Archive through July 09, 2011

[dbellamy]

been a while but I need you guys to know that your prices for gas are still good compared to here in Canada on the west coast.
Filled up yesterday at one of the cheaper stations here with regular grade fuel. We pay by the litre here and the prices have just come down.
$1.29 per litre
3.785 litres to make up 1 US gallon
$1.29 x 3.785 = $4.88 a gallon
the crazy thing about gas is no matter what price it is we are still going to need it and will pay whatever it is. I may however walk to the corner store vs drive

 

[kweaver]

Marathon went to $3.63.9 .... up 43 cents Monday to Saturday.

 

[jbaker]

$3.65 on Rockford, Il west side.

 

[wshytle]

Yesterday I went and filled my little Ford truck, two five gallon gas "cans", and a two gallon can.....$88 and change. The sad part is I believe there is plenty of oil right here in the US. I've heard all sorts of reports from not much left to 200 year resevoirs.

I wish we had a government with balls and honesty but that's apparently asking too much. Oil is the last thing they would level with us about anyway.

 

[thoffman]

How can you have economic growth when you can't afford to put gas in you car to get to work???

 

[kide]

I've come to the conclusion that websites like Gasbuddy.com may hurt....... It allows faster price checking by the oil companies - one bumps their price up and an hour later everybody else has checked the web and follows suit. In the old days, they at least had to have someone get out of the office to check on the competition.. Yeah, I know there's no collusion between the oil companies..

 

[aschumacher]

Last summer I was talking to a manager/mechanic at a local BP station and he said he had to call in the local competition prices daily. Since some of the pumps were computerised(credit/debit) the pump prices were changed automatically by the master computer! The only thing saving us in this area is that the state of N.J. only permits one price change per 24 hr period. Some smart-a$$es tried to do multiple changes, but the state inspectors were in-their-face in a couple days.<font size="-2">(Beware the wrath of the angry consumer!)</font>

 

[kweaver]

Marathon dropped back to $3.49.9

yoyo ... got us on a string ... pulling our chain too

 

[jbaker]

I stopped and filled up at a independent citgo $3.67 I could read the sign at the Mobil 1/2 a block away and it was $3.79...Rockford, Il

 

[kide]

I'm wondering if Ford ever learned anything from the old GM's demise... Gas prices looking to stay at this new "normal" level and they have nothing lined up to replace the Ranger.... F150s are nice, but we don't all need a full size truck. The "new" GM has the Aussie "UTEs" that they could sell here... there was talk of a new Ford F-100, but that's apparently dead.

 

[thoffman]

When are we going to end this s==t with the oil companies?? 50+ years ago we sent a man to the moon and back on a computer with less power than your average cell phone and today we can't figure out a different way to power a car?? WTF!

 

[jchamberlin]

Tom: I love what a former Saudi Oil Minister is reputed to have said, "The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stone."

I hope we don't wait till we're out of oil to break our dependence on it. The oil economy seems to corrupt everyone who touches it.

 

[kide]

Tom:
50 years ago the assumption was there would be a breakthrough in power generation (fusion reactors??) that would provide clean "effortless" energy. You know, little reactors in your heli-car that would only be replaced every 10 years.
Instead we keep getting crap (no offense when I step on toes here) like this:
1: Electric cars that charge from the power grid, thereby increasing the use of inefficient central power distribution and not really decreasing the net energy usage, just moving it to coal.
2: Gasohol, created by taking food quality corn and making alcohol, with a net increase in the use of petroleum to grow the crops..
3: Hydrogen power .....requiring high pressure insulated tanks; still needing networks of filling stations that store big quantities(BOOM goes the 7-11)..
4: Compressed air - yup believe it or not, they're showing off vehicles powered with tanks of compressed air . I guess they think the electricity needed to compress the air is free ..One show I saw actually said "powered by the air we breathe..".

The point is there has been no breakthrough in energy generation of the type we saw when nuclear power was developed.....So many tons of coal, so many barrels of oil create corresponding amounts of energy. In the 50's, it was assumed we'd be talking about minute amounts of fuel to create those same amounts of energy......dream on.

 

[dtanner]

Gerry Ide

I`am willing to bet that a better cheaper way to power an auto has been found but never made it into production. the big oil company's bought that up to protect there market share.remember when the 56 Chev had fuel injection but it was years later till all gas engines had it installed. what happened there with that ??? I would run right out and buy a Ford ranger new now if it came with a small turbo diesel , but they won`t make them over here. A small turbo diesel in a ranger would give over 30 mpg I bet, The 4 liter they use now are a pig on gas this I know i sold mine. the ranger was a good small truck but the fuel cost was to high for such a small truck. When Ford did build a diesel ranger they used a non turbo diesel and it was a pity to drive because it was so under powered the way it was set up. A small turbo and it came to life and had lots of power and torque for its size.There are more than a few trucks out now that cut cylinders down to run more efficient and I will stay away from them because I think the cost will be to high once the warranty is over and you have a computer issue with them.I took my car yesterday to the local Hyundai shop for a replacement end link for the rear sway bar , a $45.00 part and two nuts to remove and install the new part. well the bill was $126.95 for that job. We are paying WAY to much for the work we get for what we see in return.when will it end? I try to do most of my own maintenance to my vehicles that I can to save $$ . I need to buy a propane torch so I can heat rusty nuts so I can do that job for myself in the future. It would come in handy for the Cub also. later Don T

 

[kide]

Don:
The '57 - '65 Rochester FI didn't help with gas mileage. It was pretty crude compared to the modern electronic FI. If you'd like to read a good two part article about it see this and this. I agree that modern FI provides much better mileage than carbs, but the old fuelie units were mainly used for higher horsepower. The bigger problem with them was Chevy mechanics as a general rule hated them and this was a problem because their mechanical design required lots of maintenance. In our area, the brother of one of the speed shop owners was known as the best fuelie tuner. I knew a guy with a '62 327 fuelie Vette - the best he ever saw was about 21 MPG. Dennis may remember this, but a lot of early tunnel ram intakes for SB chevys were fuelie units with the top milled off and a flat carb flange welded on..

Back to my original post - incremental increases in fuel economy are just going to prolong our misery. The needed change is a "paradigm shift" into an entirely new source of energy. We <u>have</u> made great strides in some areas, especially electric motors and power controllers. I keep reading about room temperature super conductors that might provide more increases in efficiency (if we can afford the materials they're made from). I wonder if instead of putting all of our research into better batteries, combining the motors we have now with better fuel cells might be a better solution..

BTW - neighbor has been spending big bucks on R/C trucks for a couple of years - he started with nitro powered state of the art jobs that are fussy to start and keep running. His new ones are battery powered, just as fast and run 40+ minutes on a charge versus the 20-25 minutes on a tank of nitro. Now we just need to scale those 1:10th jobs up to 1:1..

You might look at garage sales for a set of used HVAC tech acetylene torches if you don't want a full size set. They are great for portability. Other than that, I also vote on MAPP gas over propane, you can actually braze (and weld verrrry thin stock)..

 

[thoffman]

$0.22 price jump overnight, Now WTF happened?

 

[thoffman]

Back up to $4.00 8-(

 

[kide]

I filled my bike with 92 octane today ('cause it was so hot out) in 3.41.9 at St. Johns - about 15 miles North of Lansing.. Go figure, we're usually higher here in the "mitten".....

 

[dfrisk]

GERRY - If your neighbor has a gas RC car/truck that can run 20-25 minutes on one tank of fuel they have REALLY changed or started putting HUGE tanks on them since we last ran them. We'd get up to 6-7 minutes of run time when racing with either the .12 cid 1/10th scale 2WD trucks or .21 cid 1/8th scale 4WD buggies.
They really aren't that hard to tune and get running. Our gas cars could all sit and idle for a minute or more.

It is amazing how much the battery powered cars have improved. They always were as fast as gas cars on the race track, they handled better. But 10-12 yrs ago you had to CONSERVE your batteries to run 4-5 minute heats back when 1400, 1700, even 2000 mA batteries were the best available. SON tried racing again about two yrs ago and the lithium batteries with brushless motors could run 10-12 minutes with NONE of the bad habits the ni-cad batteries had like high voltage for a few seconds right after a charge, then stable until they dumped. And a "GOOD" pack would dump like you flipped a switch. Plus the old brush type motors needed the comms turned every few runs to maintain performance, and the "GOOD" high silver content brushes were terribly hard on comms.

The RC cars are another thing that racing, and technology has really "improved the breed".

 

[jbaker]

$3.67 on the west side of Rockford, IL