Gasoline Humor

[kham]

Still cheaper than flying boys and girls, and you are your own captain/cabin crew/scheduler
No baggage limit or charge either, and the seats generally more comfy

I won't bother with what the current price per litre is but its no fun for truck owners I suspect

95 octane? Must be some diff in octane ratings Billie, 89 is reg here, 91 or higher generally hi-test. Think the highest I have seen in Ontario was around 94, one type of Sunoco gas.

[Duncan Edwards]

Ken, I'm sitting in the airport at the moment returning from business in the Welland area. Tried to calculate price of gas in my head while driving. Y'all appear to pay more but not a great deal more. I think.

[DangerGirl]

Still cheaper than flying boys and girls, and you are your own captain/cabin crew/scheduler
No baggage limit or charge either, and the seats generally more comfy

No one will handle your junk, either. That is, unless you're at a truck stop and you're willing to pay for it.

[kham]

Ken, I'm sitting in the airport at the moment returning from business in the Welland area. Tried to calculate price of gas in my head while driving. Y'all appear to pay more but not a great deal more. I think.

Multiply by 3.79 Dunc and weep That be the equivalent in US Gallons

[Woody]

The good old 99 Honda Civic is back up to 33 mpg or so, thanks to new plugs and an air filter. Even so, I really want to get my woodchip fueled steam powered truck built.
Since I plan to build woodchip powered equipment, I'm going to start with woodchip fueled wood chipper.

Woodchip-fueled wood chipper? That sounds like a perpetual motion machine. Those violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and that's Felony-2. If it makes more fuel that it consumes, then that violates the First Law of Thermodynamics. That's a Felony-1. You'll spend time in jail for that. Or get elected to Congress.

[PM2K]

Still cheaper than flying boys and girls, and you are your own captain/cabin crew/scheduler
No baggage limit or charge either, and the seats generally more comfy

Plus you avoid the strip search... unless that's your thing...

[Mynock]

Wow. At that point even I'd park my car and take a bus. At that price I'd be paying $30 a day just to commute to work.

The nice thing about most developed nations that aren't the United States is that their cities are a bit more compact, making public transit a viable alternative for most people. Compare that to taking a bus anywhere in Southern California; even with the $4.10-per-gallon fuel costs driving yourself is the better deal.

That's exactly the problem. I love rural life but in towns of <5,000 people mass transport just doesn't make sense.

[Billie Bonce]

95 octane? Must be some diff in octane ratings Billie, 89 is reg here, 91 or higher generally hi-test. Think the highest I have seen in Ontario was around 94, one type of Sunoco gas.

I checked it. Yes, in the USA and Canada (and Australia) you use so-called "AKI" number, which is average of RON (research octane number) and MON (motor octane number). The difference is significant, but there is another difference, too. There were rumors that American cars traditionally use gasoline with lower octane ratings, and European manufacturers especially prepare cars for North-American market. It seems, it's true. So, here are comparison of ratings:

Our (ex-USSR) "92" gasoline roughly equals 87 rating in North America.
Our "95" and "EuroSuper" or "EuroPremium" or "Regular unleaded" in Europe - 95 RON and 90-91 rating in North America. This is what we all use. We have "Regular 95" and "Premium (or European) 95". The second is better, but at least 10% more expensive. Our "92" is roughly 5% cheaper than "95", but its quality is uncertain (people who can hire a good lawyer never use this gasoline, so the gasoline station's owners don't beware to add horrible things to it).
We also have (not everywhere, though) "98" (or European "SuperPlus"). It has 93-94 rating in North America.

Today prices in Kiev (at the stations which I trust) are:
92 (would be 87 in the USA) - 9.45 uah/liter = 1.19 US$/liter = 4.50 US$/gallon
95 (would be 91 in the USA) - 9.85 uah/liter = 1.24 US$/liter = 4.69 US$/gallon
I (virtually always) use subway to get to work and back (if I have time I may walk back - it's about 10 kilometers). With today prices subway is 5 times cheaper for me then getting to work by car. For those who lives farther from work it may be 10 times cheaper (Kiev is a big city), not to mention that traffic jam occurs virtually every day, so going by subway in rush hours is much faster, too. Of course, it's not comfortable. I have to add that long range travel by train in Ukraine is also several times cheaper than by car. The price (for train and car) roughly equals if you have 4 persons in car...

[Duncan Edwards]

Stopped to fill up after leaving the airport a while ago and payed $3.39 a gallon. I knew the price of gas was going to rise and in a year or two it might not only be expensive but even scarce. I drive 27 miles each way to work every day so it was my intention to buy a more economical vehicle last October but somehow that didn't work out.

I am not an ostentatious person. For twelve years I drove a very simple four cylinder, standard shift, pickup truck. It was my intention to keep my old truck, a very reliable Ford Ranger with 238,000 miles, and buy a small economy car to get to work and every day driving. My wife never drives my vehicle since she has her own.

I went to buy a new 2011 Ford Fiesta that gets forty miles to the gallon and is tiny. It would be cheap to purchase and operate and was pretty well tricked out for the price. My wife objected for several reasons not the least of which was that I needed a truck. I told her I was going to keep the old one and I would have it when I needed it. That wasn't good enough. Bottom line was that she thought my little Fiesta was unmanly and looked like a child's toy and not something a grown man should drive.

I didn't care. She was never going to drive it so why should she? A Ford Ranger barely counts as a truck around here anyway.

So in the end we "compromised" and I bought a new Ford Ranger with a much larger V-6 that gets worse mileage than before. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how that happened. Anyhow the point is that this is a great example of American automotive marketing and why it is so damn difficult to get this nation into driving cars that make more sense. In the meantime I now have two Ford Rangers, the price of gas is indeed climbing, and my wife is still driving herself and occasionally my daughter around in a five passenger sedan.

[kham]

Not giving up the Jeep just yet Only 20,000km on it, hemi probably just getting broke in ...

Got 23-25 mpg driving down to Owen Sound last week, and had tons of room, handles solid on the highway, and in winter have never ever had to worry about starting or road conditions. Did the math for travel expenses when filing them, think it cost about 21c per kilometre even with current prices.
Besides, it's paid for, and don't NEED a new Ram 4x4, no matter how sweet they look