is there gas in the car? is there gas in the caaaar?

I have a motorbike... it gets about 240 miles on 4 gallons of gas, the tank is full. I fill it and forget about it for month or so. My insurance is $75...per year. About $6.50 a month.

The Phillips 66 down the street has a weekly special called "Terrific Tuesdays" where the premium gas is sold for the same price as the 87 octane. I've filled up three tanks with the good stuff, and know what? I can't tell a fucking difference. My damn truck is still only getting 29 - 20 mpg.

So that's about 50 cents a litre - about 29p...

And that's gone up in recent times?

OMG I just now realized this ...

http://www.tucoo.com/logo/logo_eps017/s/LA_Gear_2s.png

NB most stations sell 87/89/93, and as 89 is usually priced halfway between, it's a better deal to pump a half-tank of 87 and a half-tank of 93. Just drive over the curb on the way out of the station and that will mix it up :-)

Anything high enough octane will help clean out the fuel injectors, so if you can afford it a tank of 93 every so often is a good idea. I'm not a gas mileage watcher but I notice a definite increase in pickup/performance on 4-cylinder Hondas/Acuras with 93; not so much with the 6-cylinder I have now.

And that's gone up in recent times?

Oh my, yes.

In 2004 (in North Carolina) I was apalled when gas went to $1.59 a gallon.

In 1990 (in Montana) my dad was outraged when the price went over $1 per gallon.

In the mid 90's I travelled through South Carolina where gas was around .89 per gallon.

Yes, this is a major increase.

Metric? Like as in meters? That's absurd. How can you measure gasoline in meters?

Pffft. Silly foreigners!

my understanding is that if the engine's got fuel injection, then they're somewhat useful, and if not, no

my stepfather used to load our Chevy station wagon with airplane fuel back in the 70's - it ruined the engine obviously but the sumbitch would fucking roar up the street

how I did not grow up to love nascar remains a mystery

I think it cost me about £30 to fill up the Micra last time (32.5 litres, 7.1 gal, 8.6 US gal), on which we typically get between 210 (mostly urban driving) and 280 miles (mostly motorway). I say "me" as if I'm the one doing the driving, but I'm merely the one pumping the gas.

1 US gallon = 0.00378 cubic metres.

-- ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!

WORD!

Oh, and the Dodge Hemi trucks and SUVs need high-octane I think. An extra $.30/gallon just adds some misery to that 10mpg.

I sometimes imagine that I'm driving a time-traveler from the past around, trying to explain all the changes. The gas-pump price freakout always figures in the fantasy. Then I hold forth about the economy and OPEC with my awesome body of knowledge on such subjects.

I think I have half a tank, I hardly ever drive.

Then you're wasting money, because this is nonsense.

In most countries (including all of Europe and Australia) the "headline" octane that would be shown on the pump is the RON, but in the United States and some other countries the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, sometimes called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), Road Octane Number (RdON), Pump Octane Number (PON), or (R+M)/2. Because of the 10 point difference noted above, this means that the octane in the United States will be about 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the "normal" gasoline in the US and Canada, would be 91 in Europe.

From what I've seen we have 85-96, but i can't remember for sure.

I was shocked yesterday when I noticed that gas was $3.02 per gallon at one station. I shit myself.