TG02Z71

iTrader: (2)

The rich who control all will only continue to gain power until the revolution begins and ends.
Prolly never happen but I know what I'm doing when it starts.

dirt track racer 81

iTrader: (45)

coming from a guy that has no idea on what oil companys have to spend..what do you think it costs just to drill a well..what does it cost just to complete a well..you have engineers, company guys, pumpers..they get paid..theres hundreds if not thousands of different jobs in the oil field..every one needs to get paid..then wells that need work..which is what i do....a company might spend a million or two just to fix an old well..and then a month later they might end up pluggin it..insurance is astronomical..we have to carry a 2 million dollar policy for each company we work for..how many millions if not billions you think each plateform out in th gulf costs?? yes they make alot of money but they got alot of money going out..and whens prices of oil goes up service companys go up on their rates..oil companys do not set oil prices..we actually do..the demand is so high right now plus the falling dollar...sorry for the rant i get tired of people bitchin about oil companys..sorry bill you was the first post i seen about the huge oil monsters

trever1t

iTrader: (14)

Relax Tyler, read the sarcasm in my words....and who says I have no idea?

1slow01Z71

iTrader: (36)

That is a pretty ignorant statement.

Copy Paste from another site:

Been seeing a lot of talk about this on this board, so I figured I'd do some math.

Say you own a truck that you bought new and are financing it. Chances are you got a great interest rate, less than 2%, so you decided to put as little down as possible to pay off higher-interest debt, make an investment, or just plain be able to get your truck in the first place. As gas prices go up, truck prices go down. So if you put down $0, you might be a bit upside down on your truck loan.

Let's say your truck gets 16mpg once it gets warmed up. This is possible in my heap with 4wd, x-cab, and 33s. So chances are yours can do it to.

For purposes of this "study", I'm going to go with the following numbers:

Your truck gets 16mpg. Your truck is worth 15k. You owe 18k on it. Your payment is $500/month, 0% interest, it'll be paid off in 3 years if you keep it.

You're considering replacing this with a Civic. This car will get 32mpg (exactly double). It's MSRP is 16760. Let's say you can get it for that out the door after negotiating. This is a fairly basic Civic: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-c...Model=FG1168EW It has power windows, but plastic wheel covers.

Here are a couple ways to buy the Civic....

A.) Finance it for 36 months, so it'd be paid off at the same time your truck would have been.
B.) Finance it for 60 months, enjoy a much lower payment, but pay for two more years.

If you get 7% for 60 months on 16760, it's $332/month.
If you get 6% for 36 months on 16760, it's $510/month.

To keep the math relatively understandable, I'm gonna go with the second option. And lets just say that a bit of clever negotiating brings the payment down to $500 even a month for 36 months. Whether you keep the truck or buy the civic, you own a vehicle 100% in 3 years @ $500/month.

If you buy the Civic, there's a $3000 up-front penalty for the negative equity on the truck.

Let's say you drive 15k/year.

Truck gets 16mpg. Thus, it's drinking 937.5 gallons of gas per year.

And your Insurance / misc vehicle expense is $140/month on both (roughly same replacement value).

For the truck:

At $3 gallon, gas is $2,807/year, $233/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+233 = $873/month
At $4 gallon, gas is $3,742/year, $312/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+312 = $952/month
At $5 gallon, gas is $4,678/year, $389/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+389 = $1029/month

For the civic:

At $3 gallon, gas is $1,404/year, $117/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+117 = $757/month
At $4 gallon, gas is $1,871/year, $156/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+156 = $796/month
At $5 gallon, gas is $2,339/year, $195/month Total vehicle expense = $500+$140+195 = $835/month

Civic savings:

At $3 gallon, $117/month
At $4 gallon, $156/month
At $5 gallon, $195/month

Time required to pay back the $3,000 you had to pay to GMAC to get out from being upside down on your truck:

At $3 gallon, $3000/$117/month: 25.6 months
At $4 gallon, $3000/$156/month: 19.2 months
At $5 gallon, $3000/$195/month: 15.4 months

Total gas savings over 36 months of owning Civic:

At $3 gallon: $4212
At $4 gallon: $5613
At $5 gallon: $7017

Minus the $3000 you had to pay to GMAC:

At $3 gallon: $1212
At $4 gallon: $2613
At $5 gallon: $4017

Amortized (average) monthly savings (dividing the above by 36):

At $3 gallon: $33.66
At $4 gallon: $72.58
At $5 gallon: $111.58

Now for resale. This is tricky.

Civic is 3 years old, has 45k miles on it. No warranty.
Truck is now 5 years old, has 75k miles on it. No warranty.

Civic will likely be worth around 10k. If gas is $3/gal, truck will likely be worth more than that. If gas is $5 gal, it'll be worth less than that.

------------------------------

Conclusions:

Doubling your mileage will save you a bit of money. Only $1200 over 3 years if gas prices stay as they are, but $2600 if they AVERAGE $4/gallon, and $4000 if they AVERAGE $5/gallon.

To make this work, you have to actually get 32mpg. Civics don't get this going 80, they get this going 65.

You have to buy a pretty basic car, and it has to have FANTASTIC RESALE VALUE. This means Civic/Corolla. If you buy a Cobalt or a Sentra, and it's worth 6k afer 3 years, well, you just made a grave financial error and have driven a shitbox around for 3 years that cost more money than keeping your truck....even at $5 gallon.

For it really to make any difference, gas has to go up to $4 gallon SOON, and STAY there.

If you buy a more expensive car (e.g., > $17000) that only gets mileage in the 20s, all of the savings will quickly evaporate.

More driving means more savings. Less driving means less savings. This was all based on 15k/year.

Additional civic cons: Your new Civic will have plastic wheel covers and women will laugh at you. I will totally cut you off in traffic and there will be nothing you can do except honk your meeep-meep horn. Iceman drove a Civic.

If you're considering doing this, DO THE MATH FIRST on your own truck vs. the car.

If you wanted to save money on gas, you *REALLY* shouldn't have bought the damn truck in the first place.

1slow01Z71

iTrader: (36)

You have some valid points but you cant deny the oil companies are getting greedy. Some how they have made it the last 80 years and now all the sudden they need to make huge profits. The government is a whole 'nother subject that isnt even worth getting into.

kbracing96

iTrader: (26)

I agree with the post Cody just made. Most people don't realize that the difference in fuel cost of actually owning the vehicle is low, even with high fuel cost. If that makes since, lol.

TurboGibbs

iTrader: (6)

I did the math the other day and If I sold my old beater (95 GMC) and bought a car that got 30mpg, I would save $88 a month on gas. It is worth $88 a month to drive my 17mpg, 500hp truck.

My 72 mile round trip commute is worth it for sure. I'd kill myself in a shitbox! Hot rods are my hobby and i'm going to enjoy it! I could carpool in a company supplied rideshare van and save $200/ month. I'd be constricted to it's "schedule" and have to park my truck in a parking lot overnight for 14hrs at a time for it to get vandalized or stollen. Or I can drive the beater to the lot and let my truck sit in the garage.....Ok, why did I put thousands and blood, sweat, and tears in my truck? Not for it to sit in the f-in garage! That is why I sold my C5 vette! It was sitting in my garage since I was scarred to drive it to work.

I'm not bitching about the gas.....yet.

lady3bglover

iTrader: (3)

That's ca-ca !! I'm close to Houston and we're seeing the pain. I filled up Sunday @ 3.24/gal on the 93.

TurboGibbs

iTrader: (6)

for 93? Congrats, you are buying some of the cheapest gas in the country. About 3.39 here for 93...and it is still cheap compared to the rest of the country.

trever1t

iTrader: (14)

3.77 at Shell and we only have 91...an ca crap at that