$4.00 gal?

News, the last few days, has been forecasting $4.00 pr gal gas prices, this summer. Of course, diesel will follow. (Lead?) Is this "business as usual? A deal breaker?  :'(

I hate the idea! 

But, as I think about it, it really won't impact me, much. We don't travel far, and we  park when we get there. We just "camp out," or run around in the toad or on the scooters. For us, maybe another $60 per month. Got that much in the bank. Would rather spend it on something else, but the oil cartels want it. I really don't know what it takes to "break the bank."  :-\

What's your take?  ??? ??? ???

Ray D  :-\

Ray,

I've given up fuming over the price of gas. I don't know what causes it to rise as it has, the people who do know aren't going to tell us and, of course, I can't do anything about it.

My view is a lot like yours. I will continue to use my MH and love it simply by taking shorter trips, staying longer and for those nice long hauls such as the one we have planned this summer for the Canadian Rockies I just need to plan far enough in advance to save gas money. No big deal once it's in your pocket.

Just my take.

Dave

Having just returned from traveling over 3000 miles, I'm feeling the sting (gas ranged from 2.98 to 3.29 per gallon).  I don't even want to think about 4.00 per gallon.  It does hurt.  We normally did 5 longer trips per year New York to Key West, to Richmond, VA. to Myrtle Beach, SC, to Bristol, TN and to Charlotte, NC.  Last year we opted out of the TN trip for different reasons than gas.  However, we decided we would continue to spend that week closer to home, because of gas prices.  We also do several long weekends within 2 hours of our home.  So I guess we will still be traveling (crying a little) but cutting back some.  We have also stopped eating out while on the road.  I make sure we have enough for quick breakfast, lunch meats and prepare dinners the weeks before we leave and freeze them for dinner.  This has worked for us, so far.    We also always limited our dining out while we were at our destination.  There isn't really much else we could cut back on, except not going at all and we're not ready to stop.  We figure in a couple of years, when we retire, we'll be able to head to one place (south/warm   ) for the winter and park it for longer periods of time. 

Our only other option would be to let the motor home sit in the yard unused and continue to pay for it, as we purchased it new and would still be upside down with it if we tried to sell...(I sure wish I had found the good info on this board BEFORE we purchased new ... hindsight..)  not to mention with gas price,who would really want to buy.  So since we love what we do we will continue to travel.

JoAnn

Cricketdaddy said:

Ray,

I've given up fuming over the price of gas. I don't know what causes it to rise as it has, the people who do know aren't going to tell us and, of course, I can't do anything about it.

Dave

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Dave,

Can you spell GREED? Just look at the billions of dollars in profit they have made!! How they can justify it is beyond me. As far as controlling it, I personally think too many politicians are getting paid to look the other way.

Hi Guys
I feel your pain at $4 a gallon but what can you do to change it ? demonstrate? or just not buy fuel ? I don't know

but while your hurting spare a thought for us RV owners in the UK recent price increase took gas to ?4.77 a gallon = approx $8.00
does our fuel come out of the same hole in the ground ? maybe
question is wheres the money going ? well our illustriuos government takes about 60% of that in tax

We make alot of noise over here but it soon dies down and were back to normal in a couple of days.... it must be a British thing  :

We make alot of noise over here but it soon dies down and were back to normal in a couple of days.... it must be a British thing 

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Nah, it's not a British thing. It's the same here. I have to live 40 miles from where I work because I can't afford the cost of a home closer. The wife and I are plotting a new way of life. Will keep you apprised.

I'm sure it will eventually get there... believe it or not, American gasoline is cheap compared to most other industrialized countries (Canada and U.K are perfect examples).  I'm kinda with Cricketdaddy though, in that I try not to get all bent out of shape about it.  I just get the cheapest fuel I can, wherever I happen to be.  I plan my fuel-ups based on local price trends.  There IS a pattern of how the prices rise and fall, you just have to pay attention.  Sometimes it's a gamble and I don't/can't fill up before gas skyrockets 15-25 cents overnight, but usually I'm able to "buy low" and smile the next day when prices shoot way up and I'm NOT one of those poor suckers at the pump. 

I haven't been to the States yet, plan on coming early 89 with the intention of buying another RV

Heres a question for you guys.... Do any of you RV gas owners ever convert your motors to run on LPG ?
We do it in the UK often my Winnebago is powered by a 460 V8 Ford gasser which is converted to LPG
The cost of LPG over here is approx 50% cheaper than Gasoline

If we could drill for oil in the Anwar provedence and off the coast of Florida, the price would drop over night.  As for thwe bif profits they make it's us share holders who get that money and almost all of us have retirement plans and they invest in the oil companies to, so becareful what you wish for.  If we wait until all the other countris are drill off the coast there want be any room left for the american oil companys.

Tony,

A friend and forum member used to have a pickup truck with a large LPG tank in the bed. The truck had been modified to be able to to switch from one to the other using something on the dash. I vaguely recall driving it once and being told "if you run out of gas (petrol), pull this knob". Apparently, the conversion was done in response to the oil crisis of the 70's (?)

BTW I'm not taking out my towel and crying in sympathy for your petrol prices. You need to beat on the folks in Westminster, because they're the ones who promised "cheap petrol" when they authorized drilling in the North Sea back in the 60's. They left out the bit about fuel tax increases every budget day. But, in return for high taxes, you get the National Health Service benefits for everyone, staying on the dole is more profitable than working for many folks, and all the free handouts to foreigners.

Another reason for you not to be so unhappy is that you get 25% more MPG for the same vehicle here, because an imperial gallon is 25% larger than a U.S. gallon  ;D

Do any of you RV gas owners ever convert your motors to run on LPG ?

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Very few, if any. LPG is not widely available in fuel stations in the US (Canada has them, though) and the price is fairly high (typically over $3/gallon and close to US gas and diesel prices). With the lower energy content of LPG vs gas or diesel, it is not (yet) an attractive proposition.

OK Tom
point taken on the differance in gallons and the health service

BTW When did you say you were coming home to the UK  ;D ;D ;D

Gary
I guess it wont take our government long to catch on to LPG situation and pretty soon it will be like Canadian LPG prices
They did it with deisel when everybody started to buy deisel cars now deisel is more expensive than gasoline

When did you say you were coming home to the UK

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Probably after the next 2 terms in the White House.

bamboo -
don't let the oil companies fool you with the drilling in ANWR - 10 years of construction and tax subsidies for what is estimated to be about 6 months worth of oil -
not a great trade off.
better to make a deal with Mexico for their oil.
just the way I see it - your mileage may differ of course.....

joester said:

bamboo -
don't let the oil companies fool you with the drilling in ANWR - 10 years of construction and tax subsidies for what is estimated to be about 6 months worth of oil -
not a great trade off.
better to make a deal with Mexico for their oil.
just the way I see it - your mileage may differ of course.....

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Mexico is a net importer of downstream product; they imported 473,000bbl/d in 2006 and exported 182,000 bbl/d. They do export 1.7Mbbl/d of crude to US but there capacity is in serious decline. They estimated in 2002 they had a 20 yr supply of crude but it fell to just 10yrs in 2006 as exploration has been hit by a lack of funds i.e. Pemex prices are government controlled and they can't make enough profit to fund exploration and improve existing fields. 

The same thing is happening in Venezuela where the dictator is siphoning off moneys to fund social programs and at same time his policies are driving out the knowledge workers needed to improve the operations and explore for new fields.

It should not be , but unfortunately will be, lost on US citizens that the calls for controlling oil companies profits have shown very clearly to be a failed policy in those countries that are implementing them right this minute and our present problems will only be exacerbated.

As soon as you try to control fuel prices (which I agree will be counter-productive) you will have someone demanding Microsoft's profits be controlled, baseball ticket prices lowered, etc. ??? ??? ???

joester said:

bamboo -
don't let the oil companies fool you with the drilling in ANWR - 10 years of construction and tax subsidies for what is estimated to be about 6 months worth of oil -
not a great trade off.
better to make a deal with Mexico for their oil.
just the way I see it - your mileage may differ of course.....

Click to expand...

I am perplexed by your 6 month estimate. After the passing of the Energy Policy Act of 2003, a request was made by the House Energy Committee for a study of the ANWR field and in that report the estimated mean reserve was 10.4 billion barrels of crude with a high of possibly 16 billion barrels. You can pick your daily rate of extraction but using the Alaska fields rate of about 800,000bbl/d one would get 292 million barrels per year and thus it looks more like 30 yrs.

In 2000, this is a portion of an earlier report to same Committee by EIA the following was stated.

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The report postulates two production rates for each of the three USGS probability estimates without specifying oil-price or technology-advancement effects. The commercially developable resources associated with the three probability cases are calculated based on a 12% rate of return.

Peak production rates for the six cases (two production rates x three probability estimates) were projected to range between 600,000 and 1.9 million bopd, with peak production estimated to occur 20-30 years after first oil

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The real frightening thing is...it will take us less than 150 years to use up what it took millions and millions of years to make. OIL

Which is the real reason the price is rising.

What I don't understand is how we are lucky enough to stay below the global average.  Likely for similar reasons we surivive with such a huge national deficit.  The day is coming when all of this will blow up in our own faces.

I do know at these prices using the motorcycle makes much more sense!! At an average of 53mpg it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out and we have a few of them in our area. ;D ;D Filled up today at something over 70 miles and it took just over 1.5 gallons. We'll be riding it a lot more from now on!!!