Now that gas is going up, will anyone consider
 

any type of lifestyle changes?

I suggested to my wife today that she drive to work with a friend, more for her friends benefit than hers, but it would help both out.

I guess one thing I would do if they hover over 3.00 per is to stop going out for cocktails and/or dinner and hang out at my house or a friends.

I don't see it as a big deal, even at 3.00 per gallon.

It's interesting to see these people driving Expeditions crying about 2.70 for fuel.

If a $4.50 per tankful difference is going to cause you to lose your house, there are other things far more wrong with your finances than rising fuel prices.

Thoughts?

bring on $4 a gallon. too many people drive vehicles that are far more than they need.

but good point on whining about a four buck difference in filling up your tank.

Not yet. I think my redline will be between $3 and $4. Might not be too distant a possibility.

Bot

I pulled into a Texaco and right back out, because his cheapest gas was 2.75. That was a mistake because the next station I saw was 2.91! I drive short distances in congested D.C., so maybe higher prices will keep some people off the road to make it slightly more enjoyable.

I saw a dude a week ago pull in the gas station and ask for 2.00 of gas and complained about it being 2.45 a gallon.

Hello! How much of a friggin' difference would it have made? You can apply the same reasoning to aholes driving Hummers and Expeditions.

Europe has had >$5 per gallon for a long time, they think we are crazy for driving distances they would normally walk or bicycle to.

Yeah, like a story my grandfather told me fron his boyhood in Austin, TX (1890's). Cowboys would ride into town horseback. They'd get back on the horse to ride across the street. My grandfather said that they spent so much time on the horse that it just wasn't natural for them to walk anymore.

The European sentiment is right on the money for city drivers. But if you have a long commute or travel for a living, a couple hundred miles is just a wrm up. In Europe, that's 2-3 countries.

Here's how we could have mass transit: reduce the taxation on rairoads to make them more financially competitive with taxpayer-subsidized highways. It is INSANE that we tax railroads locally and also subsidize them nationally.

Until mass transit is competitive with highways, it ain't gonna happen.

You're right about that, but look at how small their countries and cities are compared to ours.

We have had it easy for a long time and now there is a price to pay for such good fortune.

The piper has come to collect.

:)

Today was my second day of carpooling. Round trip is around 75 miles ...Even if my 300D got 25mpg and Diesel stayed at $2.70/gal. I am saving $8.10/day If I carpool 5 days a week, I am saving over $40/week. There's four of us...which means a savings of $120/ month.
Since I rarely get 25mpg :o the $120 is a conservative estimate. Recently I have been mixing in a little bit of wvo...a guesstimate of about 15 gals. a month....there's another $40.
So...in about a month, I can finally afford to tint my windows! :D

The wife and I walk to work anyway and probably drive less than a 1000 miles a month between us so probably not.

I hate putting gas into the land crusier though, 12MPH. :mad:

Lifestyle changes will only happen when there's no gas to pump.

I'm going to cut down on Dead shows.

Garcia already did.

I'm stuck I gotta work and its 30 miles away, I cant afford a new car and don't like tiny little economy cars, hell I'm going to start saving for a new GTO. I do drive slower these days, but thats because I gots to fix my car :P

So you are trying to tell us that you drive a vehicle that is NOT more than what you need? You realize what will happen when you get your wish, don't you? EVERYTHING else will go up. Veggies? How do you think it gets to the supermarket? Meat? Your shirt?

Fortunately, my wife and I work at the same place, so only one vehicle leaves the house during the week. I struggle to keep the W124 running since it's the most economical.

Gas prices have me glad I didn't opt for the ML430 as opposed to the ML320.

Soccer games and tournaments take us hours from home on weekends, and that's where our biggest hits will be.

Future driving vacations will either be shorter, or non-existent. :(

I started telecommuting full-time in March -- good timing for me, as I was driving about 2 hours a day round-trip, and spending a fair amount in gas, even in the 26MPG 300D.

Maybe we'll start to see tax incentives for companies that encourage teleworking. Yeah, a lot of companies say they encourage teleworking, but we all know most don't -- the boss likes to be able to look over the shoulders of his people. But there are so many jobs that really lend themselves to telecommuting, and it's certainly possible to judge an employee's productivity without literally looking over his shoulder. More telecommuting would be great for gas savings, for traffic problems, for air quality...

All that is true. HOWEVER, the problem with telecommuting is that it takes discipline. Discipline that the employee might not have. I know of someone who works out of his home. He goes into a room and doesn't leave it till lunch and then back again till quitting time. Many people lack the discipline not to go out and play with their kids, the dog, chat with the mail carrier, etc, etc. Also, I would like to keep my office as far as possible from my home. If I could trust my employees to actually work from 0800 - 1700 with lunch hour at 1200 and not go fool around, it would be a good idea since as an employer, I would not need an office space or at least so much of a space.

It won't be that big a deal, but my wife and I are carpooling when we can. I think many Americans have their money already spent (credit card debt) before they even get paid. So when something like this happens, it can cause a financial crunch for them. I have found myself looking around at diesels on ebay and found a local 2.6 I may go look at. :D

I wasn't speaking of what would be considered "normal" driving in the US - I was talking about trips to the grocery store, post office, bank, etc.

I live in a NJ town that is over 90 square miles - we drive everywhere. But even now I find myself driving down to the neighbors house for a swim when I could easily walk (it's less than a mile). It's more about the convenience, which is now going to cost more.

I drove in a friend's Prius in Marin County CA last month, and I was pretty impressed with the car. It's no Mercedes Benz, but it gets +/- 50 MPG. Load up the trunk with batteries and plug it in at night (like some folks have started to experiment with), and you get up to 250 MPG!

If I have to give up the trunk of a MB Diesel to use WVO, might as well give up the Prius trunk for a *****load of batteries. Sure, it's a glorified golf cart at that point, but for around-town driving it makes more sense than hauling out the 560.

-g

I've been bike commuting since April. Kid in the Burley, two grocery bags in the cargo compartment. ;)

Now that's what I am talking about! Good for your heart, too.

-g

If it goes up to $4, which isn't too hard to imagine now, fill-ups will cost 80+ bucks. I think at that point I will be looking for alternatives to the Benz, which is getting 18/21 mpg. I wish there were a cheap way to add a battery pack and a motor.

True, lucky for them, and unlucky for the lazy Americans, that they know how to drive manual trans and get the maximum power out of a 1.0 liter engine.

We're so lost when it comes to MPG and our Automatic transmissions it isn't even funny.

Maybe with rising gas costs we'll finally see the more efficient (smaller engine) benzs in the US/NA. I mean I wouldn't mind driving a E200 Kompressor or many of their more economical diesel counterparts. The C/E/ML 270 CDI??

I know that these will likely never reach our shores though.

For that to happen we'd need a government that desires choice as opposed to the priggishly indifferent one we have.

Which one is that? Gas prices have been going up every year since who knows when. In fact, I just read that in March of 84, gas was $1.48 which adjusted for inflation is about $3.11 today. I see this on other message boards too. Every Spring going into summer there is always a gas scare of it reaching some figure. Last year was $3 this year it is $4. I think people just look at the number they yank out of a hat and panic. Seems to be a Spring-Summer ritual from what I see. Yes, it goes up in the summer and calms down a little later in the year. That is the way it is.

You want to talk of choice? Fine. You can choose the car you want. However, if 3 people want a european car, it is going to be difficult. What you want is the government to make the car makers import that car just because YOU see it as better in spite of what the market wants. IOW, you want the government to force the people to choose what YOU want them to choose not what they want.

Not at all. I want a government that is more willing to help folks get what they want rather than standing in the way of it for the sake of protecting the stupidity that defines the big 3 auto miss-manufacturers. But the big 3 are all about looting. The government is all about feeding themselves at the expense of the ignorant.

How many folks in the USA do you think would opt for one of the $5,000 made in China 48 MPG in town vehicles? I bet it would be measured in the millions to 10s of millions.

How much do you think it'd cost the government in terms of lost revenue to encourage folks to get high mileage vehicles?

If the big 3 go down, many people go out of work besides the GM workers. Japan does that too. They tax the hell out of imports to protect the local industry. My cousin works with Toyota in KY. He tells me that where possible, they would buy Jap even in KY. Part of what they are trying to do is protect the big 3 because there will be hell to pay if the big 3 go down.

Lets say for the sake of arguement that you are right. Why hasn't China imported those things here? Hell, they import pretty much everything else. I have seen a Sumuri sword that was made in China. You might be smart but the Chinese are not stupid. There might be reasons that they do not import these cars since it would be a killer of every other car. Perhaps the quality and safety factors are not up to par? Maybe by the time they get it up to par, it would cost about the same as KIAs or Daewoos?

Not much. They just raise the price of gas by taxes is all. Now they are considering a per-mile tax because the cars are so efficient. My issue with that is that they will probably make this new tax supplement the already existing tax and be double or triple dipping.

Apparently at GM, the Union's H&B package is at least $1500 of the cost of every new car.

Anybody know what that figure is for the Chinese, Korean, or Japanese automakers?

I just bought a Jetta TDI. I use it for my commute from home to Air National Guard duty, and love it... it lessens my fuel bill by half over driving my Mustang! The Stang will be reserved for around-town funt jaunts once or twice a month, as will the TR6 I am getting before long. The VW gets used a couple of times a year. I live about a mile from work, so I walk every work day of the year (beats paying $50 for a parking permit AND rusting out my exhaust with such a short drive). Fuel prices have not caused me to change my driving habits much... I really only drive when absolutely necessary anyway.

That said, I HAVE seen more Prius' and noted that TDIs are harder and harder to find. Most that I had called about while car-shopping had already been sold.

That begs a question: every VW dealer I have been to claims they can't keep TDIs on the lot (and sure enough, I have yet to see one on a VW lot). They say people will order them w/o even test-driving them first, and buy sight unseen. Why, then, isn't VW importing more of these? Is there a DOT or EPA mandate that says that only X% of an automakers sales can be diesel? I don't get it. You'd think if they sell so well they'd boost production of them.


Chris

My Austrian-born Mercedes mechanic bought one for his wife - he claims she is getting 52 MPG!!! Is that possible?

-g

when i bought my first 300sd in 2000 diesel was about $1/gal and about 1 cent cheaper than regular unleaded. i was pissed when diesel started getting more expensive than premium (especially considering it much less costly to refine than gasoline). i bought a 300se to see if i caould switch back to buying gas but i found that the diesel gets 20% better fuel economy and even with diesel being higher than regular gas (about $2.55/gal) it is still cheaper to drive the diesel. that being said the prices are killing me but i have not curtailed my driving because of it.

It wouldn't surprise me. I got 46 in mixed driving (including a few spirited starts and 250+ miles at 76mph on the highway with the AC on) on my first tank. If I baby it I don't think 50 would be impossible, esp. since mine has manual windows, mirrors, seats, etc... (i.e. as light as possible).

Yeah, why is that? Do they just see a demand issue with the trucking companies for diesel? A sure thing if they jack the cost of diesel up? That jerks my chain, too... :mad:

Remember when VW came up with the bug? People were buying them new and marking them up and selling them to others. Now, the demand has calmed down some. Maybe VW is set up to manufacture so many and they might not want to make more because they don't want to have so many in stock. Remember, inventory costs money to keep. Also, what if they made more and demand went down? then be stuck with a bunch of cars you have to move by lowering the price. You might All things to consider when you are in production.

Good point... but the VW dealers have loads of cars on the lot, just no TDIs!

since I must commute for work, I've decided to conserve by not working.

Wanna bet? If gas goes suddenly instead of gradually to $5 a gal, do you think there will be no economic repercussions? You think that gas price effects only your wallet at the pump? Think again. Gas goes up and so does the price of everything else. That is unless you live off the land.

Our electric bills down here have gone up 26% in the last 6 mos.

The electric company claims it's all due to rising fuel prices.

Can you see the fed lowering interest rates to spur economic growth within 6 mos? I do. They've lowered mortgage rates again. Coincidence? Na.

Here's proof:

Oil prices up, mortgage rates down
By Holden Lewis • Bankrate.com
Rising oil prices contributed to a second consecutive weekly drop in mortgage rates.

The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 5 basis points to 5.70 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.32 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.04 percent.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 7 basis points to 5.08 percent. The one-year adjustable-rate mortgage was unchanged at 4.06 percent.

- advertisement -


Long-term mortgage rates tend to move in the same direction as yields on 10-year Treasury notes, and those yields fell when oil flirted with $55 a barrel late last week.

"The bond market furthered its recent trend of moving in lock step with oil prices: Higher oil prices, lower yields; lower oil prices, higher yields," financial analyst Harvey B. Hirschhorn wrote this week for clients of Banc of America Capital Management.

Bond traders believe that higher energy costs threaten economic growth, Hirschhorn says.

Higher energy prices could add fuel to inflation, too -- and rising prices would put upward pressure on interest rates. But right now, bond investors are more worried about the effects of rising oil prices on economic growth than on inflation.

Bankrate's benchmark 30-year rate was an already-low 5.84 percent in its Oct. 6 survey, then dropped to 5.75 percent in the Oct. 13 survey. The two-week slide incited a surge of mortgage applications, which were up 7.9 percent, seasonally adjusted, from the week before, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Much of that increase was the result of homeowners wanting to refinance their mortgages, as rates have fallen to a seven-month low.

Those people -- especially the homeowners who engineered cash-out refinancings, in which they borrowed more than they currently owed and pocketed the difference -- will be glad to discover that Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has given them his imprimatur.

Speaking at the annual meeting of America's Community Bankers, Greenspan said that "the surge in cash-out mortgage refinancings likely improved rather than worsened the financial condition of the average homeowner." That's especially true of people who used the money to pay off higher-interest debt.

Greenspan believes it's "quite unlikely" that there's a housing bubble that's about to pop, but that the possibility "cannot be readily dismissed." He says that if home prices did drop steeply in large swaths of the country, it could "expose recently incurred mortgage debt to decreasing values of home collateral," but on the other hand, people who have owned their homes for more than a year "have equity buffers in their homes adequate to withstand any price decline other than a very deep one."

One can hope that he will clarify his thoughts in coming weeks and months.


We're all doomed............... ;)

Thats one of my pet peeves, here in Michigan we have literally an infinite supply of Natural Gas, most of the NG wells in Michigan had huge tax payer subsidies to be drilled.

And what happens?

The power company converts a Nuke plant to NG, at taxpayer expense and to add insult to injury they are banging us huge on electric and gas prices. We have deregulated energy but they forgot one big component of deregulation....competition. Its a bipartison scam and to me is the sickest abuse of power I've seen in my lifetime.

Hell yeah
 

I've been watching the nickels on gas expenditures ever since I started driving, and that's almost 30 years now. Especially now. I rethink trips (a la the WWII question "Is this trip really necessary?" when gas was rationed), I walk where I can, I order stuff via Internet, I keep the car (the economical M111 4-cyl.) tuned and the tires well-filled.

The pundits keep telling us that gas prices, "in real terms," were higher in 1981. Well, let's see. . . .

1) In 1981 I rented a 2-bedroom apt. in a nice suburb for $250/month. That figure is worth $440 today . . . but I have a hell of a time finding a nice 1-bedroom in a decent area for that, and have had to settle on the cheaper bank of the river. Anything in my old area goes for a *lot* more than $440.

2) In 1976, when I started driving, gas was .55 a gallon. My old Ford Maverick, an average-sized car w/ average efficiency, got 15 mpg. Flash to today: The cost of gas has gone up 4.5 times, but we're not getting 67 mpg on average cars, are we?

My point is that so many other prices have gone up, while wages have not, that $3.00/gallon is appreciably harder on the average person's budget than $1.20/gallon was in the early '80s.

“aklim: If the big 3 go down, many people go out of work besides the GM workers. Japan does that too. They tax the hell out of imports to protect the local industry. My cousin works with Toyota in KY. He tells me that where possible, they would buy Jap even in KY. Part of what they are trying to do is protect the big 3 because there will be hell to pay if the big 3 go down.

Lets say for the sake of arguement that you are right. Why hasn't China imported those things here? Hell, they import pretty much everything else. I have seen a Sumuri sword that was made in China. You might be smart but the Chinese are not stupid. There might be reasons that they do not import these cars since it would be a killer of every other car. Perhaps the quality and safety factors are not up to par? Maybe by the time they get it up to par, it would cost about the same as KIAs or Daewoos?

Not much. They just raise the price of gas by taxes is all. Now they are considering a per-mile tax because the cars are so efficient. My issue with that is that they will probably make this new tax supplement the already existing tax and be double or triple dipping.”

So by extension, the slaughter in Iraq is all about subsidizing the interests of big 3?

What is the real risk of loosing them—the big 3 that is? Why do we benefit from them as another fed backed welfare case? How many jobs are directly and indirectly related to car manufacturer? Mind you that service, and long term supply will still take place in the USA because folks won’t ship their car to xxx to have the oil or alternator changed. That is where the vast majority of the jobs are.

By comparison has the country suffered in any way for the progressive loss of manufacturing that has taken place over the last 40 years? We are already largely a service related country. The USA has time and again proven itself hugely resilient.

Did the collapse of Enron and the resultant loss of retirement benefits damage the country? I agree it damaged the folks who invested and worked for Enron, but did it do so for the country?

What is the net loss going to be by bringing in these cheap Chinese made vehicles, where they cost 1/3rd or less of the cost of a typical new car, and get 1/2 the fuel consumption. As I see it it amounts to a savings of about 75% on the purchase price and financing costs, and at least 50% on fuel costs. Is this exorbitant expense really worth it to protect the big 3? Pursue this course and we can stop sending our $$ to the ME. Take cash from them, which clearly the fundamentalists want, and they cease to be a problem.

This might be an irritant to some but I have to agree that the potential of the gov raising taxes to accommodate losses in other revenue sources is likely, but again, isn’t it better if it amounts to a net saving of say 60% on the cost of a vehicle and at least 50% on the cost of fuel?

Hit 2.70 here today. My big E-350 cargo van cost me 87.00 to fill up.

:pukeface: :eek: :dizzy:

To give myself a $$$ break, I told the wife we're staying home today and happy hour will be in my pool. although it's piss warm.

Gas is about 2.60 for basic unleaded here. I just filled up my Explorer today for $42.00. Wow. I saw a GTI TDI today, I didn't think VW made those. Nice car, I liked it more than the Jetta. I don't drive very much, I'm close to everything I need, but the cost of transporting everything I need to my proximity has to impact the cost eventually. Everyone is saying $3.00+ by ther end of the month. Geez, I remember when gas was under $!/gallon, just a few years ago when I started law school, I think 2000-2001.

Here's an interesting article on the real price of gas. The gist is that gas prices have declined in real terms and as a percent of our disposible incomes. I remember the '80's and how it really bit hard to fill up the tank even if gas was < $2.00. And back then we didn't have many options; there were very few cars capable of > 25 mpg. Forward to now and there are all kinds of high mpg options--both domestic and foreign. Anybody who first buys a vehicle that gets 15 mpg (which is of course their right) but then complains about it is acting like a 12 year old.

gas price article

Sholin

Hold on...

"Measured in real dollars, gas prices peaked in March 1981 at more than $3 per gallon. We have not even come close to paying the highest real gas price in history — today's prices are still 30% below the all-time high."

I just paid $2.84 a gallon in New Jersey - not too far from the "all time high" of $3.00 - so if I complain today, does that mean I am acting like a 14 year old?

-g

I read someplace that certain GM fullsize cars get something like 30mpg highway. One would think they would capitalize on that and advertise like crazy to offset the likely drop in SUV sales. Not surprising, The General may be missing another marketing opportunity.

I think that GM is waiting to play the gas card. How many manufactures have added flex fuel options to trucks and SUV's other than GM and not too mention hybrid pickup and suv's? They have had high gas prices in the crystal ball for several years.