Are you going to have to change car because of fuel prices?

[Rustybullethole]

28 mpg from the transit on a run, haven’t dared take not around the doors where it spends most it’s time. Ulez will force me into a petrol. I’ve been there before, it’s not more economical. 
Was chatting last night about making a flatbed sidecar for the BM though that things not great on fuel either. Bumhats.

[Rusty Pelican]

I feel this " one man fuel crisis " might have to go , as well as being expensive to fix , 38MPG on a run and 28MPG around town aint good . Ive got a couple Imps that will do 40 plus easy so come spring the Merc will get mothballed or at least used very rarely , maybe even booted out 

[TrabbieRonnie]

I might have to change house!!!

Heating oil is £1.13 a litre, I paid 45 pence in January...

 

 

The wood burner is on tonight!

[SiC]

Noticed cherry is now nearly as expensive as white was last year

 

[sierraman]

Dreading May, the price cap were on comes to an end for gas. We’ve had a new boiler fitted, I don’t expect that will mitigate matters much. It’s just been a multitude of factors that have turned to shit for us lately and down to one income, not quite down to bread and cheese for every meal but I’m grateful we’ve no borrowing other than £400 a month mortgage. This circumstance we are in reinforced my belief in buying what you can afford. One time of day could have probably easily chucked £250-300 a month on a car, I’d be bummed now if I’d done that. Every cloud and that! 

[Cooper1]

4.6 V8 giving me 20MPG average and the recent fill up of nearly £160 nah I'd still not change the old bus for the world.. 

A mate of mine is an avid smoker and spends around £30 a day on fags around £200 a week I spend around £160 per week on fuel and i'm not intentionally slowly killing myself, so its a win win..  😊

 

Oddly enough the same mate often comments on how costly my beast is to run, LOL   

 

 

 

 

[cobblers]

I have 3 vehicles.

2016 Caddy 2.0 diesel- 59+ MPG

2017 Boxer campervan 2.2 diesel - 24MPG

1988 T25 Syncro 2.1 petrol - 19MPG.

 

I've been driving the Syncro all week because I really enjoy driving it. Good god it's costing me a fortune though. 

[Talbot]

Just to add some perspective to the cost of fuel and more importantly the cost of running a car, with a reference back to 50 years ago when everything* was better.

in 1972, fuel cost 8p/litre.  (35-ish-p/gallon).  The average car, say a Ford Cortina did 23mpg.  Adjusted for inflation to 2022, that's about £1.15 a litre in today's terms.

Today, fuel actually costs £1.60+/litre, but the average mondeo manages double the fuel economy of the 1972 car, 46mpg is not unreasonable, even from a petrol model.  Consequently, fuel would have to be £2.30/litre for it to cost the same to fuel a modern car as it did to fuel a car in 1972.  Or in other words, it's quite significantly *cheaper* to run a car now, even with £1.60/litre fuel, than it was in the '70s

I suspect very much the era of cheap oil is coming to an end.

It won't be long before people have to walk or cycle everywhere, are much more careful with their heating, can't buy useless crap from Amazon every day and actually have to make stuff that they buy last by fixing/repairing things rather than binning and buying new.  Y'know, like how things used to be before cheap oil.

[juular]

First change I've made is only taking the Trafic to work as I basically can't afford to fill the cars.

Second change is really focusing on the driving, planning ahead much further than usual with braking / accelerating, and setting myself a top limit of 60mph.  On the motorway I dovetail behind the nearest lorry and stick the cruise on to match.

First day results:

The second day involved a bit of roadworks and a -5C start in the morning.

For a van with a camper conversion in the back it's pretty damn good. I guess the aerodynamics come into play above 60 which really hits the MPG.

If I can keep this up I'm looking at knocking around £5 a week off the fuel bill which helps a little bit.

[Jerzy Woking]

Driving to and from Spain a couple of times in my 2.5 Vivaro, I got 46 mpg loaded up on the way to Spain, and 55 mpg on the way back to UK (unladen). Again, the empty back roads in the EU mean maintaining a constant speed was easier. And speed limits are lower off of the motorways.

[Jazoli]

7 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

Driving to and from Spain a couple of times in my 2.5 Vivaro, I got 46 mpg loaded up on the way to Spain, and 55 mpg on the way back to UK (unladen). Again, the empty back roads in the EU mean maintaining a constant speed was easier. And speed limits are lower off of the motorways.

That's unbelievable really, I did 300,000 miles in an combination of 1.9 and 2.0 vivaro's and averaged 36mpg.

[Jerzy Woking]

2.5 had a high top gear. Going along at 50 to 60mph was extremely ecomomical. Really miss that van, much better than the VW T4, T5 and Transits I had before it. 

It did, of course, have a couple of electrical gremlins, but learnt to live with them rather than worring about it rusting away like my T4 and Transit did.

[juular]

2 hours ago, Jerzy Woking said:

Driving to and from Spain a couple of times in my 2.5 Vivaro, I got 46 mpg loaded up on the way to Spain, and 55 mpg on the way back to UK (unladen). Again, the empty back roads in the EU mean maintaining a constant speed was easier. And speed limits are lower off of the motorways.

I found my mpg really rocketed while travelling in France. I'm not sure if it's less hilly roads, less traffic to contend with, different diesel or what.  Travelling from Brest to Chamonix I almost hit 50mpg. As soon as I returned to the UK, back to 40mpg max.

[Lacquer Peel]

850 miles* to empty in an 850 diesel. I don't think it will do that but I should be able to squeeze 700 or more miles out of the tank. 

I have been worrying about it costing too much to run but it's not bad really. 

[Kiltox]

Swapping a known quantity for an unknown to save money on fuel is a dangerous business - assuming you’d just be replacing one shitter with another. 

[Lacquer Peel]

2 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

Swapping a known quantity for an unknown to save money on fuel is a dangerous business - assuming you’d just be replacing one shitter with another. 

Yes that's exactly it. I am fed up of paying high VED but the 850 is quite a fuel efficient car for what it is, plus I have done a fair bit of work to keep it reliable.

[LeahStornes]

I'm getting around 18mpg from a petrol V8 but fortunately don't need to drive anywhere except by choice. 

 

Not sure that I'd enjoy changing to anything else

[Bren]

The 545 is giving me 21 mpg urban which to fair is good - I have had 4 cylinder autos which have only done slightly more.

I think the kicker is going to be when the increase in gas and electric starts to be felt by people - for many, including me, something will have to give.

[cort1977]

On 3/10/2022 at 9:17 AM, Talbot said:

Just to add some perspective to the cost of fuel and more importantly the cost of running a car, with a reference back to 50 years ago when everything* was better.

in 1972, fuel cost 8p/litre.  (35-ish-p/gallon).  The average car, say a Ford Cortina did 23mpg.  Adjusted for inflation to 2022, that's about £1.15 a litre in today's terms.

Today, fuel actually costs £1.60+/litre, but the average mondeo manages double the fuel economy of the 1972 car, 46mpg is not unreasonable, even from a petrol model.  Consequently, fuel would have to be £2.30/litre for it to cost the same to fuel a modern car as it did to fuel a car in 1972.  

Shhh, spare us your sensible outlook and actual calculations. Didn't you get the memo it's all the fault of woke millennials and/or immigrants?

You're right though, the era of cheap oil is ending. Although it's boom time for the oil companies now they're not partying too hard because a very high oil price will hasten the energy transition.

[Talbot]

13 minutes ago, cort1977 said:

Shhh, spare us your sensible outlook and actual calculations.

*hangs head in shame and shuffles away, apologising profusely*

[beko1987]

I'm about as economical as I can get I think... 

I had to change my 2l pez auto XM years ago because I couldn't afford the fuel. Never drove it bar to work and back at 28mpg, the only slight upside was it did 28mpg wether you drove it slowly or just hoofed it. 

I'm doing 50ish mpg now and I won't do much better I don't think. Even spending a shit load of money to get a 70mpg car that shit load of money buys alot of diesel... 

Thank goodness for working from home a few days a week still. 

 

Sort of cements in my mind that I'll never own a 'fun' car though 😢 I could probably afford to buy all sorts of sub £1k fun but I'd not be able to afford to run it... 

[Tartan58]

"Are you going to have to change car because of fuel prices?"

Nope, just going to maximise my use of my company car - EV with free (for now) charging at work #smugf***er

Seriously though I realise I am in an extremely fortunate position and would be extremely worried if I was still running my own car for work. However I do fully expect to be shafted by the leccy prices at some point in the not too distant future.

The Bini still has a third of a tank (last filled up in August so I'm probably good until the summer) and my in wife's Hyundai i30 a full tank usually lasts 4-6 weeks despite being surprisingly uneconomical for a 1.0T.

 

 

 

[Rust Collector]

I daily the mk1 Insight, and my partner has the mk3 Clio 1.2 as her daily. She commutes about 12 miles each way, I commute about 5 miles each way, so nothing major. Both are economical cars, the Clio does about 40-45mpg and the Insight probably does similar if not better on the tiny run I do each way. If we eventually find we can't afford to fuel those then I think the only alternative will be biking or an EV, or moving house I guess. I feel the EV isn't realistic for us though as we have fuck all money saved up and neither of us has seen our wages increase in the last 2-3 years whilst our cost of living has increased a bit so we don't put any worthwhile amount in to savings these days. I'd happily run an EV as a daily if they were as cheap as a modern* economy car is. I guess from my own individual perspective I can only hope that secondhand EV's become as affordable as secondhand ICE cars in time, and I can run my shite as a hobby. And obviously my partner and I need to do something to either improve the household income or reduce our outgoings given the way things are going these days.

[Bren]

A large number of my neighbours are elderly and have carers going in several times a day. I would imagine they are on minimum wage - it is people like these, your hermes delivery people, that may eventually decide it just isn't worth it anymore.

[wuvvum]

On 3/9/2022 at 9:19 PM, SiC said:

Noticed cherry is now nearly as expensive as white was last year

Presumably cherry is more affected (in percentage terms) than white by oil price increases given that a smaller proportion of the pump price is made up of fixed duty and VAT?

I was just thinking last night that I wish I still had the Rover of Doom - not only would that do >50mpg but it'd happily run on veg.  I've been keeping half an eye out for something L-series powered (or XUD, or pre-PD TDI) but there's bugger all about.

[MikeR]

due to my change in circumstances  , the aging Focus will get shuffled off to some other life ..

and we can stay with the C1 as a runabout with its great mpg ..

meanwhile my sons sick C2 is parked up ready to be fixed or turned into bean cans .....

[garbaldy]

Ive already changed vehicles 8 times this year but not down to fuel costs yet,   I guess i may consider changes  depending on just how high fuel rises but as I still drive for pleasure fuel would probably have to double before I thought of selling some of my cars.

[DodgyBastard]

I can't see the increasing cost of fuel affecting me at all. I have absolutely no idea what mpg's my cars are capable of and generally just stick 20 litres in when they're getting low on fuel.

I live very close to work, it takes me on average 8 minutes to drive there.

I should probably make more of an effort to sorn cars I'm not using, I might end up spending more taxing them than fueling them each month.

 

[GMcD]

My daily is leased for another 21 months so I don't have much choice. In saying that it's hardly a daily and more a toy as I barely go into the office now as work from home is now default. I'm still easily "up" for fuel costs compared to pre-covid 60 mile a day round trip. I am very very lucky.

 

[groovylee]

im thinking my decision to change from a 1.2 petrol panda to a 3.0D V6 Jaaag may* have been a little poorly timed......

that said, im driving to and from London for work, and the fuel bill at the moment is covered by the comapny, so for now im ok.  it seems to be averaging almost 39MPG, so even if i have to pay for it soon, it wont be too bad i hope.