Solution to high fuel costs

I have a new Dodge Hemi with the 4 cylinder cut out. It cuts off 4 cylinders at idle and at speed any time you are straight and level and don"t need all the whoopie of 8 ponies.

I have a mpg monitor in the overhead (OEM standard equip) and I can drive 55-60 and get over 17 mpg. But if I kick it up to 70, all 8 stay online (headwind I guess) and my mileage drops to 14.

I actually have to use my pickup for a living and I don't have self esteem issues so I get by just fine with a medium sized engine.

Maybe these guys should quit acting like the sky is falling. Remember a month or so ago the idiots on the news said gas would be over 6 bucks a gallon by now. Well it isn't.

I've heard CNN say in the past few years that gas would be as high as 8 dollars a gallon by now.
Yet is about 2.85 where I live.

Come out from under the bed and get on with life. If you run around scared because of what these morons say it will kill you.

I have a '98 F-150 with the small V-8, where the horsepower peak is at 4700 rpm. At 1500 rpm it was lugging. No guts. And with an overdrive manual transmission and 3.08 rear axle, it was putting along at 1500 rpm at 60. Wouldn't pull but half the truck weight as a trailer, rated at 2200 pounds trailer towing for a 4339 pound truck. Got 16 mpg.

I changed the rear axle gear ratio to 4.10, now I figure the trailer tow rating at 4700 pounds and I've had 6000 behind it. Gets 16 mpg unloaded at 60 mph. Gets 15 mpg at 52 with a 3000 pound camper on the hitch.

Now it has much better throttle response in all gears. It wouldn't have needed the axle gear change with the wide ratio transmissions of yesterday, but in a half ton in '98 the only manual transmission had only a 3.92:1 first gear. 6:1 would have been much better for towing.

Gerald J.

With soybeans at $12.00 and corn 4.50 fuel has to go up or our bio diesel and ethanol will not sell cause it is to high compared to $3.00 gas.

So if we want high dollar grain we got to have $4.00 diesel for our product to sell.

Last week bio diesel was $3.90 a gallon and diesel was under $3.60.

So as FARMERS we need higher fuel cost to maintain our higher grain income.

Gary

As far as I can see there is NO solution to high fuel costs - Why?
- 1 Greed the fix is in at the top, price goes up.
- 2 If you use too much, price up goes up.
- 3 Cut usage nationally way back, price goes down a little then, price goes way up.
- 4 Boycott certain brands distribution costs more, price goes up.
- 5 Crude futures, (wonder who buys the most) price goes up.
- 1 Exxon only made 40 billion that’s after all the political payouts and huge salaries.
When big business gets too big they don't have to listen to their customers anymore.

If there were a system run by farmers that would monitor needed crop acerage aganst planted acrerage.
If say 50% of acrerage needed to be corn to support the price. 20% wheat, 20% Soybeans then the remainder hay,ect.
Obviously drought and high yealds would effect this some what but major over production would not happen.

Price would be more stable. The system now is set up to keep farmers competing with each other.
Plus how many farmers you know would only plant certain amount of acres if the price was high?

Could you just see ADM"S face if farmers all cooped thier acrerage?

At the time, my great grandfather was probably one of the richest farmers in MD, and that is no doubt due to all that work, done by hand.

This way, you don't use a drop of gas.

Something tells me you won't pick up a hoe though. :)

Around here the sock'r moms are backing off on the big suv's, it's their husbands that are not. I work about a mile from a big power plant and Aluminum joint that pay realy well. I see people going and coming from these all night long here. Many if not most of these guys have tags from 3 countys over so they drive 30, 40, or more miles one way to work. Seems most of them have Z71's with big tires or four door power strokes, most don't even have a reese hitch on them, so they don't use them to pull a thing. I drive 20 miles to my little water factory here, if I had to drive one of my two farm trucks here I would be hurt'n. I drive a 2000 cavalier with a 4 banger. (It is auto but was not my choice, long story) It gets about 30 mpg and the high cost of gas has not put too big a hurt on my comute to work. I don't drive my trucks around unless there is a reason. The only time I will drive one to work is if I need something between work and home that won't fit in the car. They make fun of me at the co-op because I will stop on the way home and pack the trunk with grass seed or tobacco chemicals. As a group alot of us farmers could do alot more to save gas. I know that alot of farmers are try'n but alot are not. I was at the NH dealer here a while back. A guy was in there getting a fuel line and some other stuff. Got to talking to him, he wished there was a dealer closer to him, he had to drive 60 miles just to get some odds and ends parts. Fit them all under his arm and went out, got in his 4X4 one ton and took off. My car that trip would have been 4 gallons, he used at least 8. At $3 a gallon how long would it take for 4 banger s-10 or ranger to pay for it's self for parts runs like this. Sorry I kina got on a rant there but $4 gas scares me and I don't like $3. If every one would cut back where they can, we would be alot better off.

Dave

I have need for a pickup for hauling farm supplies and a camper. It gets 16 mpg. On the average the pickup alone did 8000 miles a year, so it used 500 gallons of gas that would cost $1500 at the current prices.

I picked up a used VW golf in 2006 that hauls me, groceries, and my double bass nicer than the truck and does it at 30-33 mpg. But it cost me $10K, may last 5 years, license cost about $100, insurance about $400, and fuel for 800 miles (267 gallons) costs $800. Oil changes cost nearly $40 for the factory specified synthetic oil and a good filter that will run 10K miles with the oil. So if it displaced all the truck miles it costs $3340 to save $1500. The added low fuel consumption vehicle doesn't pay for me. It costs. But the fiddle case stays cleaner and the fiddle is warmer when I get to the concert hall.

A friend has a Prius. Bought it new. After a year of running he found out that 60 mpg still won't save enough $2 gas to pay for it. So he traded in his truck and camper for a diesel powered motor to tow the Prius cross country. He can't get enough out of his Buick to cover depreciation, and it probably gets 25 mpg.

The economics are not there without lots of miles per year and without need for hauling stuff over 5' long or weighing more than 800 pounds total (counting the driver).

The high mileage vehicle does make the point of it looks like its saving, and it is saving fuel for the world but its costing a lot to make that point.

And lots of places license, insurance, and vehicle cost would be twice what I pay without getting to something exotic like Volvo or BMW or Mercedes.

Gerald J.

Dave

I agree with you 100% Dave.

Until the guys like you are talking about that will take a 60 mile trip in a big truck for a plastic bag of parts feel enough pain to conserve, I don't see much hope for oil to not keep rising.

Poking along at 63 on my way to work, I get blown off the road by tons of people in duallies, Excusrsions, Tahoes, etc. I see the neighbor in her hopped up, high rise pickup commuting 50 mile daily, some chick that commutes over to the college 60 miles by herself at 75 mph in her Tahoe daily, etc...

Over half the high school kids in the parking lots are driving pickups, a high percentage of the college kids have pickups here, and quite a few of them are extended cab duallies...

It's funny to me to hear all the conspiracy theories about gov and big oil when the cause of such VORACIOUS oil demand is seen on every road, every parking lot, and every driveway in America...

When I try envision that many gallons of crude flowing continuously from holes in the ground, I'm shocked that it is this cheap... It's just hard to imagine that many billions of barrels of crude available for the mining...

Howard