This past week I decided to buy a new Ford Ranger. My old Ford Ranger (a 2000) has 110,000 miles on it, and although the engine runs well, a lot of the peripheral systems are getting to the point where they are very soon going to require (expensive) attention. i.e.--new exhaust system, intermitantly slipping transmission, broken heater fan switch, rust spots appearing at front of cab above front window---and my truck has to pass the dreaded "mandatory smog check" before my birthday in July. My current truck is a V6. Since I very seldom use my truck as a "truck", but more as a passenger car with a box, I decided to look at a 4 cylinder this time around.---the V6 costs $700 more than a 4 cyl. when you buy the truck new.---Now lets run the numbers----at 20 mpg with my V6, then 110,00 divided by 20=5500 gallons of gas burned over the 7 year life of my truck. Playing fast and loose with the numbers, a 4 cylinder gets about 30mpg. So, if I buy a 4 cylinder truck, then 110,000 divided by 30=3667 gallons of gas burned over that same 7 year life cycle. Okay, so now we take 5500-3667=1,833 gallons of gas difference between a V6 and a 4 cylinder. Gasoline is costing on average $4.00 per gallon in Canada now, so 4 x 1833=$7,332 is the amount of money I will save over the life cycle of a new tuck, assuming it lasts the same 7 years as the first truck did. I think thats pretty damn signifigant!!!
Assume you build an old truck, and it costs you $5k because you really don't care how it looks, you just want it kind of reliable, and it wont' have any options on it. It has a small modern V8 engine so it only gets 15 mpg. It also lasts you 7 years, but it does not depreciate over that time, even though it does wear out. do the math
.....lets see, good tight stock 8BA in a 2000 pound roadster, 3.00:1 rear gears, T-5 trans....ought to be good for 25 mpg. Hey!! We built an "economy car".
I think it's a sad statement when a 5 year old truck has things going out on it that my 40+ year old car is just now having trouble with. The green lobby, if it was really what it said it was, would look into rewarding people who maintain a vehicle over that was built over 20 years, instead of trying to ram hybrids down everyone's throats. The material cost for these new vehicles, especially environmentally, is outrageous. Considering the fact that these rocket scientist haven't figured out what to do with all the nifty dead mega battery cells these things run on, I'm not sure how that's a real solution. You talk 'carbon foot print', let's talk CFC's or any other manmade chemical these plastic pieces crap produce when they DON'T break down like my metal car does. Every classic car owner should be getting 2k a year from the government for not producing more waste. Why isn't SEMA lobbying for something like that? Oh yeah, because they benefit from more new piece of crap cars being built! Two biggest pet peeves: hypocrites and liars. Unfortunately, most of the people in charge are one of the two or both. sorry for the rant-this needless gas gouging extortion racket going on at the pump is really pissing me off!
And when you get rearended getting on the freeway for getting up to speed slower than molasses we'll knock that up to savings as well.
yeah but fellas, brian here is from the great white north. So driving an old car in the winter up here would rot it out in a hurry.
you can't spend $20,000 + interest - depreciation to save $7,000. if you want a new truck, buy one. I laugh at all three of my kids. they laugh at my old gas hogs, and tell me how good their gas milage is. and go on to tell me how much money I could save with a new car. their car payments range from $350 to $1600 a month and their cars depreciate faster than there payments. plus they still have to buy gas, insurance and normal wear. other than a trip to Paso I never spend $300 a month for gas. sounds like my wife's shopping spree's wow I saved $84 today by spending $400 makes about as much sense as our Politicians
Plus, (this is about a one year old estimate) to pay off the added cost of buying a "hybrid" it would take ten years in savings from gas milage. You also have to account for the extra shit they put on them and I'm not all too confident in this new technology that the car would still be on the road in ten years. And that's IF you keep it for ten.
Noname: Please do tell us what vehicle anyone could pay $1600 per month on? Implied judgement, but mostly just curious.
I read an estimate that one third of the energy use (and of course the cost of that) is in the manufacturing process...I would assume that number would go WAY up on a short-lived setup like a Prius, and think how far down it goes on a 40 year old still running...
I've always wondered about how much energy it takes to mine, process, build the materials in a car, compared to how much energy that car uses over it's life. The funny thing about the little high mileage hybrid cars is that they usually are bought by people who were already driving dinky little high mileage cars, so they really don't help the overall situation much. If all those SUV drivers moved into priuses, then demand for gasoline would drop in half, and the price would go down
here in Sunny South Dakota in January we have a hell of a time getting out of the driveway with a Prius. Suburbans go much better through the snow.
Hmmmmm! Doing my own math I drive 6,000 miles per year at avg 17 mpg (city and highway). At $3/gal thats $1058/yr in gas. I spent $20K on the car and they appreciate about 5% a year according to Hagerty. Over 7 years it would be worth $28,142 and I spent $7406 for fuel, $400 for one set of tires, $280 for 14 oil changes. A ton of fun - PRICELESS!!
no, a Mazda is a Ranger in disguise! really...this one is the opposite of the old Courier/mazda thing.
Recently had BOTH of my vehicles break down on the same weekend. The Chevelle needed a new starter. Took me about an hour and less than a hundred bucks to get it back on the road. The 93 Nissan SE V-6 was driving along fine and just quit. No warning whatever. Cruising down a residential street at about 25 MPH and it was like somebody yanked the coil wire. (That is if it had a coil). Had to tow it home. It's still sitting there till I can get it towed to the dealer because I haven't got a clue how to find out what the hell's wrong with it. I'll have to pay probably $150 to the dealer to plug it in (When they can get around to it) so the computer can tell them it won't run. Then they won't know how to fix it either. The Nissan gets about 4 to 5 MPG better gas mileage than the Chevelle. I loved it right up until it broke. It's probably something like a timing belt or a cheap sensor that went out but it'll cost me a fortune to find it. Had the same thing happen in a Volks Rabbit a few years ago. Dealer couldn't find the problem either. After a week the regional rep came there, looked under the hood and said try it now. It fired right up. Turns out those German engineers put a button on the firewall you have to push every several thousand miles when it's time to check your egr valve or the friggin thing kills your ignition to stop you from polluting. None of those so called Factory Certified Mechanics knew about that little white unmarked button on the firewall. I like the older stuff. If I can't fix it, I probably know someone who can.
I usually take the hot rod approach on one of these but I have a different approach this time around, well that and I'm sure most of you either don't believe that i get pretty good milage or don't care or are tired of hearing it. That said, 30 mpg sounds real nice but couldn't you have bought a KIA cheaper and saved a whole lot more money? I mean if its about saveing cash why not save the max?
who exactly is trying to ram hybrids down our throats? do you remember back in the 80's? you know what cell phones looked like back then? do ya? i'll refresh your memory, they looked like the field phone GI Joe used, they weighed a lot, didn't hold a charge, got terrible reception, etc. now battery technology has advanced, and we now have batteries that are tiny and have longer life. my point is hybrid technology is in it's infancy, but as it evolves, it will get better. at least the people that drive them are making a fuckin effort to reduce their fuel consumption, so i ain't gonna knock them. at the end of your rant you say you're pissed about gas price gouging, which you didn't even address, instead you bitch about the people who are using the least amount of gas.
When it comes to a daily driver/gas miser, I like to cheap out and buy something that's at the bottom of its depreciation. Working at a dealership helps, because it gives me a chance to snag the low buck trade ins that the sales department would rather not have to deal with anyway. I just added another to the fleet--a '96 S 10 2.2/5 speed in decent shape for $750. If a deer walks out in front of it, I'm not out much, and if it doesn't, I can drive it until something better comes along and still sell it for $750. The new car manufacturers will never make anything off of me! Sprry, but as long as I can repair my own vehicles, a new car is the worst investment I could make.
That's an economic theory that only works when there's competition in the market. IMO there's only collusion, not competition in the gas/oil market. The real reason for high gas prices are: A) That's what people are willing to (actually have to) pay. and B) Thanks to a failed concerted effort by the money changers to increase exports, the dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Has conserving any other energy lowered the price of that product? They want to produce less and charge more for it. Why else would your gas or electric company, who are in the market to sell their product, ask you to use less of it? Name one other industry that asks you to use less of their product.
Thanks Brian, good thread. My spousal unit has been encouraging me to trade my '94 Suburban w/220,000 miles (13 city/17 highway) for a new one, or a Tahoe. I told her I only burn about $150 a month of gas in that thing. In Texas, we have about a 12 month riding season (Harley). My '97 HOG (175,000 miles) gets about 38 mpg. I ride it when it ain't rainin', but it's been a wet spring, here. I told her to let me take that $5-600 a month payment, I can finish the '33, w/283/4-speed/2.75 gears which should get a MIN. of 20 mpg....... BINGO - NEW TRUCK. Now, the '55 w/454/400 turbo will be a different story. Gas can skyrocket before it justifies me buying another Suburban/Tahoe. My old stuff is gonna do just fine. Treehuggers can BITE-ME.
Not to just toot my own horn here, but I posted a couple of links about a story the local news carried a few nights ago about ways some people are getting "hypermiles" out of their cars. Granted, they were using these little electric cars for the most part, but the techniques would supposedly carry over. Check it out if you want: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=182804
Hair cream, Brill Cream's slogan was " A little dab'll do ya." I think that more often than not we miss the boat on any of the save the earth campaigns. Think about it: It costs more to recycle most materials than it does to make them new. Just for starters, the reason in part is that it uses more energy. Now I'm going to gamble that most hybrids for example are not made from an abundance of recycled, I'm probably wrong on that one. But that being the case manufacture is a little less traumatic to good ol "mother earth." So that could possibly be a good right? Never the less that have batteries, way more than say your old Chebby or Ford truck. Have you ever tried to dispose of a battery, again extremely traumatic to the environment and the hybrid uses a bank of them as opposed to just one. Ok now what is one of the main ingredients of a newer car that we all like because it makes them lighter and safer. Plastic, I'm thinking ABS but again I'm probably a little off. Now of plastic and steel which will return to mother earth sooner and with less trauma? if you said plastic again you loose. We could probably continue with this list for hours but just think about it.
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