How fuel prices affect your life?

[supercharged]

Fuel just goes up and up. How does it affects your life, and are you willing to get rid of your gas guzzler and trade it for a more fuel efficient car, even if it means to be a foreign manufacturer?

My daily driver ('99 Infiniti I30t 3.0 V-6) gets me 20-21 MPG which I thnk is a lot. My weekend car (05 Acura RL) gets even less - 18-19 MPG thanks to SH-AWD and 245/50-17 tires, and it runs on premium only. Luckily a tank ($90) lasts me a month.

If gas hits over $5 a gallon, how many of you will switch for a more economical vehicle as your daily driver? I just wonder if there are still many left that will still drive a suburban no matter what???

I really start thinking about new diesel Jetta coming out this fall. Suppose to get mid 40's in a city, and mid 50's on a highway, and pass all 50 state emmisions. 48-50 MPG's - sounds good to me. At current gas prices that's around $1,800 a year savings in fuel along. And that's at current prices, as it goes up, savings go up.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I won't change cars, but I'll start carpooling. In fact today, I went on a local carpooling site and found a match

[ITAKEYOURRIDE]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

Fuel prices do not affect my life that much, because I hardly ever drive my personal vehicle that often. But I can tell you that fuel prices are affecting my debtors. I work for a reposession company and the number of SUVs of my open orders is just insane. I pick up about 4-10 vehicles per day and most are SUVs and its actually hard taking them from some people.

In the area I live in, its a big tourist town in the summer. Alot of vacation homes. There are not too many jobs in this town that pay, because we are right on Lake Michigan. Ever since spring when gas prices started to rise my work load has increased. Single parents with children have a choice to make. house payment and food or house payment and vehicle. Its hard for many people and its hard for me to actually take someones vehicle that you know are working hard to make ends meet and just cant.
Then you have the people who get a vehicle and from day one never had the intentions to pay for it at all. They want to try and hide it, try to fight you, try to drive it off your wheel lift, try to lie to you. Those are the ones that deserve it.

Some of the 35 banks I run for are letting people defer payments and use the stimulus checks to get caught up when thy receive them. I have seen others take the stimulus and still issue a repo order because the stimulus check did not put a dent in the past due.

I have a 2006 F350 Powerstroke pickup truck that I go through 2 tanks a day. Diesel today is $4.89 a gallon here.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

Reallt not much at all. I just plan my trips a little better now. So I am not driving all over the place.

[Hemin8r]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I have a 5.7 Dodge Ram Hemi which many of you know is a gas guzzler. I'm getting around 10-12 mpg in the city and at most 16-18 on the hwy. I rarely drive it. In 05 I bought the SRT-4 to help save on gas and to have that as my daily driver. So far the only thing that's changed for me is my driving habit. I'm easy on the throttle & coast in neutral when I get the chance. Now I'm getting 28-29 mpg on average when before I was getting 22-24 mpg. I guess I have to wait on my Challenger .

[RaskyR1]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I'll be buying a Kawasaki Ninja 250 next summer....at 70mpg it should pay for itself in no time.

[BlueZero]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I'll be buying a Kawasaki Ninja 250 next summer....at 70mpg it should pay for itself in no time.

I want one! I want one! I love the new design! Plus that isn't a bad price for a new bike. I'm still not sure about getting one. I have no experience what so ever on a motorcycle. Sure looks fun!

[Sal329]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I drive 350 miles a week to and from work in my 1994 Mark VIII fills up at 12-14 gallons of premium is $50-55 a week, V8 280hp 14yrs old avgs 25 mpg. The same driving in the 99 Accord we have I avg 27mpg. I can not justify a car payment, 1 income with a wife and 2 kids. We stopped impulse buying especially toys for the kids and clothes she is never gonna wear, we also cut back on going out to eat including "cheap" fast food.

[CWM3]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

As of right now the gas prices do not affect me. My Mazda 3 gets around 22 mpg and, in Cheyenne, I only need to fill the tank once per month.

[supercharged]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I drive 350 miles a week to and from work in my 1994 Mark VIII fills up at 12-14 gallons of premium is $50-55 a week, V8 280hp 14yrs old avgs 25 mpg. The same driving in the 99 Accord we have I avg 27mpg. I can not justify a car payment, 1 income with a wife and 2 kids. We stopped impulse buying especially toys for the kids and clothes she is never gonna wear, we also cut back on going out to eat including "cheap" fast food.

you average 25 MPG on a V-8? even my 4-cylinder first car - '95 Nissan 240SX was getting me 24 MPG...
How do you manage to do that??? I want it to use less fuel!

[Ryan L.]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I try to be more cautious about driving all over the place but other than that it really hasn't affected our family too much. We have started looking into the Prius for my mom but not just because of gas prices...its reaching the time for a new car for her. Funny thing is that there are about 9 Prius' in my neighborhood and 8 of them are red...so we wont be getting red.

The nice thing about our area is that pretty much everything you need is within about a 5 mile radius, from all the fast food restaurants, Home Depot, Costco, Wal-Mart, Auto-Zone and Vons..everything is within 5 miles of our house so its not too bad.

Ryan

[Nappers]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

I just plan my running around better. I am working tons of overtime to get my 1980 CB750F Super Sport on the road. Just needs a lot of brake work and TLC to get her on the road.

I don't look anymore, I fill it and try to keep it above half a tank on the Yukon and Neon. When I work nights, I take the Neon and work days, take the Yukon as it sits for 12 hours then go right home. The Neon is getting some serious miles on it and the miles on the Yukon has halted a lot. Our daughter moved to Washington and gave back her Lumina and I may get that running good for a run around car. It needs something, no power, plugged cat I think.

Not only is the gas higher, groceries are a lot higher now too, with a teenage boy in the house, we may plant a garden!!! the kid can eat!

I may get my side business of working on cars in swing when I get some more supplies to supplement my income.

GOT SWIRLS?

Aaron

[03mach1]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

It is affecting me with owning three vehicles which both of my cars have V-8s, the mustang gets good MPG last MPG check I was getting 19.52 MPG my bird gets 10. I am makeing it. My paycheck half of it goes to gas though. The bike really helps now I drive that everyday now that it is summer. It is a money saver. No matter what i will always drive a V-8.

[3Fitty]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

My life has improved substantially. I am an executive at Exxon. My bonus was $22 million for the first half of this year (company wanted to break it up so it wouldn't look excessive). I just purchased my 9th home (I need 12 - one for each month) and I'm also trying to purchase the Meguiar's company. If I can, I'm going to reduce the quality of all the products and increase the price 10 fold. Life is great.*















*All of the above is unadulterated nonsense.

[Ben_P1]

Re: How fuel prices affect your life?

A year ago I traded the BMW in for a late 2003 Renault Clio DCi with 80hp and it was probably one of the wiser things I have done. It averages 62mpg around town but I filled it up last night at £1.35 /litre! This govenment is having a laugh with the tax on fuel.

I only really use the Impreza P1 when I have time to enjoy it or on the odd drive to work, but if I had to use it all of the time I'd be broke by now. It does around 200 - 260 miles to a £65 tank full depending how I drive it.