Re: 2006 fuel and milage logs

From: Miles D. Oliver (moliver@mmoliver.org)
Date: Sat Jan 13 2007 - 08:05:41 EST


  Good info.

  My commute became about 3 hours in the truck each day in December. For
the last 2 years it has been 23 steps up to my home office. The company
I worked for from home was going down the tubes due to incompetence and
bad management and I decided to get out before the rug was pulled out
from under me. I'm now a contractor for Sprint and the office is 65 miles
away. Luckily it is 2 miles from my wife's work so I commute with her and her
other carpool buddies. I now get up at 3am to meet and get into the
office by 5:45am. They are all govt employees so they get to work the
compressed schedules and do 9 hour days so for the sake of gas I get to work
more than an hour before I am to start. Sleep deprivation is my middle name
anymore. I now understand how my wife was always tired and while we have a
wonderful house, land, and a shop. The price of it is the commute.

  Our 2003 Durango has 107,000 miles on it, my 2002 Dakota has 94,000 and
we've been seriously considering getting something with a 4cyl just to run
back and forth to work to rack up the miles on the commute. We've been
considering diesel but so far only the VW Jetta and Passat are our only
options. They have a good resale value so it would mean another hefty car
payment and the Durango will be paid off in October. The Durango
gets 16mpg and our hopes of getting close to doubling the mileage of what
we get now would be ideal. With another payment we have to factor in the
overall cost of having a 3rd vehicle on the road with insurance, and the
additional taxes each year VA wants just for having a vehicle.

  Our commute is fairly flat with a large elevation climb over Leesburg
mountain in western Virginia so we will need some power for that climb and
our little riding group is comprised of 'not-so-little' people, All of
us over 5'8" so room is going to be a factor in our choice of vehicles. We
also need decent trunk space for all the 'crap' we haul back and forth
just to work. Briefcases and laptops.

  This is good information to assist in our decisions about another
vehicle. I've avoided front wheel drive in the past because I am so used
to working on rear wheel drive vehicles and I'll be the principal mechanic
for any vehicle that we add to our stable. Whatever I choose has to have
a good reliability record and fairly easy to work on. We all have fears of
being half way to our destination and it crapping out. Then I'd have to
somehow get home, take the truck/trailer back and pick up the heap as the
mileage for towing would kill us.

  My wife and my carpool buddies wouldn't go for an old Air cooled VW. I
had lots of room, got decent mileage and I could change swap engines
in 1/2 hour and trannys in 2. But they were hot in the summer and cold in
the winter and nobody is into 'roughing it' anymore. I'd even consider a
vehicle that I could swap in a rebuilt engine/tranny and do the work
myself to get us a reliable something to run back and forth.

  We are paying $2.15 for unleaded, $2.49 for Diesel so I what I may gain
in fuel mileage with a diesel having never had one before I wonder if the
cost of maintaining it would offset the cost of gas vs diesel.

  Thanks for posting this info.

On Fri, 12 Jan 2007, Jason Bleazard wrote:

>
> On January 12, 2007 12:37 am, Terrible Tom wrote:
>> If anyone is really bored - some dry stats and numbers to look at...
>>
>> http://members.aol.com/silvereightynine/ram_fuel_log.html
>> http://members.aol.com/silvereightynine/neon_fuel_log.html
>
> Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't have glanced at the Neon log. It's fueling (stupid
> pun intended) my temptation to trade my Dak for a Neon. My commute right now
> is twice as far as it was last year (ouch). At least gas is a bit cheaper,
> it's almost down to $3 a gallon.
>
>

-- 
  Miles D. Oliver



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