Association Forum - OT Diesel's $4.50/gallon? Bring it on...

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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

OT Diesel's $4.50/gallon? Bring it on...

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redviking
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1771 Posts

Response Posted - 05/18/2008 : 06:27:10

Living in the frigid NorthEast, I quickly adopted Saabs (Somethings Always Aboutto Break)as reliable forms of safe transportation that also were upscale enough to valet park. Repairs, while infrequent were rude. $800 for a fuel pump is gouging however. The old 900's had a unique hood latch, if the mechanic didn't know how to open it, they weren't gonna work on it.

Having owned a large transmission shop in a different life, I can assure you that anything built in the US is not as good as a foreign built auto. Sorry, i would not want a BMW made in the US either, but there are models. You can actually track your car coming in from Germany to really get a good one. Ford is running a commercial stating that finally their quality is on par with Toyota. Puhlease!!! You need to advertise that? it should be a given...

It's about time that we get our comeuppance fuel price wise. Driving a Hummer only tells the world that Your brains are in your wallet and that your wallet is going into the gas pump, so therefore your brains are going where? JUst wait, when it gets to $8.00 a galon like in Europe, you'll see homeless people living in big SUV's and Hummers. That big Mega Yacht that just buzzed you - he'll be more careful, but he will keep going. The mid size cruiser consuming 20 gallons an hour will never again leave the dock. Floating condos - but then again they never were mariners much anyway.

Sailing big freighters is now an option - yes this is a sailing forum - thanks to big parafoils that can be attached to big freighters, early results indicate a 20-50% fuel use reduction. Whether you are a Gore, a busheyte, or a luddite, when big business starts to think about the NorthEast passage as a possible shipping route to avoid the canal, they start putting sails on freighters, and Glacier National park is not covered in ice, there is a problem with climate change. Fortunately we all have boats and will at least be able to band together and form our own "waterWorld".....

sten

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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 05/25/2008 : 21:04:13

Well, 500+ miles and 2+ weeks into my first tank, I decided to fill it up again. Mileage wasn't as much as I'd hoped, but still <i>way </i>better than my truck. As suspected, my fuel gauge was optimistic in the top half.

First tank: 39.6 mpg (that's ~17 kpl to the naysayers). I think that'll come up a bit, I wasn't always driving it like I should, I've been playing with the tiptronic shifting, cruising at 70mph, etc, just to see how everything works. I'm still getting used to the cruise control, I keep hitting it thinking it's the turn signal & vice versa. I think I can get up into the 45mpg range. I'm going to have the tires looked at as well, it's possible they're not all at the right pressure. I keep meaning to do this, but keep putting it off. I drive right past two tire shops each day, so it's easy to do, just lazy.

So, doing the math, in direct fuel costs, it's costing me roughly $0.025/mile to drive the new car, vs roughly $0.07/mile with the truck. That's roughly a savings of 62%. I'll figure out the amortization later (which gets faster & faster with the rising price of diesel), but it's probably less than 4 years now.