KnifeMissile

Why do you find this so hard to believe?

If I were to buy a new car (I don't have a car so I don't worry about gas prices), I might buy a Toyota Yaris. It's one of my favorite cars and it happens to be Toyota's cheapest, for those of you who think you're on a budget. It takes 7.1 litres of gas to go 100 kms in the city in this car (even less if you have access to a highway!). That's 7.1 * 30 / 100 = 2.13 litres. At about a buck a litre, that's about two bucks. A little more than what you'd pay for coffee at Tim Hortons but about as much as you'd pay if you went to Starbucks. Either way, if you can't fit that into your budget, you had financial issues before anything happened to the price of gas...

Leto

honda CRV get's about 8.2l/100 km. So it's not too much more expensive, and has a lot more room. About the cost of a Mochaccino....

__________________
You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey
And I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

Charlatan

I think you meant, "they are only practical for ten months of the year."

I rode mine this year for 11 months but usually get between 9 and 10 months of riding. After that, I use public transit.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

cdnjeepin

I drive a Jetta Diesel....To go to work and back is 30kms a day.

Its getting 44mpg or 18.7km/L so yes just under $2.00 a day to get to work.

Now if I have to go to town later in the day, or want to go out for supper, or anything extra in my life another trip to town is $2.00, then any running around town is no doubt another $2.00 worth of gas...so now its $6.00 a day.. So $30 a week in just the necessities...right now I am burning on average $50 a week in fuel...and I do not really go anywhere..just into town and doing my normal things..

If I was driving my Jeep, which I haven't driven since Aug 05, I would be up around $75 a week just to do the normal things and the Tiburon is around $60 a week.

Before you all get in a huff about me having 3 cars...the Jetta is works, I don't pay for that... The Jeep I have had for 5 years and is my toy...The Tiburon I bought for a second vehicle, before I knew I would be driving a jetta...so now the Tiburon is for sale, since I no longer need it.

Even though I have reduced my fuel usage..I still think its tooooo high...I have a friend that has lived in the UAE for a few years now...and its silly what there gas costs..around $.53/L canadian...and if you are a resident UAE person you get an Oil Check each month...

Things are just not getting cheaper here, they are gonna continue to rise and rise...I wouldn't care if my check went with the rises..but it doesn't..its costing a lot more to live these days...hydro went up, cable/phone/internet went up, fuel is always going up, pretty much everything...just leaves me with less spendable income...

cyrnel

Brave guy. I remember riding my motorcycle to college in the Oregon off-season and it was a pain. Paperwork was perpetually rain-spotted.

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Cynthetiq

I rented one of these in Iceland, not the current iteration but the version before. I was impressed by it's fuel efficiency and it's peppiness, but I really didn't like how small it was, it was too small for all our luggages and it was the 5 door model.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

macmanmike6100

I thought $4/g in some places in California was bad. In Belgium, I was told it's $2.00 per liter!

KnifeMissile

Hmm, how do I respond to this?

First, if you consider going "out for supper" one of your "necessities," then I think that speaks volumes on your budgetary problems. Here's a wild and cracy idea. If you have to "go to town" to do pretty much anything, then why don't you go there, do what you need done, and then go back home, instead of driving to town and back, repeatedly, several times a day, destroying our environment and burning non-renewable fossil fuels, the price of which can only go up?

Secondly, I don't suppose you realize that TTC transit fare is more than two dollars? That's not a round trip, either. So, all the minimum wage workers of Toronto manage to live their lives seemingly paying twice as much as you would for their transportation. Ponder how they get through while you whine about gas prices...

Oh, and don't get me started on other utilities... Do you have any idea how much electricity really costs? It is so serverely subsidized that, around here, it only costs ¢6.7 / kW hour. I assure you, people would be far more careful with their energy use if our government charged people what electricity actually costs! What an eye opener that would be for the people...

DEI37

It's ridiculous. Gas prices around here have doubled in the last year. It's bullshit. For me, any of my cars get around 28-30mpg on the highway. We try to make our outings "worth it." I drive 25 or so miles one way to work. At $3.27/gal, it's about $6.50 or more just to get to work and back. That's not quite 10% of my take home pay. I do own three cars, the best fuel mileage car is my 88 horsepower 1995 Ford Escort and gets about 31mpg on the highway. The worst is my 275 horsepower 1997 Oldsmobile, and it get's 28mpg on the highway. I drive the Olds on the highway a lot, 'cuz I like it.

__________________
Generally speaking, if you were to get what you really deserve, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

Swirlie

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060706/...apore_shell_dc

SIGH... Oil and Gas companies continually rally against alternative fuel sources, and then jack up the prices. We don't have a chance. If Shell is so concerned about the hungry, why are they not donating large portions of their record profits to fight hunger?

For you folks telling people to "stop driving so much"... good for you if you don't.

I DO. Deal with it. If I want to complain about the cost of fuel... I will. I believe this thread was started to see how many others were upset with the increasing fuel costs, not to try and determine alternate methods of trasnport, and to make you feel better about yourself because you ride your bike every day.

The question *I* have is... if the cost of gasoline is directly related to the price of oil... why does the price of gasoline not fall when oil prices go down with the same rapidity the price of gasoline rises when the cost of oil increases?

snowy

Perhaps instead of complaining about the cost of foreign oil you should invest in biodiesel. Depending on how you get it, it can be cheaper than regular diesel, creates less of an environmental impact, and does not come from foreign oil fields.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

cdnjeepin

Not saying going out to dinner is a necessity..but it is nice to do once in a while...I would say we go out 1 or 2 times a month (usually about $40)...thats it...and Yes I try and do all my running around in town when I come in in the morning...I try not to make repeated trips...I certainly don't do a whole lot of extra activites,

Oh and I never said I had budget problems..I just think fuel prices are too high...and our roads are garbage.. You should see our fuel bill here at work every month...we have 4 vehicles, 2 techs are on the road full time...The cost of fuel going up has made us increase our hourly rate, to help stay at the same profit margins that we were at. So since we increased our hourly rate, that means our customers costs have increased which inturn cause there customers cost to increase, etc etc etc...there is a lot less extra spendable income in families these days...since the necessities to live are getting so expensive.. IE Remember when GST was on clothes over $100, now its on all clothing...maybe they the gov. thinks clothing is not a necessity

So do you think that everyone should not have a life outside of work? Should have no extra activities in there lives? I would hope going out to supper 1 or 2 times a month would not break you. I do like to do more then work, go home, eat and go to bed...

As for transits....well the only transit system in my town is a Taxi....I sure aint gonna take a taxi to work everyday..if it was a viable option for me, I would take a bus or car pool..As for people living in TO and being able to get by, well they probably don't have a $500 a month car payment, $150 a month Ins payment...there is NO transit here, so I have to have a vehicle to get to work, no way around that.

As for power, its at 10.13C /kw hour here



As for biodiesel, that might be great if it was available here....there are no places in NS that I know of that have that..You have to remember that Nova Scotia is not a big place like Ontario is, we don't have a lot of the luxuries that you have up there, its mostly small communities here, with the exception of Halifax..

Leto

This was the point that I wanted to make. It is true that users of the TTC get pinged pretty high for the use of the system. But if these users didn't have all the car payment infrastructure to manage (insurance, maintenance, licencing, drive clean etc) the overall financial hit for tranist use is not as painfull.

But, it is still hard for sombody to save $$. As an example, my son got a job at Canada's Wonderland (good for him) as a lifeguard for $8.50/hr. since we live in the beaches area of TO, he has to take TTC then GO Transit each way for about 80 mins (42 km). His shift is 11 hrs. So each day he grosses $93.50, and (since he gets student/employee discounts) pays $10.20 in transit faires. Roughly 11% of his gross is used in transit. If he was only working a regular 8 hour shift, this would be worse.



I don't see too much biodiesel here in Ontario. I guess I may not be looking too hard. My brother, however, drove his Audi Quattro Diesel from Vancouver totally on cooking oil. what he did was to go to the local Tim Hortons (Gibson's) and get their used oil. he then filtered it into jugs using coffee filters. After that, he would only put in a quarter tank of diesel, and the rest with the Timmie's. Cost him $34 to drive to TO from Van.

__________________
You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey
And I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

Charlatan

Leto, there is a biodiesel station at Queen and Pape.

There are a couple other stations around town as well (many are in the suburbs though).

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

snowy

Biodiesel is available EVERYWHERE. Poke around the 'Net long enough and I guarantee you'll find a co-op in your area that can tell you how to make it yourself, or someone in your area who does make it and will sell it to you. It's really not that hard, and it's more widely available that people think.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Demeter

I 'm getting used to getting gouged, I suppose. Here I am in the heart of Oil Country, and we pay the highest in the nation for electricity & natural gas.
And when we filled up the car this morning, gas was $1.12./litre.

__________________

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
William Shakespeare

Leto

97.9 at the petrocan on Vik Pk near ellesmere (toronto) today.

__________________
You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey
And I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

cyrnel

I'm noticing more people doing basic cooking oil filtration and mixing it 3:1 w/real Diesel. I haven't looked into the limitations but it can't get much simpler than that.

Still hunting for an old 300 TD!

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

snowy

Check around Corvallis: www.gtconnect.com

There's bound to be one--lots of VWs AND biodiesel around here.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

pornclerk

This whole gas thing is bullshit. I work at a job that involves a lot of driving. Basically I am backed into a corner, either I don't pay the high prices and be unemployed or just suck it up and go to work. I still remember when I first started the job in September of 2005, gas prices here shot up to about $1.34 per litre. That's frigging ridiculous! It was like $60 to fill a small car.