Aaustin's Mileage Poll

[GeneF]

Just looked at the poll that Austin did on how far you plan on driving this year.

I was surprised at the number of miles that some of you are planning to drive.

Just curious, if gas does hit $4 a gallon, will you still do all of the trips planned?  OR what price does gasoline have to get to for you to alter your trip plans?

DW and are are already considering dropping our plans to head out to the Utah area for a couple of months this fall.  I figure that gas alone would cost me over $2000 for the trip.  That is figuring gas at $4 and getting 10 mpg while towing.  Moab, Utah is about 2300 miles from NH.

I figure about $400 for each 1000 towing miles.

No, Chas, I do not plan on getting a deisel.

[My3buicks]

Just looked at the poll that Austin did on how far you plan on driving this year.

I was surprised at the number of miles that some of you are planning to drive.

Just curious, if gas does hit $4 a gallon, will you still do all of the trips planned?  OR what price does gasoline have to get to for you to alter your trip plans?

DW and are are already considering dropping our plans to head out to the Utah area for a couple of months this fall.  I figure that gas alone would cost me over $2000 for the trip.  That is figuring gas at $4 and getting 10 mpg while towing.  Moab, Utah is about 2300 miles from NH.

I figure about $400 for each 1000 towing miles.

No, Chas, I do not plan on getting a deisel.

WOW : now I dont know what size PU or trailer your towing, but WOW - I will take my 18 - 20 plus miles per gallon towing anyday. OUCH

[GeneF]

"WOW : now I dont know what size PU or trailer your towing, but WOW - I will take my 18 plus miles per gallon towing anyday. OUCH"

LOL, My3Buicks

It is the price you pay for owning a pickup truck and a hybrid tt.  See my sig line.

Seems like most people that have a gas pickup or similar vehicle and tow a tt or htt get around 10 mpg or so.  Lot more drag than with a popup.  Just depends on how much an accessible bathroom is worth to you on the road.

That is why we drive the XB most of the time. 35 to 40 mpg and yes, I wish i could tow with it.

[wernstriumph]

Even with 20 mpg towing (our Windstar tends to hover around 20 when towing), $4 a gallon still hurts! But, The big trip out to Montana is to see my parents( my dad hasn't seen the grandkids for 2 years). I own my own home improvement business so I've been taking extra projects to take the sting out of paying $$$$$ for gas. We are still going, although I may be POOR when I get back!

[EvanDoss]

I know that $4 per gallon will keep my trips under 4 hours of driving.  I paid $71 yesterday filling up at $3.09 per gallon.  My expedition usually gets 18 - 20 MPG by itself and while towing on overdrive I will drop to 12 - 14MPG.  

We also bought a Bluegreen timeshare package this year that will not only allow us to stay at some nice resorts but we can also spend our timeshare points on any Coast To Coast campground or Good Neighbor campground.  There are 15+ campgrounds just in a 4 hour drive of where we live so we plan to control our gas costs by camping at these parks this year.

It's not really a matter of money for us.  We would just rather not travel as far so we have more money to spend at our destinitation for activities.

[AustinBoston]

For us, the longest trip of the year (about 2,400 miles) is for our DD#2's wedding, so we would still go if gas hit $8/gallon.  Some things are more important than money.

But more important to me is not MPG or dollars per gallon or dollars per mile - it's dollars per person-mile.  

With three people travelling, that $ per mile is divided by 3 (even though I'm paying all of it), because other forms of transportation (train, fly) cost three times as much for three people than for one.  

Then we'd still have to rent a car, get a hotel room, eat at restaurant prices, etc.

The cost of gasoline is only one small factor in the decision to haul our pop-up halfway across the country for 13 days.

Austin

[OC Campers]

Our Ram qc gets about 12-14 mpg when towing.  I don't think our camping trips will change if gas gets to $4 a gallon.   Yes it hurts to fill it up ($75 a tank) but camping is our main thing we do as a family.  If I took my family to Hawaii for a week it would cost $5k easily.  A couple hundred dollars in gas is a lot less.

Jacqui

[chasd60]

My trips totalled about 200 gallons of diesel. If the price of diesel goes up by $1 gallon from what I budgeted, it wouldn't cause me to cancel.

[dthurk]

Hope the oil companies aren't here reading these threads!  We should probably be making a concerted effort to say no way, we've cancelled all our trips.  Maybe that would help lower the cost of fuel.  

We're towing significant miles (to us, anyway) this summer.  I have no plans to shorten or curtail trips at this point.  I'd probably be looking to slow down to save fuel.  We normally tow at 60 mph and get about 9 mpg.  We'll travel about 200 miles on a tank of fuel, and at that point that 27 gallon tank is mighty thristy, taking about $70 to fill it at current costs.  Slowing down to 55 should help economize on fuel.  We'll find out on our next trip.  Have also been looking at Airtabs http://www.airtab.com/.  They look interesting, but not sure if they would really pay for themselves in the long run.
 
Camping is our way of getting away from our home life.  It's the only way we have of slowing down and recharging.  I look forward to our time away, and would probaby go whatever the price, so long as we have money left in the piggy.

[wynot]

Just looked at the poll that Austin did on how far you plan on driving this year.
 
I was surprised at the number of miles that some of you are planning to drive.
 
Just curious, if gas does hit $4 a gallon, will you still do all of the trips planned? OR what price does gasoline have to get to for you to alter your trip plans?
 
I figure about $400 for each 1000 towing miles.
 

I commute about a 100 miles per day to work.  So I buy a lot of gas.  I wish gas was back at least to the pre-Katrina price.  Heck, I wish it was back to the prices I remember from the 60s and 70s.  (Remember when gas doubled to 57 cents per gallon and we thought that was outrageous?)
 
But, there's a major fallacy in your costs above.  
 
Using your example, it is not costing $400 more for every 1000 towing miles.  It is indeed costing you more, but only the difference between what you used to pay, and what you pay now.
 
Not that long ago, I paid about $40 per tank every 4 days.  Now I pay $51 every 4 days.  Yes, it is $11 more per tank, so maybe $14 per week more.  If I go out to lunch, I easily can plunk down $10-11 here in one meal.
 
There is only one person I personally know who wants the gas prices to be this high, or go higher.  (He's a big alternative fuel believer - as he puts premium in his two cars, neither of which specify or require it).  But the unfortunate reality is, it's not a huge chunk of most people's disposable incomes.  What really gets me madder than anything is every business passing on the "fuel surcharge" or "increased delivery prices" - I don't make any more money now than I did before the prices shot up.

[AustinBoston]

Hope the oil companies aren't here reading these threads!  We should probably be making a concerted effort to say no way, we've cancelled all our trips.  Maybe that would help lower the cost of fuel.

Actually, I hope they DO, as long as they also read my signature.  Saving a gallon of gas per day ends up saving over 300 gallons of gas per year, more than enough to take my pop-up over 5,000 miles.  In reality, my current commute plan probably saves just under two gallons of gasoline a day, so I'm currently saving far more gas than I'm using on a 3,200 mile trip.

Oh, and I save $6 a day on parking...a cool $1500/year.

Austin

[GeneF]

"Using your example, it is not costing $400 more for every 1000 towing miles. It is indeed costing you more, but only the difference between what you used to pay, and what you pay now."


Wynot

I agree with your statement but I used the $4 a gallon figure as an abritory figure as some news accounts say we are heading there.

On the other hand, when we came back from Florida in April, I estimate that we averaged about $2.80 a gallon.  Fl was the highest at $2.88 and we paid around $2.69 in one of the other southern states.

Based on $2.80 a gallon, 1000 miles of towing cost me $280.  Again using the $4 a gallon figure and arriving at $400, it would cost me $120 more to drive the same 1000 miles.

If I take a 5000 mile trip (actually trip to Utah would be more like 7000 miles) it would cost me $600 more for gas than it would have in April.

National average for regular unleaded is $3.15 so it is costing me $315 to tow 1000 miles in May verses $280 in April or an increase of about $35 per 1000 miles.

When I plan a long trip, I like to have a budget figure for gas.  So if I went with the trip to Utah and drove 7000 miles (4600 just getting to Moab and back).  I would budget $2800 just for gas ($4 a gallon).  Figure an average of $20 a night for camping for 60 nights and that is another $1200.  So gas and camping alone would be $4000 for this trip. And I haven't figured in any food, truck maintence, souveniers or entertainment.  If I estimate another $2000 for these expenses, then my trip budget for two months is roughly $6000.  48% of the cost of the trip is for gas.  This means a budget of about $100 a day for two people.

Granted that these figures are not set in stone and are subject to change.

If gas prices moderate or go down, we can be flexible enough to change our plans.

Recent article says that some experts believe that we will alter our driving habits when gas hits $3.50 a gallon and others are saying it will have to get to $4.00 a gallon.  Even with the spike in gas prices, demand for gasoline has gone up and we haven't hit the summer driving season yet.

[chrismarques]

We have a 7000 mile trip planned this summer. I am not backing out at this point. I have about $2100-$2200 budgeted for gas alone. Figuring 12 mpg overall (mountains/highway/etc) approx 585 gallons of fuel and staying at $3.75 a gallon avg.

[dthurk]

Actually, I hope they DO, as long as they also read my signature. Saving a gallon of gas per day ends up saving over 300 gallons of gas per year, more than enough to take my pop-up over 5,000 miles. In reality, my current commute plan probably saves just under two gallons of gasoline a day, so I'm currently saving far more gas than I'm using on a 3,200 mile trip.
 
Oh, and I save $6 a day on parking...a cool $1500/year.
 
Austin

Agreed, AB, those who can make use of public transportation helps out the situation.  You've got to live near large metropolitan areas to do it.  Where we are, public transportation is not "user friendly" to the general population.  The few buses we have available are geared to helping those who have no transportation at all.  Most of us drive ourselves.  The nearest "full scale" transportation system to us that I know of is Toronto, 3.5 hours away from us.  (Yes, Toronto's closer to us than NYC.)  We do "team up" and ride together when we're going to the same place, but that tends to be more a social thing than a work related thing.  
 
My original comment was meant to indicate that most here are saying they would not curtail trips or would only marginally limit them.  Gas prices would not be a huge factor.  Oil companies catching wind of that would feel no pressure to slow the price increases.  
 
Keep on keeping on with your plan.  It's commendable.

[Beerlifter]

Here is what I don't understand:

If there is a shortage.......why is there always gas at the station?!?!?!

It doesn't seem that anyone is buying that much less gas then they were before the "shortage", but yet there is still a shortage. I have yet to go to a service station with a sign stating 'OUT OF GAS DUE TO SHORTAGE"!

As always THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER!