Gasoline, something else to whine about...

Just filled up this morning....I drive a Buick LeSabre...and was gettng pretty empty.

Cost me $77.15 to fill up. Damn thing only gets about 14 mpg around town...though it is super on the highway, getting over 31 mpg. I'm thinking about buying another car just to have to putt putt around town...something super efficient.

Oh I long for the days of 25 cent/gallon gasoline...and that was ethyl.

Well, of course it was ethyl (tetraethyllead) that was poisoning us worse than anything.

I drive a Honda Civic hybrid, and I'm disappointed that it only gets 44 miles per gallon. I think my next car should be a plug-in hybrid (over 100 miles per gallon). The silver lining in this cloud is that it's encouraging more people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, which I hope in turn will encourage auto makers to build more. (What I'd like to see is for the auto makers to develop hardtop roofs [and hood and trunk lids] with built-in solar panels to draw energy to supplement the battery power.)

How did I just know that Rich started this thread??? Haha... Rich, you should buy a scooter to go around town in...

You didn't want to start this thread boy'o.

According to Google a Buick LeSabre has a 68L tank

Petrol here is currently £1.40/L x 68 = £95.20, which is $151.06 US.
Diesel for the same here would be $180.56.

I drive a 2002 Peugeot and it gets 46mpg. Wake up and smell the mustard Yankee-doodles.
I'll take your $77.51 (£48.85) and say THANK YOU.

There are some Peugeot models that use no petrol at all too - they're called bicycles.

ba-zing

Europe has a couple of models of vehicle that do 14mpg too. They're called assault tanks

I rode a 150cc motor scooter for two years through the rain in Portland, and it averaged 70 mpg....tho' it wouldn't do you much good in Michigan in the winter.

For normal gas engines, Hyundai has good mpg across their lineup - even their midsize cars average well into the 30s. I drive an '06 Hyundai Accent, and it does well.

Current projections are for gas (petrol) to reach $5 per gallon in the US by this summer.

My wife had a '94 Pontiac Firefly when we met. You often couldn't get into second gear (rev 1st like hell and grab 3rd!), but it got 53 miles per gallon, and we hauled everything in it (Queen sized mattress sticking out the back -- too funny). Too bad the rust-factory that is Nova Scotia killed it. Our VW doesn't get nearly as good mileage. Go figure. They could have been making 50+ mpg cars for years.

Gas (High-Octane) is 156yen / liter here in Japan. I guess it's affected (at least somewhat) by Iran stuff...

I would expect gasoline to be high in the UK...I mean it must be tough to get it from the North Sea...but America has a great abundance of oil reserves, and much of it from ground wells.

The big problem we face today is that the oil companies export so much of it to Asia, it drives up prices domestically. And there is of course the greed factor.

Back in 1972, I owned a Porsche 914. It got 36mpg no matter how I drove it. Great little car. I doubt I'm limber enough to get into it these days...it sat pretty low to the ground. I loved the fact that it has 4 wheel disc brakes...something pretty new back then. In 1984, I owned a Ford Tempo Diesel...it too was great, it got 50+mpg on the highway, and never less than 25 around town...but it was the noisiest and slowest damn thing. Still I could fill it up from my garage using my home heating fuel oil...which was only 79 cents a gallon back then.

But most of my life I've been a comfort and large car fan. I've owned Ford LTDs, Mercury Grand Marquis, Crysler New Yorker, Cadillacs...all the big tanks. And I've paid the price in gasoline...though I didn't really care about the price. Last car I bought new was this LeSabre in 2005. It doesn't have that many miles on it, only about 50K, and it still runs like new...so I don't see myself selling it any time soon.

But I do complain about the price of gasoline going up again while my paycheck hasn't. I'm not convinced the return savings in buying a hybrid is worth the added costs...but there are a lot of small 4 cylinder sub-compacts that do a pretty respectable job at a reasonable price.

I don't want to spend a ton of money...something like the Ford Fiesta would make a decent around-town car and the money I'd save over the LeSabre in gasoline would make the car payment...and leave my Buick for my cross-country traveling....but I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

The price of petrol here has doubled in 9 years, I promise you that my salary hasn't in that time - not by natural effects. 70% of the price of it is taxation though. The biggest problem that I have is that any instability in the oil price internationally is reflected in price rises the next day, and cooling of the market is only reflected in the price after a government or tabloid enquiry...

Near where I live there is one of central Englands largest petrochemical distribution depots - the one that famously blew up a couple of years ago. The local press have been clawing at the competition commission for the last year because despite the fact we are closest to the distribution point fuel is more expensive here than it is 20 miles away by at least 2p a litre.
It's through and through greed there and obviously the government isn't going to say goodbye to 70p in the pound taxation on it because I'm sure there is some lost cause somewhere that needs our money more than we do...

Apple, Banks, and Exxon. Every time they report profits, you know their products are overpriced.

I hear some experts saying lately that oil speculation has driven up the price as much as 2 USD per gallon here in the US.

There is no better analogy for the petroleum industy and us than saying "they have us by the short hairs..."

The only time I ever made money from them was after the Exxon Valdez oil spill...they were paying me $15/hour to ride a 4-wheeler up and down the beach to pick up used oil cleaning rags...but the job only lasted a month...still for 12 hours a day I was cleaning up...both figuratively and literally...

I do have ample storage space in a rental storage building where I could stockpile 10-20 5 gallons cans of gas....and hope it doesn't go KABLOOEY!!!!

Greed is more contagious than herpes....

Now I'll try to see if I can find something else to bitch about.

BTW: Tuesday - Gasoline locally $3.39/gal, Wednesday - $3.59/gal, Friday - $3.79/gal. Wonder if someone could be smart enough to hack the computers at the gas station and temporarily set the price to $2.00 a gallon while he is filling up and then reset it back 5 minutes later...

Rich: If you are thinking of getting a puddle jumper i suggest trying to find a Geo Metro that's still in decent shape. Had i known 3 months after i sold mine a few years ago that gas was going to jump from $2 to $4 a gallon i never would've sold it. Anyway mine was 3cyl with 5 speed manual transmission and 8 gallon fuel tank. It got 61mpg religiously on the highway and about 53mpg city. I drove it from Green Bay, WI to Clearwater, FL. Total cost in fuel....only $57! It did cost me $61 to get back home, but i attribute that to it being windy.