gas mileage

The $1300 Civic HX That Got Away

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I’ve been looking for a cheap Civic HX coupe for months on end. When one popped up in North Jersey on Craigslist a few weeks back, it set my wheels rolling. It was exactly what I was after: solid, but with cosmetic issues. (It needed a fender and possibly a door.) The price was spot on: just $1300. I immediately emailed the owner, but didn’t hear back. I waited a day and emailed again. Finally, he got back to me … the car had been sold. With my hopes dashed for that specific car, I vowed to finally get this project in gear. I found another car in South Jersey that looked to be a likely candidate. It had high miles, but was relatively clean, other than one mismatched wheel. The price was roughly double that of the North Jersey HX. I watched it for a few days, before it sold, as well.

The Kickstarter campaign for Ain’t Fuelin’ reached two milestones yesterday, crossing the 50 backer and $1300 funding marks. Fifty backers and thirteen hundred bucks … a small crowd and the exact amount of the car that spurred me into launching the campaign. The car I currently have my eye on is nearly triple the price of the banged-up bargain car. It’s extremely clean but has over two hundred and twenty thousand miles on the clock. I should have my head examined for even considering the car at that price. That said, I’ve driven the car and it doesn’t feel like it has that many miles. It’s solid. But it’s not worth what they’re asking.

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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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Ain’t Fuelin’ Hangout with EricTheCarGuy

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In the first of a series of hangouts we have planned to support our new video series, Ain’t Fuelin’, I chat with special guest Eric Cook, a.k.a. EricTheCarGuy on YouTube. Eric and I run long on a bunch of fuel economy and car maintenance, including: is it worth it to have an engine rebuilt on a car with 200K on the clock and is there a market in refurbishing older fuel efficient cars, like the Honda Civic and Volkswagen TDIs?

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GMC Yukon Gas Mileage: 1992 – 2013

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If there was a competition for poster boy for the excess consumption of gasoline, the GMC Yukon would surely be among the finalists. While the hybrid version of the Yukon 1500 may be rated at 20 miles per gallon in the city, the 2500 is rated at half that amount. Nevertheless, the Yukon Hybrid hasn’t found a huge number of buyers. The best solution for the Yukon would be a turbo-diesel engine, but General Motors hasn’t had the gumption to drop a Duramax between the fenders, for whatever reason. A properly geared diesel would likely outshine the Hybrid on the highway. Even better if it ran B20 domestic renewable biodiesel. Fingers crossed we see it soon …

2013 Hybrid GMC Yukon Denali

I know some folks say, it’s too big, it uses too much gas
Some folks say it’s too old, and that it goes too fast
But my love is bigger than a Honda, it is bigger than a Subaru
– Bruce Springsteen/Pink Cadillac

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Geo Gas Mileage : 1989 – 1997

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What does a major car manufacturer do when they need a line of fuel-efficient cars and lack the time and resources to engineer and build the little beasts themselves? Why they rebadge, of course! The Geo brand was sold by Chevrolet dealerships from 1989 through 1997, offering a slew of small vehicles initially built overseas by Suzuki and Isuzu (some subsequently in Canada), and here in the States through a joint venture with Toyota. The tiny Suzuki-built Geo Metro has a stellar reputation among high-MPG econobox aficionados. The Metro was available with a ridiculously small 1.0-liter three cylinder engine that was capable of remarkable mileage when equipped with the five-speed manual. Among the cheap car crowd, the Metro XFI is the most sought-after of the tiny fuel-sippers, enjoying highway ratings in the low fifties.

Suzuki also supplied the Geo Tracker, in addition to the Metro. The Tracker was based on the Suzuki Sidekick and was available in hardtop and ragtop versions in both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive. Isuzu supplied the Geo Storm, which was based on the Isuzu Impulse. The Geo Prizm was based on the Toyota Corolla and was built at the NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) plant in Fremont, California. NUMMI was a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors.

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