Gas prices going up

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Well if I can find Gas now for under $3 in my area. I am filling up. All the stations are about $3.10, I hate to say this but it might be coming time to get rid of my Suv.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

Well if I can find Gas now for under $3 in my area. I am filling up. All the stations are about $3.10, I hate to say this but it might be coming time to get rid of my Suv.

It's taken you this long to figure that out?

[Icc5 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Icc5]

Not in California

I guess you won't be coming out our way soon. I have been seeing all the stations out here at $3.25 or more. Oh wait, that was yesterday. I see it went up again.
Bart

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

With oil getting close to $100/barrell I don't see it coming down very soon. Our leases are up in 16 months. Depending on where the price of oil is then will determine what we do with our present vehicles. I managed to fill up one vehicle yesterday at $2.89. on the way home I past another gas station that had already gone up to $2.96. Good thing I had filled the van up the day before.

My problem with trading the car for something with better mpg is we dont' drive that many miles. We've had both cars for 2 yrs and 8 months and only have 19,500 on each vehicle. They're hardly broken in and how much $$ would I really save if I even double my gas milage? If I could double my MPG we'd only save $880/year per vehicle. To do that would mean going from a mini-van and SUV to two Toyota Prius's. If our monthly payments went up you can deduct some of that fuel savings and then there's the potential maintenance cost with this new generation technology. Prius will also have lost it's tax deductable status by the time our leases are up.

So at this point it's pretty much still a wash for us but, that can change depending on the price of gas. $4/gallon the savings would be $1124/car and at $5 gallon it would be $1,140. I could probably still say it's worth it to me to have the larger vehicles even at those prices. At least it's not worth getting into another 4 years of payments vs the pay off point of the vehicles we have now.

One thing I am glad we purchased is locking gas caps. You know darn good and well everyone won't be able to afford newer high gas milage vehicles and they'll still have to get to their jobs (if they have them). I can see at some point an issue with gas siphoning for any car that's not secured in some fashion and if a tank of gas is going for $100 that can get pretty expensive. To be honest, I thought it'd be more of a problem by now than it is.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

We may hit $4/gallon before we go back to under $3/gallon.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

We may hit $4/gallon before we go back to under $3/gallon.

At this point it would not surprise me to see that $5 mark in the U.S. within the next 24 months. I guess it's going to sort of depend on what the government is willing to do (exploration in presently prohibited areas) if increase energy costs cause the economy to tank.

I really feel for our oversea's members who must not only tolerate the high cost of oil but the high taxes places on their personal consumption. It was over $5/gallon sometime back. I shudder to think what it's doing now.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

As to locking gas caps, I remember the gas crisis of the 70's where one guy I knew had a locking gas cap. When he went out to go home after work, the car wouldn't run- it started and stopped, then it wouldn't start at all. Someone had gone under the car and poked a hole in the tank and drained the gas out. A siphoning would have been less costly in his case.

[Fern Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fern]

Doug,
I understand your price analysis re: new car or not. I drive a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan with 31,000 miles on it. Since I drive the electric cart around here, and Jerry has a car too, I only put about 4,000-5,000 miles a year on it. It gets 15 mpg around here, about 18 mpg if I have company (cause I'm driving further). Even with the poor gas mileage, no matter how I do the math I can't see buying a new car. This one is paid for.

Fern

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

Unfortunately, it's going to take $4+ gas to get this country to seriously contemplate alternatives. In that sense, I hope it hits $5/gallon (and I own a 4x4 truck and an SUV).

[reloader Member Find all posts View Profile Close reloader]

For heaven sakes your complaing about $3 + a gallon when in Scotland we're at £1.05 a LITRE!!!!!!

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

As to locking gas caps, I remember the gas crisis of the 70's where one guy I knew had a locking gas cap. When he went out to go home after work, the car wouldn't run- it started and stopped, then it wouldn't start at all. Someone had gone under the car and poked a hole in the tank and drained the gas out. A siphoning would have been less costly in his case.

Now that's the mark of a desperate person. Somehow I'm not certain that will be a prevelant problem. At any rate my insurance deductable is $500. If a tank of gas costs me $60 and if I was losing gas through syphoning it would take losing 9 tanks of gas to equal 1 insurance deductable. Somehow I think the odds of losing 9 tanks of gas compared to having someone risk being blown up by putting a hole in the bottom of my gas tank is the higher risk. Not that losing 9 tanks of gas is all that likely anyway.

It sort of goes back to the theory of lock your car or don't lock your car. A thief can do more damage breaking into your car than the value of stealing items from your car. On the other hand, if you make it easy for them your likely to lose considerably more items than if you locked your car. So which is really more expensive? Making it easy on the thiefs and encouraging theft because it's easy or discouraging theft by making it harder on them but risking expensive repairs? I'm in the making it harder on thiefs camp myself.

[winger Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close winger]

It's taken you this long to figure that out?

Yeh, BigFrank is getting a little slow in his years

[Jimbo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jimbo]

PA

I was out and about all day and saw 2.89 and then was seeing 2.99 our there abouts all over the place. I did not see any at $3 as I think they are cautious to be the first to break the barrier.

As for $5 / gal. Not sure I want to see it for any reason at all. I don't think most people will make a different decision depending on the gas prices. I certainly don't want to go out and purchase another car simply because I could save less than $1K in 12 months. I know those Prius's come at a premium. One I am not sure you ever recoup!

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

York County, VA, along Hwy US-17... $2.22, then 2.19 and WalMart (using gift card) was $2.18 today.

What's going on?

May it be we will see under $2.00 by Spring?

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

Our area is around $2.37 . shaggy