Welcome the newest member of our family-The experiment begins!!

After a few weeks of watching the gas pump read this each time I filled up.

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I decided to try an experiment and get this....

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I paid $2500 for a 2002 Ford Escort with around 95k miles on it. CR recommends the Escort as a decent vehicle. If it goes a year at the current prices, it becomes a free car thanks to the difference in use between my 3/4 ton pickup and what this vehicle will use.

If you want to do the math, I fill up once a week so that means the amount I was spending on fuel was hitting around $400 a month.

Now on to the question of fuel prices influencing behavior. Would I have done this if the price of gas were lower? Not at all. At the current prices though the money is spent in my mind and the costs sunk so I might as well see what I can get for that money other than gasoline.

I wouldn't have purchased a new car even if it was fuel efficient because it would take me a dozen years to somehow make that money back. This bet though, I am willing to take.

For those that care about car spec stuff, it is automatic with power windows, locks, etc. I have no idea what the rims are and if you tell me or have me say the name to you, I still won't know what it means.

But hey.... possible free car... if the prices stay high, the calculations are right and if there isn't too much maintenance.

That would be a no.

I don't know that there is that much resale value to worry about in the pick-up. It is a 1991 Chevy 2500 extended cab 5.7L with 4 speed auto. I purchased it to replace my Jeep Cherokee and also to haul around our travel trailer during our summer vacation. It is probably worth $3-4,000.

My theory is purchase used vehicles at around 80k miles for around $4000. I won't buy new or finance anything. The reason I purchased this car for $2500 was because I had grown tired of a project RV I was farting around with, a 1971 Winnebago Brave and that was what I got for it in selling it.

A smaller truck would not do the trick. I purchased the trailer and hauled it home with my father's pick-up since it had a brake controller. I then figured I would try it out with my Jeep Cherokee which is roughly the same as your Liberty. It sat the Jeep down on the stops for the springs. I decided to go with the larger truck since I gained so much more I could do and actually lost very little in terms of MPG. My truck gets 14 mpg. Our Explorer gets 15-16 mpg. I know the Liberty gets an average of 18 mpg as did my Cherokee. I also know that the Tacoma doesn't do much better either than the Liberty or Cherokee.

Our travel trailer is basically our summer "home" since we park it at a private campground 15 miles away from our house for a month each summer. When we camp further out, we don't take it (as you are well aware of) and instead just toss the tent and other equipment into the bed with the shell. We also tend to go to this membership campground we belong to several other times a year. My view on it is the truck, trailer and membership are probably better environmentally than owning a full blown second vacation home.

Finally the one thing we gain with the pick-up that we would not with a Tacoma, Liberty, Cherokee, etc... is the ability to seat six which comes up more often than you might imagine when you already have four in the family. In terms of miles per person per gallon, or miles per gallon per pound hauled, it simply does better. I say this as someone who very much preferred the Cherokee and wouldn't mind owning one again. The truck simply did what I needed better.


The wife has decided to leave the district she was in, stay home and try to get into the local district next year. That should eliminate a major fuel expense as she will literally drive a few miles at most. I would gladly apply closer but public schools do not automatically let you transfer all your years and units of service between them and the result would be a substantial pay cut. When the price of gas is more than the pay cut, I suppose I will reconsider, however I already did buy the car to try to limit the effects there.

The tow capacity of your truck is 3500lbs and a yard of concrete is 5300lbs. They did a little more than not let you go with it. You would have been a serious accident waiting to happen. In California you would need a trailer with electric brakes to haul that load around.

So we have the vehicle that can carry six, tow what we need, and also haul anything my home or rentals would need. We also have a vehicle that can get decent gas mileage, haul 4 adults, possibly 5 if some are kids and can be used as a commuter. The Explorer.... well we are conducting an experiment to see what can stay and go.

So we have had the car for... 10 days. The wife is taking it to work this week since she commutes and I am at home with the kids.









A total of 466 miles, in part due to family graduations, swim meets, that sort of thing. We are using the car as a family vehicle to save gas and hopefully recoup costs that much quicker.

It used 18.9 gallons of gas. Which represent one complete fill-up and another 80% fill up.

My truck would have used 33.3 gallons to travel the same distance instead of 18.9.

That is a "savings" of 14.4 gallons at an average of around $4.55 for a total of $65.52 in gas savings for ten days.

I multiply that by three and I am at $196.56 which is close to what I am hoping for in terms of savings.

The Ford so far is averaging a bit under 25 mpg which is less than the new "conservative" fueleconomy.gov claims. I'm going to see if I can work on improving my lead foot a bit to help that.

Well I do drive through the mountains each day which I am sure is not helpful to the gas mileage.

Your numbers are a bit higher than what everyone else seems to claim. I'm naturally skeptical about such things since everyone also swears their towing rigs all get 12 mpg on gas when pulling a 30 ft trailer.

That said, there are still some differences. Yours is probably newer. Yours is a subcompact and mine is a compact. You still have three in the family (but we are happy to indulge any announcements if you want to make them) and I have four.

Still I will try to see what setting the cruise control at 60 will do. The wife has it for the next two weeks as she still has school and I am done for the year. She knows she MUST take pictures for the experiment.

Oh I'm sure the Civic has gotten bigger. Every redesign of a vehicle seems to get bigger and that is part of why "going green" doesn't pay as much as a should because most of the gains are spent on weight, size increases and luxury.

Also for your numbers to make sense, 90% of your real world driving must be on the freeway.

That said Fellowship, you find me your vehicle for $2500 and I'll be happy to drive it all day long. Additionally I'm sending you the youngest son for a while. I suspect that within a month or two you'll give me your car just to take him back.