buying a car

Ain’t Fuelin’ Update: How Can I Increase My Gas Mileage?

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Fuel economy is the number one consideration of new car buyers these days, the surveys say (or so we’ve been told). But what about used car buyers? For every new car sold in America each year, three used cars change hands. Aren’t used car buyers similarly concerned about gas mileage? Of course they are … but no one seems to be doing anything about it. That’s why I’m rolling out my Ain’t Fuelin’ video series. I want to improve the fuel efficiency of half of the older cars on the road by ten percent through a mindful maintenance process.

I just finished testing the first vehicle for Ain’t Fuelin’, a 2010 Hyundai Sonata Limited, equipped with a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine and automatic transmission. [Complete Hyundai Sonata Gas Mileage Charts for model years 1989 through 2013.] To bring folks up to speed, I ran an impromptu Google Hangout last night to share some observations and interesting stuff I’ve found while poking around on the Internet.

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Most Fuel Efficient Cars of 2013 (Without a Plug)

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Looking for a new ride with great gas mileage? We’ve pulled together a list of the most fuel-efficient cars of 2013 that do not require an electrical connection. While plug-in vehicles can be very cool, they’re not practical for folks without access to an overnight plug.

The highest-MPG cars with Manfacturer Suggested Retail Prices (MSRP) of $16,000 or less are the Nissan Versa ($11,190) Chevy Spark ($12,185), Chevy Sonic ($14,185), Toyota Yaris ($14,370), Scion iQ ($15,495), Ford Fiesta SFE ($15,935), and Fiat 500 ($16,000). The most frugal of the fuel-sippers are powered by conventional gasoline engines. The Honda Insight is the least expensive hybrid ($18,600), followed by the Toyota Prius c ($19,080).

The $4,710 price difference between the Prius c and the Toyota Yaris (on which the Prius c is based) represents more than just the cost of the hybrid drivetrain. You’ll want to use the MPGomatic Gas Mileage Calculator to determine how many miles it will take to drive in your specific conditions to warrant the added expense.

Be sure to consider the costs of different types of fuel. The cumulative cost differential between regular unleaded, premium unleaded, E85 and diesel fuel can add up over the years. The Ford Focus is the only vehicle on this list capable of running E85.

We’ve produced video reviews of a great many vehicles on this list over the years, so be sure to check them out. It’s our goal to cover them all …

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Can You Find a Fuel Efficient Used Car on eBay?

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Folks often ask me, “what’s the ‘greenest’ car?” This is one of my favorite questions, because it can spur deeper conversation. Some people are shocked when I reply that the ‘greenest’ car is a recycled car. “Wait a minute,” comes the typical response, “a used car … for real?”

They often expect that I would answer with “oh, a (insert the most common name here) hybrid or an electric car (like the one that’s caught the tech world’s fancy that real world folks can’t afford).” Truth be told, 40 mile per gallon (MPG) cars are nothing new. You can find a ten or fifteen year old Honda Civic HX or Volkswagen TDI on eBay that will get 40 MPG on the highway. The older VW Jetta, Golf, Passat, and Beetle TDIs can even run on 100 domestic renewable biodiesel. Vintage Mercedes-Benz diesels can run on biodiesel as well, and they can all be converted to run on recycled fryer grease. There are great bargains to be found on fuel-efficient Saturns, too …

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me an old fryer-grease-powered Mercedes-Benz. All my friends slobber over Teslas, I must make amends …

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Putting the Civic on Temporary Hold

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A funny thing happened on the way to production. It’s not that priorities changed, it’s that economic reality reared its ugly head. I’ve wanted to kick our new fuel-economy focused video series Ain’t Fuelin’ off with a Honda Civic HX Coupe for the longest time. But the fact is that we didn’t raise enough funds to make that happen right off the bat. I set the funding bar just high enough to cover expenses, but not high enough to cover the acquisition of a suitable vehicle. To do this right, we need to start the Civic project with an unmodified vehicle. The original engine, suspension, and lightweight (Enkei) wheels need to be intact.

Our goal is to measure the improvement from stone stock to MPG-modified. Simply put, too many of the HX manual Coupes have been either butchered with questionable parts and hideous mods or the mileage has run around the clock twice. We can’t waste funds returning cars to stock form.

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Ain’t Fuelin’ – Kickstart or Die Trying

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This new video series has been in the works for a couple of years. I was getting ready to launch it in the third quarter of 2011, but when Google drastically slashed the amount of traffic it was sending to this website in mid-July of that year, I put the series on the back burner. This is the reality of life on the Internet. Google controls the bulk of the traffic to content websites. They decide who gets traffic and who does not. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Is it reality? Absolutely. The sites that do exceedingly well in the rankings today are big sites that can afford staffs that specialize in search engine optimization, as well as those that use tactics that optimize their rankings. Smaller sites, particularly one person operations, are simply out of luck in Google’s new world order. Quite simply, they determine what you see.

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