With Diesel fuel prices continuing to go up, are any of you "curtailing" some of your driving to cope with the higher prices ? Fuel here in Central Kansas went up 20 cents in a 4 hour period Friday to $3.20....just 10 cents shy of the highest it's ever been here. (I'm betting it will go right on past the high and be at $3.50 before long!)

 

Like everyone else in this country, I too don't care to see fuel prices at these levels. I drive 100 miles round trip to work each day which translates to about 40k miles annually all said and done. With fuel prices in the $3/gal range, I figure I will save between $300 and $400 annually for each mile per gallon any "performance" mods might bring. With these seat-of-the-pants calculations I've convinced my bride that it's time to start calling the FTE sponsors!

 

This is one reason why folks are brewing their own fuel as a hobby...biodiesel.
Under $1.00/gal once u get going.Add an auxilliary fuel tank and see more savings.
Nut

 

i dont really care to complain about fuel prices. there is nothing i can do about it, so instead of complaining and (in my view) making an *** of myself over nothing i can control, i take it in stride and deal with it. i dont curtail any of my driving, nor do i drive with a light foot. biodiesel around me is $2.91 and i won't go back to arab-oil as long as i have my biodiesel 15 minutes away from me.

 

I was wondering if it would be ok to really filter some motor/hydraulic/transmission oil and mix it with condensate. I know our trucks will burn condensate by itself, but the lubricity isnt there. Can anyone chime in on this idea? Condensate is at $2/gallon now and used oil is plentiful.

 

i only drive my psd about 2-3 times a week. its only 6 miles round trip to work. i drive a little pos kia that gets 30 mpg. only spend about 70 bucks a month on gas and diesel. i guess my truck is like my old man corvette.

SdPj

 

Sorry Kris, I can't go along with you on this one. So I guess I will make an a$$ of myself. There is a legitimate reason for the increase in fuel prices in this country. Just not what we are enduring. You will know the price should be high when the pumps run out of fuel. Think about that. It's happened before.

So without all of the vote it right BS, I may start looking at Bio too. Not everyone has it as close as you. I believe the market will correct itself over time, but there is a lot of unnecessary pain involved. This is borne by the consumer and record profits annoy me.

So the answer to the question, we will bear whatever we can afford. I luckily have a company car and put few miles on my rig except to fish, hunt or 4wheel.

If we use less, whether by use of bio, or reduced driving, the price will come down. Unfortunately none of that is likely. Price is driven by what the market will bear. The market is bearing every bit of it right now!

 

i too also run bio and purchase it from my local cfn place and put it on my account. gotta love b99. exhaust smells like race fuel and truck is quieter. also .20 a gallon cheaper than dino

 

i can respect that. yes i do have to say that i dont drive my truck much, since i have had it ( year and a few weeks) i have only put about 8K miles on it. i do have a work truck, and since i am working most of the time (to put parts on my truck that sits in the garage... / ) i do drive my work truck. company pays for fuel, and my dad tells me to drive it, so i cant deny it, i will drive it instead of my truck. my truck is just for pleasure, and it surely is. i have gone about a month now on about a 1/4 of fuel. that shows you how much i drive it. so i guess you can kind of say that i curtail my out-of-pocket fuel spending in a way.

 

Be glad you don't drive for a living like I do. If I didn't own my own truck I probably wouldn't care but, I get hit while driving my PSD to work then driving my Freightliner at work. With a 600 ISX cummins it doesn't get hte best mileage around. Also hauling cars kinda kills any aerodynamics that a normal truck might have. I'm usually lucky if I can get 5mpg out of her. Just remember no matter how bad it is it could be alot worse.

 

Well, depends on who you complain to. Enough pepopel complaining to your elected reps and they will might apply pressure to keep it as low as possible.

Unless you brew your own biodiesel, you sure that bio is not arab-oil tainted? Waht about the rest of the products you use in the world? Bet they also have that taint in them. I know mine do

 

You do realize that they are spending 100 bil to make 10 bil. That means that their profit margin is 10%. Most businesses run at more than 10% profit. 10 bil is a lot of money till you see that they spent 100 bil to make 10 bil. So how is it really "record profits" other than with the sensationalizing of the media?

 

That is pretty much true with gasoline, but diesel is a different issue all together, you don't want the market to hit the point that it won't bear the price with diesel (can't figure out why our elected officials have not figured this one out yet). With that said let me explain. Gasoline is for a majority case a discrentionary expense, you can choose to drive your car or not drive your car, maybe ride a bike, not take that vacation, car pool on and on. But diesel is for the most part a non discretionary expense, yes there are people like all of us that drive our PSDs and can cut down but even if you cut out all personal diesel pickups and cars you would only cut diesel use by less than 10% approx. The only way to make a dent in diesel usage is to reduce the amount of frieght that is hauled. The semi's have to buy diesel to move frieght period, thus the comment that it's non discretionary so as long as they have frieght to move they will be buying diesel, and don't forget the railroad, once again they have to buy diesel to move frieght. So how do you reduce diesel use to let the market control the price, simple you reduce the amount of frieght that is moving, well in order to do that you have to make the factories, stores, etc not ship so much. If they aren't shipping as much they don't need as many workers to build the products, or harvest food, etc. So they lay people off reducing frieght thus reducing diesel usage. Basically the only way the "market" can control the price of diesel is for this country to go into a major depression, and have the economy come to a stand still right along with most of the manufactoring. The oil companies have figured this out which is why diesel is more expensive than gas even though it takes less refining to make #2 diesel, and is actually cheaper but no matter what it will be bought at whatever cost as it is a necessity to keep this country moving.
Last labor day was a good example of this, first thing to notice if you look is labor day last year was the last time the average cost of gas was higher than the cost of diesel. Why you ask, well when the price of gas went up to around $3/gal that weekend the amount of gas bought over the major holiday weekend dropped something like 35% vs the previous year (I am quoting from memory on this so don't hold me to it) But the same weekend the diesel usage only dropped by 2%, immediatly after that weekend the price of gas dropped considerably but the price of diesel did not thus putting diesel higher than gas for the first time, and it has stayed that way ever since.
So you want ot reduce the cost of diesel well thats easy just crash the economy worse than what happened in 1929, and diesel will come back down to around $1/gal in a hurry but of coarse non of you will be able to afford it even at that cost because we are all gonna be outa work.

 

Interesting commentary Monster! Makes sense. Diesel certainly keeps the
economy moving.
Nut

 

has anyone ever tried this? Look at www.dieselsecret.com. I don't know of anyone who has, but it sure looks interesting! Jeff