Posted on 10/02/2005 8:20:16 AM PDT by grundle
"Man! That sure sound awfully low for a vehicle like that. "
I think one possible factor is that Consumer Reports testing may also be biased but in the other direction.
"If your budget is so tight that $100 per month is going to break you, then you are living WAY beyond your means."
That right. But for some reason people seem inoridnately sensitive to gas prices. We've probably all known people who will drive out of their way to a station where the gas is $.05 cheaper, even though the difference will likely be less than $1 for the whole tank.
I think people who bail from their guzzler right now are probably going to take a beating on resale and then pay a preium for an econo box. So much so that the total loss will probably exceed whatever they will ever save on gas.
Go figure...
I drive a Chevy S-10, 4.3 V6, automatic. I get 22+ in the city and 24+ on long trips. I try to avoid any heavy congestion, which is difficult with all the construction in the Austin area.
I'm definitely considering something that gets 30+mpg next time around, hybrid or otherwise.
$1,200 a year is a good bit of money for people who don't earn a lot in the first place. That $100 a month may be what they were planning on using if they had a bump in their spending.
SUV serves a very important use to those of us that are 6'4" and over. How in the hell do I fit in a compact car. I bought one and had to put the seat back as far as it will go and recline it slightly for my 245 lb body. I get in the little piece of crap and is drops at least 2 inches on the driver side. I have often felt sorry for the back seat occupant with 6" of leg space. What a piece of crap. Had to purchase a van conversion for whenever I haul more than a passenger and myself. Just stop the crap and leave us alone. We do know what we are doing, and I gladly pay the price.
This is just temporary -- meaning months instead of forever and ever. In time people will become resigned to high(er) gasoline prices, make fincial adjustments in their budgets, and then slowly start once again buying what "they" condescendingly refere to as "Gas Guzzlers".
Why? Because some people simply need them, and some people merely want one...and it is their money.
I would never buy an electric car.
You don't have to be an economist to recognize that that $40,000 Hummer in your driveway costs you an arm and a leg to drive regardless of the price of gas. Try replacing tires on one of these behemoths...close to $150/tire. Lots of luck trying to trade one...most dealers would be reluctant to give you anything.
The number posted for my '05 Toyota Corolla, stick shift is 41mpg highway, I have far exceeded that.
As an experiment recently on a 300 mile trip, I drove 55 mph and got an astounding 54 mpg.
Holding at or just above the speed limit I routinely get 44-47 mpg.
You're the dude that always ends up in front of me on the airplane, aren't you?
The "temporary" part tends to come in when gas prices stablize and are then overtaken by inflation (thus the nominal price stays the same, but the real price decreases), but this tends to take a longer time than 5 years, and requires them to stop rising first.
So, what they are really admitting is that the Free Market actually does work? Auto makers build what the public wants. They do not force any vehicle on the public.
The only vehicles I see being forced upon us is the new hybrids. Just wait util the public discovers what they cost to maintain over their life.
It was 22¢ when I was in High School.
I see you point, but my husband is a car/truck salesman and the other day I asked him how this spike in gas prices will effect his line of work. I was more or less quoting him: A drop in car sales (pretty much of all kinds) will occur, it will be temporary, meaning after a time (who knows how many months) people will return to buying the large(r) cars or trucks. The day of the SUV, the Ram 2500, the Hummer, etc. is not over, just simply gone dormant for a spell.
That was me as a kid.
.37 cents a gallon is
what I remember a few
years later.
After all of these
years, I still want
a full tanker truck
park in my warehouse.
The only vehicles I see being forced upon us is the new hybrids. Just wait util the public discovers what they cost to maintain over their life.
================
Amen! 
I see your point, but my husband is a car/truck salesman and the other day I asked him how this spike in gas prices will effect his line of work. I was more or less quoting him: A drop in car sales (pretty much of all kinds) will occur, it will be temporary, meaning after a time (who knows how many months) people will return to buying the large(r) cars or trucks. The day of the SUV, the Ram 2500, the Hummer, etc. is not over, just simply gone dormant for a spell.
(There, that's better)
Yankee, I'm a mechanic at a local Dodge dealer and can tell you that the day of the big gas guzzler defintely is not over. Sales and service may drop for a bit, just like it did before, but ultimately, the public prefers the larger safer vehicles and will grow disappointed with the tin cracker box econo-slugs real fast.
Hybrids will sell good for a while, but when people learn how expensive they will be to maintain, they will dump them as fast as they did their Omni's and Rabbits long ago.
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