Showing posts with label fuel economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fuel economy. Show all posts

Monday, March 21, 2011

Saving gas with a smaller car?

So I was watching the local news tonight and they had a story of a guy that had just traded his Jeep Wrangler that gets about 15 mpg for a Prius that gets around 50! Sounds like he'll save some serious change, no? Well, using a site I really like from Edmunds http://www.edmunds.com/calculators/gas-guzzler.html I plugged in a brand new Prius and a 5 year old Jeep (my assumptions) and it shows that it will take him almost 8 years to realize a savings base on the price of gas at around $3.50. Granted, I'm making a few assumptions here but you can go to the site and plug some different cars and gas prices in yourself and see if you ever get a decent return on investment by trading a used car in for a new one based solely on the price of higher gas prices. In most cases you'd be better off keeping your old car tuned up and properly inflating your tires than by buying a new car.