Last night; Regular gas $3.49, Ethanol $2.69.

$3.20.9 at the stations near my house this morning for regular unleaded.

Of course I sold the 32 mpg on regular gas car about six months ago and now get 20 mpg on premium. :\

I knew I could make gas prices go up by getting rid of that car.

i'm not laughing. i've got a 4 door Honda Civic. (My 7 year old has big plans to convert it to an off-roader someday.)

When we were moving a couple years ago a nice, not so big house, was available right across the street from work. My commute to work is .5 miles. Wife stays at home with the kids and works part time in the evenings, her commute is about 1 mile. When its nice out I just walk to work.

I was talking to a guy who recently bought a slightly used Jeep Grand Cherokee. He said it sucks up premium gas like a drunk locked in a liquor store, not getting much more than 12 mpg.

When my local station owner said to look for $5.50/gal this summer, that was for regular. How much will premium be?

Many Americans are apparently willing to pay ANY price for gas, if they buy a gas guzzler that requires premium at today's prices. And the oil companies know that.

SUCKERS!!!

Sue

The problem is the emissions. Diesel engines have difficulty meeting our emissions requirements, because our emissions regulation were tailored around gas engines. They can do it, but it typically requires significant amount of emissions control equipment. This stuff is complicated, it hurts fuel economy, and it's very expensive. Combine that with the typically greater price on diesel vs. regular gas, and it starts to make less and less sense to buy a U.S. spec diesel.

That's not to say we wont start seeing some options. Chevy, for example, is bringing out a diesel version of their Cruze compact car. Being it has such a small engine it doesn't have as much difficulty meeting emissions requirements, therefore it might actually be worth purchasing. We wont really know for sure until we can get some verified fuel economy numbers.



That's a jeep srt-8, a buddy of mine has one. Jeep basically took the biggest and most powerful V8 Chrysler makes and stuck it in a grand cherokee, then modified the suspension and sold them in limited numbers (really for collectors and enthusiasts more-so than average joe's). Amazing vehicle, in the winter you can blast through the snow with ease, in the summer you can out-run sports cars at the track. The poor fuel economy is a worthy trade-off if you're into the performance aspect. Especially when you consider it can still go a lot of places your average sports car can't.

This is so frustrating. The Skoda Octavia, for example, by all reports a fine car (concur, I've ridden in them), has a diesel model that is clocking close to 50 mpg. Yet, cars in the U.S. are struggling to break 40 mpg, and they brag if they make it into the 30s. As I recall, a 1964 era VW bug got low 30s mpg back then. . .

I need to go shopping tomorrow. It will cost me about $68.00 just for the round trip. Not counting buying anything.

Living in a remote part of the desert is wonderful....most of the time. The drive is about 120 miles each way. Most of it through an indian reservation. Great scenery.


Hmmmm going to Mexico next thurs. I will try to check prices there.

I have two vehicles. One is a suzuki XL7, a sort of small SUV. Gets about 22mpg.

Second is a 1 ton, dodge crew cab, long bed 4x4 truck. It gets about 25mpg empty. Guess which one is a diesel?

Actually the diesel truck gets 19mpg carrying our lance camper. When we go to the big city (tucson) we take the dodge/camper.

That way we can stay for several days, do our shopping slowly and then drive back into the desert. Looks like we will have to start buying for a longer time period. Can't take too many trips to the city at $68 each.

I hear my wallet moaning....

Nomad

I agree that it's frustrating. I've been trying to buy a replacement to my 1995 diesel GMC Suburban for years now, but one simply doesn't exist. GM made a concept version Suburban HD, which averaged over 20mpg and could still tow over 9,000lbs. However, they decided not to produce it when they figured the option cost for the 4.5L diesel engine would be around $5,000.

Sure, most people aren't willing to pay that up front.....but I'd be happy to, considering the gas version of the same truck averages 12mpg with similar HP and lot less torque.

Now, there are some options out there if you're looking for smaller vehicles. VW, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes are all offering diesels right now. For example:

Audi has their diesel A3 hatchback that gets 30 city/42 highway. By comparison, the gasoline version gets 22 city/28 highway on premium. The difference is staggering. If they offered an AWD version I would own one.

Nomad -- What year Dodge Ram are you driving? I hear the older models got better mileage.