local prices here are averaging 2.43 to 2.63 for regular.....I'm hoping the Pilot/Loves gas stations are much cheaper in a week and a half

I'm guessing I'll be lucky to get 15mpg in my truck if I tow the 914.....close to 900 miles round trip......ouch....

Ouch...

True man....

Can we hook up two 914's, trailer behind trailer and cut down on cost??? lol

Don't count on it. ever.....

My local gas staion is $2.59!!!

And that station is 5 miles from the freeway.

Sorry about your travel cost. That is going to hurt.

QUOTE (Sammy @ Apr 6 2005, 03:46 PM)

Lessee, 900 divided by 15 = 60 gallons. 60 times $2.50 a gallon is $150. If gas was back at $2 a gallon that would be $120. That means that because gas prices are so high you will have to pay and extra $15 each way! I dunno about you but that's a deal breaker. Geez, $30 is a lot of money to a CSOB

$30 goes a long way for road-trip food.....mmmmmm, twinkies and fourbucks coffee to keep awake

It's $2.65 in OC right now

Talked to a friend that owns a gas station and he's been told that it is going to keep going up through summer. Supposedly $3.00 a gallon is in our future.

I guess that isn't bad considering you pay $1.50 for a 16 oz bottle of water, that is like $12.80 a gallon.

QUOTE (teenrookie @ Apr 6 2005, 03:52 PM)

It's $2.65 in OC right now Talked to a friend that owns a gas station and he's been told that it is going to keep going up through summer. Supposedly $3.00 a gallon is in our future. I guess that isn't bad considering you pay $1.50 for a 16 oz bottle of water, that is like $12.80 a gallon.

I don't care who you are...that's funny right there!



-Britain

Then there's those $5 beers at Hooters...

At least ya get screwed when ya get gas

Filled up the thirsty VW (my fault) yesterday in South San Jose - $2.89/gallon. I thought that was bad until I looked across the street - it was $2.99! Thank God the teener is only a 2.0 four banger!

QUOTE (Mueller @ Apr 6 2005, 02:49 PM)

mmmmmm, twinkies and fourbucks coffee to keep awake

Haha, Fourbucks, that made me laugh.

I saw $2.50 a gallon here today, this summer is going to suck. That is the highest that I have ever seen it.

HIEDI

i dont want to hear about gas prices

me 6000 miles round trip
milage should be at least 25 mpg
so 6000/25= 240 gallons
then at 3 per gallon ( worst case ) 720 bucks for gas
but i think it will get closer to 30 mpg

so who is going to let teri and i crash in there hotel room. gas alone is winding up at almost half the budget

just paid 2.21 @ costco in Kitsap WA. Cheapest on west coast

Bernie

i pay 4.00 a gallon...but thats for ol' backwoods KY fuel.....good ol' moonshine..whenever you get thirsty, you just pull over and take off the tube to the fuel reg. and let yer fuel pump rip.....

I hear ya....this $1.51 a gallon crap is ridiculous!!

does anybody know WHY it is so high....i mean we didnt start using like 50% more gas and the A-rabs didnt hibernate...so whats going on

It cost me $92 to fill my tank the other day.

Diesel is $2.59.

KT

Mostly driven by per barrel price o' crude. Sources tell me $100/ barrel is coming, and won't be going away.

well is it just them gettign greedy or is crude starting to get real rare

Let's everybody watch some NASCAR racing this weekend so we can learn how to draft. All 20 or so of us caravaning down to WCC should be able to get a pretty good draft going. Save some fuel. We can pretend like were bike racing and rotate around who leads. Ha Ha.

Demick

OOhh I got an idea!! Lets all rent one of those trucks that haul the new cars to car lots!!!

10 914's... one bill!




Im kidding...

QUOTE (Sammy @ Apr 6 2005, 09:32 PM)

VLO is up 380% over the last 5 years, sunoco is up a bunch, and TSO is up almost 800% since I got in.

that alone tells me they are gouging, if they are making that kind of money the are marking the gas up by that much

look at it this way if they make 5 cents a gallon and they sell 50 % more then there profits only should go up 50 %. so if they are worth 500 % of what they were they have to be charging 25 cents per gallon. now to make matters worse if they are running at 100 % of production they will make more per gallon than having the equipment only working at 70 %

Here's an idea.. flat tow the 914, in 4th gear, ignition on. Put a brick on the gas pedal.. when you get up to cruising speed, put the truck in neutral and enjoy the gas savings!

I really don't understand whats all the fuss about supposedly high gas prices...
In my country, gas is about € 1,30 per liter, thats about € 5,72 per gallon and that about $ 7,45 dollar per gallon and rising because of the high oil per barrel price!

Only good fortune is that the distances are less over here

Best regards,
Walter

So what the price of diesel out there in CA? I'm paying 2.40 now. I have to 3951 miles round trip, pulling my trailer I only get 11mpg!

QUOTE (Sammy @ Apr 6 2005, 11:24 PM)

They said, hay howz about we make a special "california gas" that no one else can make. That way it will be real clean.

same thing in Louisville, reformulated stuff....i don't get it...but if gas is 2.00 here, its 2.20 in Louisville....I always fuel up in BowlingGreen if i can......too bad my parts 914 wasn't driven...tank has real bad brown gas...so i'm not usin it....was gonna put it in my bro's jeep

QUOTE (akellym @ Apr 7 2005, 03:33 AM)

So what the price of diesel out there in CA? I'm paying 2.40 now. I have to 3951 miles round trip, pulling my trailer I only get 11mpg!

Diesel goes for roughly the same as regular unleaded, so about $2.50 to $2.65.

I am sure the truck stops will save you .10 to .20.

i keep on telling my parents...dang i remember gas when it eas like 99 cents.....it used to be real cheap to mow yards back then....now i'm wondering how to put my bosch d-jet fi on it to get more MPG...

QUOTE (bd1308 @ Apr 6 2005, 11:28 PM)

well is it just them gettign greedy or is crude starting to get real rare

Greed is a component.

Demand is at an all-time high, and realize that the current price/bbl is for stuff that will be delivered in June or July. There is a 3-4 month turnaround time from when crude is taken from the ground to when you put gasoline in your tank. The speculators are in a frenzy with what they expect the market will be paying for gas during summer, so prices keep going up now. The current instability in the Middle East only makes things worse.

Someone with a better background in economics can give a better explanation, I'm sure...

if you believe the experts the sky high prices are due to speculation. projected demand, domesticly, is lower actually for this driving season. cheaper to fly. a few well timed refinery shut downs, the "expectation" of millions of cars in china and the rapid growth there doesn't help any. the rooms costs while rolling to camarillo, and rooms in general send me into shock.

k

holy crap..and i thought it was getting bad here!

at my station, its 2.03 for regular..and i think 2.23 for super.....i feel bad for you guys

i watched a piece on the news about gasoline. pipelines. it's all the same shit except for the "blending" that happens at the end. of course, these high prices demonstrate the need for new oil exploration in the alaska national wildlife refuge, that might start flowing in our lifetimes. gotta keep those gm cars in china rolling.

k

Nothing to do with the post above, but the rising prices and FUD in the press about oil has got me thinking about doing a Natural Gas or electric conversion. Has anyone else considered going CNG? I would think with a turbo we ought to be able to get a decent power output...

I'm starting to think about range with an electric too.... Otmar?

yeah but isnt natural gas/LP more expensive than gasoline anyway? If there are people on board to help, hell i'll turn my 2.0 into a natural gas engine.....that would be super cool. gotta ditch the FI though

Terrorism works. Bin Laden screwed us.. says that every dollar he spends, costs us a million.

I just paid $2.59 a gallon, that's $38.00 to fill up.. unreal.

I'd cuss right here, but I am in the process of just rolling over, and letting it all go by.



Alternative fuels are not an issue, ain't gonna happen.. LP is a by product of oil production, and they burn mostly oil to make electricity, and to make one unit of hydrogen energy, costs 1.6 units of... OIL energy, conservatively.

There is no magic fountain, and it's too late to NOT have years of pain, even if we opened Anwar, and built 20 new refining facilities. Thanks, forward looking polititians, one and all, and to your thoughtless constituents!

If you have any money to spend on investing, and you should, since I told you to short Sears () put it in oil related stocks... production.. not the major refiners, and gold.

Gold is like gold, it seems insane, but serious... even at this inflated level.. I am not a perch kind of investor, but you have to ebb with the tide.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast..


M

Want to find the cheapest gas in your area, then try this link:

http://www.gasbuddy.com/

It might help some of you plan your trips by hitting the gas stations with the lowest price. I know that not all gas is the same because of the addiatives that some of them use, but this would help find the cheapest gas that you prefer.

Rob

I'm looking forward to the lower gas prices when we get down to the U.S. Right now, I'm paying about 1.04/Liter for premium. To fill up my Audi, it costs around $85! According to my calculations, you're paying about .66/Liter. Thats pretty sweet! I guess the price is all relative.

My buddy's brother built the GasBuddy website when he was in university. It's really taken off for him. Sounds like he's doing very well charging for advertising on it.

QUOTE (Sammy @ Apr 7 2005, 09:29 AM)

Gouging? No offense, but that is a term used by the uninformed. If I put a 914 part on e-bay, I want to get as much as possible for it, right? Say it's worth $10, but the bidders get carried away and the final bit is $20. Assuming i representyed the part correctly and did nothing to mislead the bidders, If i accept that bid and sell it for $20 am i gouging? According to your logic (for lack of a more politically correct term) I should tell the highest bidder that the item is only worth $10 and I cannot accept anything higher than $10.50. Maybe there should be a law that says it is illegal to sell parts for more than they are perceived to be worth. Maybe it should be illegal to sell something to the highest bidder. That only happens in economic systems run, controlled, or regulated by the government. It didn't work in the soviet union, it won't work here. Free market economics tell us that the price is set by the market. Here's a news flash, the oil companies, suppliers, and speculators will try to get a $zillion for every gallon and that is not wrong! That is what they are supposed to do. The consumer will always try to get a gallon for free. Again, that is the way it is supposed to be. Somewhere in the middle will be the actual selling price. The seller is motivated to sell. the buyer is motivated to buy. The price is determined by those motivations. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOUGING IN A MARKET LIKE THIS unless one party or the other artificially skews the supply or demand (see tree hugger regulations in previous post). If a refinery runs at 70% of capacity, it will run efficienty and run for extended periods between breakdowns. If it is run at maximum capacity for extended periods it will experience accelerated wear and deteriorated reliability. I know that to be fact from 24 years of personal experience. My job was to keep the refinery running and maximize the reliability of all the rotating equipment. My biggest enemy was running full throttle all the time, trying to squeaze just one more barrel through the units. I hated that because all the tracking I did confirmed that they refinery would actually run much better and longer at lower rates and unless the crack spread was outrageous the refinery would be more profitable in the long run at those lower rates. For example: a full refinery-wide shutdown will take at least 4 weeks, often much longer. the cost of maintenance during that period wil range from $20 million to $70 million. Upgrades or modifications for compliance will add to that number dramatically. Of course during that one to two months there will be no production so that lost revenue cost is staggering to a business that survives on pure volume. Much of the overhead expenses still occur during that period also. my point? if they run at 80% instead of a targetted 100% (which they can never achieve for sustained periods because of unexpected reliability problems) they would be able to extend the time between shutdowns by up to 25% and those shutdowns would be less costly which would more than make up for the lower production levels. Unfortunately that is no longer an option because there is no excess refining capacity in California anymore. They have to run at full throttle as much as possible or they would probably get thrown in jail. Imagine if you drive your 914 at 60 mph on the freeway for a long time. You will get decent mileage (efficiency) and you will probably not hurt the mechanical components, and you won't have to take it apart to fix it as often. Now you take that same car and run it at full throttle at top speed for as long as possible. Sure you'd get somewhere faster for a while, but how long will it last? Same thing goes for a refinery. heaters, pumps, compressors, exchangers, piping, catalyst, it all wears out and must be repaired or replaced periodically. the harder they push it the faster it wears out. Did you know that they have to schedule extended shutdowns for this maintenance way ahead of time and report it to the government officials? They try and go 4 to 5 years between these shutdowns on major units but that isn't always possible. that number used to be 3 years, they are pushing harder now and using up more of their safety factor. Sometimes they just don't last that long. If you lived next to a refinery, would you like it if they pushed it as hard as pssible for as long as possible knowing that the risk of explosion or release is exponential to these factors? They are also mandated to perform these shutdowns during the winter which of course is common sense anyway because that is when demand is usually at the lowest level. Problems occur if too many refineries are scheduled to be down at the same time, again because there just isn't enough reserves any more to carry the market past the dip in production. If a refinery has to shut down or reduce production due to unscheduled maintenance they have to file all kinds of reports and explanations, and various government departments and officials are like flies on shit, investigating to make sure the shutdown is legitimate. Guess what? they always are. There is no such thing as an uneccesary shutdown in the US to manipulate a market. It just doesn't happen except in the twisted minds of conspiracy theorists. Every year we hear about some policical publicity whore trying to get re-elected by getting the voters fired up. One favorite tactic is to claim that the oil companies are gouging and the dishonest or just plain stupid politician calls for a congressional hearing and investigation. I've been called to Sacramento to be grilled and accused before. Total BS is what it was. Everybody pointing fingers and ignoring reality just so they can get some votes. Sickening. Every time they have one of these hearings they find no wrong doing. They quietly drop the issue until the next election is getting close and then drag it all up again just for some headlines. The three worst offenders I know of are Burke, Villaragoza, and Feinstein. IMO they will say or do absolutely anything if they think it will help their careers and if they think they can get away with it. Scandal whores, all of em (IMO). BTW the previous poster hit the nail on the head: China. instead of being a smal time producer they are quicky becoming a big time consumer of oil. that is a major factor in the price of crude oil today. Now that post deserves it's place in the rant Hall of Fame

Go Off Sammy!

$2.71 today.

Guess I shouldn't complain, I could be in the Neterlands.

I'm really looking forward to filling up the Uhaul in the Yukon at over $1.00 a litre and 7mpg. Oh well it's only money. At least I'll be up in Alaska to try and cash in on the mini-boom that will come when the open ANRW.

So I've heard that gas prices could get close to $4 a gallon by the end of the year. They tell us this so that when the price settles around $3 we feel like that's a good price.

Regardless we in the US have had it to good for so long that it's just gonna hurt a little at first but if you want to drive you'll deal with it.

I remember in high school they used to tell us that the worlds oil reserves would be depleted by 2035. Should be interesting when it does actually happen.

the high school teachers also said tugsten (wolfram) will be depleated by 2050something.....

83.9 pence per litre here in the UK.
You do the maths, I'm on a train!

gas has jumped .25 cents here in the last week.

The benchmark for oil is Saudi "sweet light crude"...last I looked it was 55ish bucks a barrel. Not all crude is priced at 55 bucks, others are at around 20-25 bucks. The refineries that can refine the cheep stuff are making money hand over fist as their gas is just as good as the rest.....that is capitalism, dudes. "Make hay while the sun shines" is hardly a new or radical concept.

IMO, the gas prices you're seeing now are as low as you'll ever see in the future......so buy now!

The ANRW deal will be just like the Boron pipeline promise back in real early 70's. We the tax payers will fund the deal "yet again" to have it developed and they will take the fuel and sell it overseas for a premium price. Little of the oil will end up here to lower prices. Mark my word......

picture today showing $3.17/gal for premium ($2.97 regular) at a South Lake Tahoe Chevron.
SLT is not a fun place to get gasoline to so i'm sure transportation costs are high; the highest gas on US 395 (in my range of travels) was Lee Vining, CA ("Gateway to Yosemite") and a long, long way from anywhere, followed by Bridgeport, CA, which was almost as high - typically $.50/gal higher than "normal" places like Douglas County, NV or Bishop, CA.

i can picture us all now, in Mad Max post-apocalyptic clothing circling the teeners around the refinery, chanting "give us the gazoline..." or maybe not.

Living in Tahoe is a pain in the wallet. Beautiful sights all around you, and then you have to fill up Cost was $2.65 per gallon, 22 gallon tank, damn that hurt

It's a ploy by the Bush administration to open up drilling on the West Coast and in the Arctic National Refuge.
Flame on you bastards that voted for the killer.

Between the devalued dollar and demand in China we are on the train to $3.00 plus prices within the next couple months. Sure glad my Toyota gets 40 MPG. Pretty much takes the sting out of these prices. My bigger concern are impacts to prices of commodities that travel via truck in the US.

On the news in Central California there was a report of a gas station in Big Sur charging $3.79 per gallon for regular unleaded. Warning for anyone thinking of taking Highway One with a low tank.

It's a big game. The big oil companies have contracts, or own the rights to the oil before its pumped, which is still at $25-26 a barrel from OPEC. The commodaties market, which is driven by speculation ( you know, opinions ) is habited by folks looking to make money on the up or down. The big companies certainly aren't paying that much, but they can legally charge that much when they sell it to us ( the consumer ). Profits are high obviously for them and the stockholders.
The markets major rise is based on future demand from China, lower reserves here, summer, the long cold winter (heating oil), and questions on the amount of oil really left in the ground. This past year saw overestimate corrections from several major supplies, like from Shell, and in Russia.
A perfect example is when the Irac war started- price rose as the ultimatum date came closer, then immediately dropped $12 in 10 days after the first bomb. Did supply and demand change significantly anywhere at that time? No.
The oil companies are raking in the dough before technology bombs their industry.
And we'll run out of money before we run out of oil. In 2035 we'll all drive battery powered cars because only the rich will be able to afford gas.