Midly important. I wouldn't have bought my car if it got 10 MPG, but I'm happy that I get more than 30 on the highway and 25 around town.
Only really irrelevant if the service period and purchase price are similar. Just means that depreciation ~= 100%. I doubt it would amount to much monthly difference in your scenario, but its a large factor when people are looking at new tech like hybrids.
Yeah even among cars that can consistently get great gas mileage there seems to be this tendency to exaggerate. Had a friend with a fit that had an immediate fuel economy gauge that would often tell him he is getting 60 MPG and would sustain an average of around 40MPG, cept when you did the numbers it was really around 33 MPG.Often such MPG braggers are way off, and are actually getting much lower mileage.
Often such MPG braggers are way off, and are actually getting much lower mileage.
Anybody who does not take into account the total cost of ownership of their primary transportation. is a fool.
If your car is a daily driver, then fuel economy is an important piece of the puzzle.
Sure, but anyone that cares about what they drive and chooses to drive a piece of shit and be miserable about it to save some gas is a fool as well IMO.
Nice numbers. Do you use a program to generate those numbers?
I like tracking the cost/mile number as well. My cost/mile decreased from $0.163 to $0.103 going from the Cougar to SW2. My gas must be cheaper here (SW Missouri) since your gas mileage is better than mine.
Of course, my SW2 is so miserable to drive, that I don't know how I live with myself. I really should've bought one of those plush F-150s instead
Anybody who does not take into account the total cost of ownership of their primary transportation. is a fool.
If your car is a daily driver, then fuel economy is an important piece of the puzzle.
If you plan to drive 200,000 miles, then at 10MPG, that's 20000 gallons of gas. At 20MPG, that's 10,000 gallons of gas. At 40mpg, that's 5000 gallons of gas.
As you can see, there are diminishing returns as fuel economy increases.
insurance + gas + purchase price for me for 200K miles (or about 25K per year for 8 years) minus predicted/projected value of car afterwards when it gets sold or traded in....
20000 gallons vs 5000 gallons over the life of the car adds up to a LOT of money .... especially when gas is fvcking expensive, (currently over $4.25 in Chicago area.)
If Gas averages $4 per gallon over the next 8 years ... then we are talking about $80,000 vs $20,000 .....
That is HUGE.
Go to Fuelly.com and sign up for a free account. They also have an app for Andriod or iPhone you can use every time you fuel up. It is ridiculously easy to use and is a nice tool for tracking your fuel economy.
Or, just don't worry about it and drive. I think its important to run the numbers every once in awhile as it can be a valuable tool to help determine if you have car issues, but running your numbers every time you fill up is just anal. Give it a rest man, its just gas in the car, you aren't curing world hunger or anything.
Or, just don't worry about it and drive. I think its important to run the numbers every once in awhile as it can be a valuable tool to help determine if you have car issues, but running your numbers every time you fill up is just anal. Give it a rest man, its just gas in the car, you aren't curing world hunger or anything.
You are going to talk me out of my Ranger FX4 Level II and into a Mercedes/BMW/Audi Clean Diesel.
Please.
Stop.
Sure, but anyone that cares about what they drive and chooses to drive a piece of shit and be miserable about it to save some gas is a fool as well IMO.
Sure, but you're also talking going from 10mpg to 40mpg. More realistically you're normally looking at going from maybe 22-23 to 30ish
My car will cost about $24k in gas over 8 years at current fuel prices. A much more unpleasant econobox getting 30mpg would be $17k over 8 years. $7k isn't chump change by any means, but I'd much rather drive the nicer car with enough power to safely merge, etc in Chicago.
That's strange. I didn't know a Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry qualify as a POS that's miserable to drive. With a 4-banger, all can get 35+ mpg on the highway (or a bit less, depending on the year).
Also, I've heard from many Honda Fit owners how much they love their cars and how much fun they are to drive. Even Car & Driver said it was a fun car to drive.
Well, to me they are. They do absolutely nothing interesting and I find nothing fun about driving such cars. Sure, maybe a Fit is fun to drive when compared to a Yaris or whatever. Both are slow as shit in my opinion and totally uninteresting.
If you enjoy driving a Honda Fit, great. You can be satisfied and get good gas mileage. I'm not criticising that. What I would think is foolish however is is you felt like I do that all those cars that you mentioned are slow soulless people movers and still drive one simply to save money on gas.
Some people like driving. Most don't. If a car is simply a tool to move you from A to B then yeah, mileage should be fairly high on your list of what you need in a car. I really like to drive (and need a reasonable amount of capability in terms of seating and interior room) so I'll happily get 15-16 mpg to drive what I want.
Which is currently a 300C SRT8 and a GX470, so yeah I am not a typical car buyer but I really think it's dumb to drive something you hate, espcially if you have to drive a lot. It's like buying cheap shoes or a crappy mattress to save money.
Christ, how do I keep getting sucked into these utterly pointless debates.
What I would think is foolish however is is you felt like I do that all those cars that you mentioned are slow soulless people movers and still drive one simply to save money on gas.
Christ, how do I keep getting sucked into these utterly pointless debates.