Bones45

So with gas prices in the high $2.90's here in New York, I decided that this would be as good of a time as any to do a test on mileage.

Oh good...another mileage thread!!!


I usually drive pretty normal in my '01 SE, auto, and have gotten about 20-22 MPG. No higher than 80mph on the highway and no racing, hi RPM's, etc.

My test is very simple, yet difficult to do. Im going to drive at least 1/2 a tank no revving higher than 2000rpm.

Of course, If its a choice between getting on the LIE successfully and having a semi coming through the trunk, Im going to rev past 2k, but essentially all driving will be all very low RPM. As long as Im not in a rush--I should be ok.

krazysashka

good idea, im about to try that too.LOL.

UGAd13

Let's see how many people can get in before
#1

Bborges

iTrader: (1)

Actually driving around 2000 RPM is not the goal. You should be looking for TORQUE Peak if you want efficiency. Thats when the engine has better mileage.


Anyone has the dyno plot for a stock maxima??


BB

BlackMaxima01

I did a test for this 2 weeks ago. All highway driving with revs no higher than 2500. The fastest I went was 75 - 80 at a max RPM of 3100. I drive manual so it was easier to manage. I ended up with 420 miles to the tank.

Bones45

420/18 is 23mpg.

Im doing a mix of driving..not all highway.. when Im on the highway..Im only going 60.

TXT-1

iTrader: (1)

I always tell myself I am gonna take it easy, but never end up doing it when I'm actually driving. I guess when gas passes $5.00 a gallon, I will drive like a grandma.

lowincash

iTrader: (2)

hehe i've been driving very slow lately and i haven't passed 70mph on the freeway in a looong time haha...kinda feels good to drive slow and peaceful no need to rush. gas here is like $3.09/gallon and i got about 310miles before i went to fill her up and there was like 1 gallon or so in my car still...but yea with gas prices constantly rising every day i'm not going to be driving as hard as i use to anymore haha

callmezeus

I rarely rev my Auto past 4K RPM. I mainly do city driving. Dont worry guys. Bush will steal oil from another country eventually. Maybe now that gas is so expensive it will keep butthole drivers, and kids off the roads.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

Yeah, good luck with that... I noticed the traffic almost doubled on my commute route since Monday from all people coming back from vacations before the school start... Will probably see even more of them in the following weeks... Even though, I get a good chuckle seeing SUV's pull in to the gas stations and that makes me feel a bit better

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

We should just take Iraq's oil. They owe us. We already have troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Let's just declare victory and divert all the oil going to ChiComs here.

Also drill ANWAR, CA, and FL.

wngan9447

iTrader: (4)

Atlanta just hit $6.09/gallon for super... WTF

Bones45

what amazing is the 10 refineries in teh gulf which are now out of commision make up only 10% of the refining for the country.

So really the prices going up are all speculation. Nothing has changed in the middle east. More importantly..Its our A$$hole presidents ties to the oil industry which are doing this.

But lets stay on topic..

AcerX

Everybody already hates us anyway, so lets give them a reason to do it. They have so much oil that its bordering on insane. Why do they need it, have you seen the cars they drive/blow-up, not exactly gas guzzlers if you know what I mean. We should start charging them high prices for all that food we give them for free to begin with!

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

It's not all speculation. Like you said, 10% of the refining capacity is down. The price will rise to a point at which people will reduce consumption by 10%.

It's not just A$$hole presidents, it's A$$hole senators that block drilling in ANWAR and off the coast of FL and CA. CA has nearly the same amount of oil as Alaska. Enviromentalist wackos are also to blame that block any new refineries from being built.

AcerX

BTW, Gulf Power makes up for much more than just 10%. There is a rumor that they might have to shut down public schools for a few weeks across the nation because it will become to expensive to run school buses.

nasalcedo03

With typical everyday driving, I get around 400 miles to a tank. This past weekend I had to drive straight from here in NJ to Erie, PA at night.

WOW!

I filled up right before I left on friday, parked the whole weekend, and filled up again before I returned on Sunday. Mileage for the trip was 420 and the gas gauge was just below the 1/4 mark. Fillup was just over 14 gallons. That averages out to around 30 mpg and 500 miles to the tank.

Not bad.


Since I'm new, I might as well introduce myself a little. Just bought my Max in January after totalling the mini-van I had (was free so ....). It is a 2000 GLE, auto, with the sorta silver color (can't really figure it out), black interior, all options. I bought it with 149,500 miles on it, now has 158,xxx. Had to replace the brake pads/rotors earlier (grinding or something) and the ignition coils recently. No other problems. I'm about to do an Auto-RX treatment on the tranny and then the oil, so hopefully it will last a long time

Bones45

Acer---every article I have read reading this all say that the gulf refineries only make up 10%.

<shrugs>

AcerX

I'll check with my father (Manager at Southern Company) again, but I'm fairly certain its like 15%.

5thgen2nr

We get between 11 and 13% of our crude from the middle east...we get a majority of our oil from...probably couldn't see this one coming...South America.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

Price is up because profit taking is going on and because we'll have to keep buying it to get to work. Oil companies are using New Orleans' misfortune as an excuse to jack up the price. Barrel of oil has hit $70 of which oil companies are taking $40-50 PROFIT...

boondoxmax

iTrader: (1)

i get into 6th gear asap when i get on the highway.

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

You're right, we get most of our oil from Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada.

AcerX

... can I get an AMEM! Another thing that pisses me off is when you hear on the news that these gas stations only make 5 cents a gallon profit off gas, what a load of cow dung! If they only made 5 cents a gallon there wouldn't be any inclination to sell the stuff! Did somesay PROPOGANDA!

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

You obviously don't understand the law of supply and demand. They may be making a $40-$50 profit per barrel, but we can't drill anywhere and we can't build any new refineiries either. Therefore, we can't increase our domestic supply of oil and refined products (gasoline) to bring down the price.

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

This is false. If gas stations were making obscene profits, everyone and their brother would be opening up gas stations which would then bring profits to near zero.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

Aren't you wrong. The demand and supply in North America, which is the largest consumer, is steady on both D and S side. Like I said, and will repeat, profit taking. Put yourself in their shoes (oil companies) and think for a moment, if you could charge $10 a gallon at a gas station and have people still buy it with the same intensity, i.e. you sell the same volume but at a higher price, wouldn't you jack up the price too?? Face it, they will charge whatever price the market will bear since they are an uncontrolled monopoly...

brian02max

iTrader: (13)

I stick to the interstate almost exclusively and used to get around 26MPG. I squeezed out about another 2-3MPG when I installed the Injen intake a short while back. Regardless, with prices breaking $3/gallon here I may still have to look at carpooling.

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

Supply is not steady, it just went down by 10% or so. Supply from imported oil hasn't gone up over lately and our domestic supply is going down because we can't drill anywhere. If you and I are competing gas station owners and you jack up prices to $10 a gallon, I will keep my price low and steal all your customers from you and you won't sell a drop of gasoline.

Demand is up because of a growing economy and peoples desires to drive SUV's. The price of imported oil is also going up because of increasing world demand (China).

You can't jack up the price to $10/gal unless people are willing and able to pay it and there isn't anyone else offering the same product for less.

I would love to sell my maxima for a million dollars but it won't happen because there are others selling for less and people can't pay a million dollars for a maxima.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

It is correct that the demand in China and India have gone up in recent years as a result of their economic growth and that North American demand is steady; however, the world supply has also increased to compensate for the rise of global demand due to China/India so we (as World) are at S/D equilibrium point. So for today (Sep 1st) there is no supply nor demand problem that should cause the increase in oil price. The only excuse is the catastrophy that happened...

Point you are mentioning of free market price competition works in economies where the competitors are using independent sources of product, e.g. Canada vs. US wood or beef. In that case they can undercut each other to the roots or bones as you like. But in oil case, all companies are using the same resources, South America or Middle East and most are under the OPEC umbrella, so in reality you are buying the same oil but just under different brand name that is refined under.

And also consider this, if you can sell your oil at $10 a gallon cause people will buy no matter what (or whatever the price is today) and make a killing on it, why wouldn't I wanna do the same. I would be only crazy not to charge you the same and forgo the profit ;-)

Yes, they can charge $10 per gallon if they want to for some time as it will take consumers quite some time to adjust to the price. You take profit for that period and then you drop the price down again, but never to below the original price as the profit always tastes better...

TXT-1

iTrader: (1)

Interesting read on how gas prices work.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/gas-price.htm

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

In a competitive market, you can't simply raise prices and expect everyone else to follow suit. The oil market is probably the most competitive market there is. With oil, you have to go and find it, get govt. approval, drill for it, pump it out, transport it to the refinery, refine it, then transport it to the consumer, pay for your overhead, and then make a profit. It's still amazing that you can get gas for $3/gal if you consider all the costs involved.

The oil market is so large that no one player has the power to raise prices. THat's why OPEC was formed. But, OPEC has lost pricing power and is now pumping near capacity. In addition, OPEC is only supplies about 1/3 of the total market now. The price of oil is too high for OPEC's comfort because the price is high enough that it gives people incentives to find alternatives to fossil fuels. If someone invents an alternative energy source as a result of these high prices, OPEC is SCREWED, big time. This is what happened in the 80s. We became more fuel efficient and demand went down and the price of oil crashed.

Why do oil companies suddenly have total control over prices? Why aren't they charging $10/gal now? Why were they only charging $1/gal back in 1998? Were they being benevolent, or was it market forces dictating the price?

Orange juice costs $3-$4/gal and it grows on trees. With orange juice, all you have to do is hire some illegals to pick some oranges and squeeze the juice out of the oranges and then transport it.

Demand here in the USA is not steady, it is increasing. Domestic supply is decreasing because oil wells are being depleated and no one can drill new ones. OPEC is pumping at near 100% capacity. The overall oil supply here in the USA is down because of the reduced capacity in the gulf and the fact that much of our imported oil comes in through LA.

nasalcedo03

I'm sorry but this made me laugh. The amount of ignorance in this thread in general is very amusing.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

I think you should tune in to CNN to get your facts straight...

Puppetmaster

iTrader: (48)

That is not profit taking, that is increased demand, holding supply constant. You said yourself above that there is more quantity demanded at every price, which implies a parallel shift right in the demand curve -> increase in market demand.

igzy

iTrader: (18)

Yes, under normal market conditions that would work. But keep in mind that the price of oil jumped >50% in a last month and I have high doubts that there was a corresponding increase in demand or a drop in supply to cause this or both. That is all I am trying to say. Yes, overall there is an increase in demand in other geographies and a steady increase in North America's demand, but there was nothing significant that happened in the World from supply and demand point of view that would cause this drastic jump in price in a last month. I think that the oil companies are ripping us off...

UGAd13

Wow 37 posts. I didn't think it would be open this long. The mods must be on vacation.

Weimar Ben

iTrader: (5)

Demand for oil and gasoline is extremely inelastic. That is, a small change in supply requires a large change in price in order to reduce the demand accordingly. It's a two-edged sword. When there's an oversupply, it takes a corresponding large decrease in price to increase demand. This is what happened in 1998 when gas dropped to less than $1/gal.

If the price falls by 50% tommorrow, are you going to increase the amt. of driving you do by 50%? The price of gas has roughly doubled since I bought my max. Have I decreased my driving by 50%, no-I reduced it maybe 10-20%.

BTW, the price of gas in SLC dropped by 10 cents overnight. I paid $2.69 for premium at costco. Reg. was $2.49.

Bobo

The price of oil and gas is forward-looking, just like the stock market, which anticipates fundamentals 6 to 12 months out. Typically there is some lag in the price of gas at the pump to oil price increases, however, the current gas price jump is being driven more off the fact that the disruption in supply will be somewhat long.

The one way to offset this is to have a nationwide moratorium on driving and keep it in place for some time. I don't mean stop driving completely, but curtail Sunday drives, consolidate trips, stay at home on the Labor Day weekend, car pool, park the SUV and drive the more fuel efficient vehicle etc.

nirvana4all

iTrader: (3)

must be nice, the cheapest around is 3.19/gal