, educated (multiple degrees), people eek out a living by the skin of their teeth? Having a heart for others is awesome, but acting on that means having taken care of your own room first.

All that said, it's a miracle that she does so many things well considering a half-abandoned upbringing.

I just noticed the hot-button issue (10 posts in less than 12 hours).

It reminded me of Oregon Mobile Tune Up. I know the guy, he jumped out of perfectly good airplanes with my little brother.

I think I will call him tomorrow. Maybe he can get the Dasher sorted out!
________________

In other news, dealership are so last century. Tesla's model is starting to look dated. Arcimoto are using rentals to get b*tts in seats. Then one can order online, and DHL delivers.

A service center will be a box van that the FUV fits inside of, full of spare parts.

Just because you are "educated" and come from a supposed decent background does not support rational thought processes anymore. My lengthy education process just showed that I could sit in classrooms in the evening for hours and sometimes pass testing requirements. Used to know many heavily degreed people who couldn't survive without socialized help. Irv Culver comes to mind.

I see it all the time.
Kids go off to college and get an easy degree plan, but no one tells them easy means useless.
Furthermore no one bothered to tell them you can look up pay and employment rates for people with various degrees. That's how I started looking at what college degree.

If someone worked hard to get a 4 year degree that typically pays $30,000 a year or can't find a job with that degree and is surprised by this obviously they should have worked a little harder and took 10 minutes to look up those pay scales and employment rates.

She's always earned decent income ($35k+), but never had a job that utilizes either of her degrees.

This is a byproduct of treating children like livestock and sending them through the cattle shoot. She probably never thought about not going to college, or going to college to achieve a specific goal other than to feed on the slop (degree). She's done what the left has prescribed and dictated all her life and thinks it's evil white men who are responsible for her relative lack of success.

Blaming white men for all your problems sounds a lot like 1930s Germans blaming Jews for all their problems.

Just the evil ones? :confused:

I sat in my Freshman year Honors English class and they talked about the French Existentialists. Over the years that morphed into Frankfurt School Marxism. Today it is what you see before you.

The good news is the worthless degree got me a passable MOS in the one-time Republic of South Vietnam.

The alternative to 'higher' education is Free & Open Source software. Learn to code in Python.

Achieving monetary success sabotages any hope of placing in the oppression olympics. Having relatively scarce melanin already severely handicap's one's ability to claim a handicap.

Yeah you would be surprised. Practical sense is just a hard thing to come by these days. I have a friend from engineering school who was for sure the smartest guy in all of the program, but was raised by naive parents and continues to make the same dumb life mistakes. You can't help them though. They will ask for advice and then not like it. It usually just makes them mad that you don't agree with bad decisions.

Once a girl tried to shame me for using the term feminazi to describe feminazis. I answered telling her that judging people by biological features and religious affiliation is a common practice among both feminazis and national-socialists.