Oddly, where I live the “up to 10% ethanol” gas has remained fairly steady, but non-ethanol has dropped. Car can run on 87 but 93 is “recommended”, so I alternated between 93 premium and the 90 octane non-ethanol gas. Truck might get a gallon or two top off when I buy gas for my lawnmower.
$4.79 at the Chevron nearby and $4.30 at the local Kroger affiliate. No idea about Costco because I don’t have time to wait in their lines.
The good news is that, when you retire, you can go in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, when lines are nonexistent. In NJ, Costco’s regular gas currently ranges from $2.63-2.69/gallon.
Going metric is the obvious way. Then you have to calculate how much the liter costs converted to a gallon.
I’m 56. Retirement is 15+ years away.
Will I be driving a gasoline car then?
You say that but… this summer I had some family visiting and on a weekday went out to brunch to a restaurant that overlooks my local Costco. We were there around 11am. I watched a plumbing service van pull into the line and noted the time. From when he got into the serpentine line to when he pulled up to a pump was 14 minutes.
What do plumbers charge? $150 hour? If I were his manager I would be furious that he spent $40 of billable time waiting in line to save $5 on gas.
Back in the '70s (?), when there were a lot of proposals for the US to convert to the metric system, my regional newspaper printed a letter to the editor from a woman who was “outraged” that she would have to buy a new car if that standard was implemented, because “my car’s gas tank takes gallons–not liters”.
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A gallon was already downsized long ago…
A British Imperial gallon is about 10% more than an American gallon. ![]()
Thats why those Brit cars get such good mpgs compared to US versions of the same car.
Yes, I can say that because it represents the situation in my area.
I have no idea what it might be like at Costco gas stations in your area.
You?
Suggesting going metric?
Would never have thunk it!
Certainly not. Some professions need to use it and that’s fine. I have trouble visualizing 50 meters from yards, and kilometers etc. I will sometimes measure in mm though if it is easier instead of figuring out 9 7/16 minus 5 1/8, for example. I have no idea how much a kilo is when dealers are arrested.
And, setting all four tires on a given car to 227kPa is far more precise than aiming for 33psi! (On digital gauges that support that measurement scale)
Look in the toolbox of any auto mechanic younger than about 40 and I doubt you will find any standard wrenches. Everything will be metric.
Back in 1996 I ended up in the ER on a Friday afternoon with terrible abdominal pain. I had emergency surgery. The pain afterwards was far worse than the pain that brought me in. My (now) wife complained to the nursing staff all weekend that my morphine drip wasn’t doing a ■■■■ thing, but they wouldn’t adjust my medication until the doctor came in Monday morning.
Turns out that they had calculated my morphine based on pounds of body weight. I was about 220 lbs at the time. But someone entered my weight in kilograms instead of pounds. So I was getting morphine for a 100 lb man instead of the 220 that I was. Most miserable weekend of my life.
Yes it is. But does it need to be? ![]()
Today, Mapco was $2.39, Exxon was $2.55, Shell was $2.60, and Kroger was $2.39, yesterday they were all about $0.04 cheaper… Last week all were about $0.20 to $0.25 more…
I don’t pay attention to the $0.009, and that was left off, you can add it if ya wants too… lol
I’ve talked about Kroger Supermarket “Gas Points” before and sometimes they really pay off… You get 1-point for each dollar you spend in the store. There are lots of specials where you get “4-times” fuel points. At the gas pump, each 100-points are worth 10-cents off each gallon. They allow a maximum of 1,000 points off on any one purchase. You can accumulate a lot more points but you can only use 1,000 at a time.
Last month’s shopping got us over 1,200 points and the other day I cashed in 1,000 of them… Regular gas was $2.799 and with the 1,000-points, I got a dollar off each gallon… unfortunately the Toyota only needed gas and I bought 9.1 gallons of Regular gas for $1.799 a gallon for a total purchase of $16.38…
There is a limit to this offer… you cannot pull in with an 18-wheeler and fill up your truck’s 300-gallon fuel tank… there is a 35-gallon limit with the “points purchase.” I found this out when I used the fuel point on my diesel Dodge Ram with its 42 gallon fuel tank. Like a fuel purchase made with cash, as I pumped the pump slowed down and stopped at 35-gallons… Not a problem as the truck might have taken only a couple of gallons more…
That was when I saw the notice on the pump for the first time…
Yeah been there. Couldn’t straighten up. Appendix burst. Surgeon didn’t get much sleep that night but the drips were fine. Tried to get them to turn it down until it wore off and decided they knew best.
I’ll answer that question after someone(not just ase) answers this question:
Is there any reason why, on a car with 33psi cold at each corner, it’s accaptable for the tires to measure 32, 34, 31, and 33?
That is a point that participants, on CarTalk, Automotive Forums, and many other forums I belong to, grill me on, just because they want to.
Tolerance.
Has anyone contemplated how they came up with such an odd number for the cold pressure? Why 33? Wouldn’t 32 be easier for most people to remember? Or 30? There’s a reason they call it an ODD number ![]()
The reason is, they already know the acceptable range of pressure with a healthy dose of margin already subtracted off. In that particular application, the range may be 30 to 36 psi is acceptable and presents no hazard. So they take the mean value and make that the target= 33 psi. with a +/-3 psi tolerance. This also takes into account the worst case gauge variance one might expect in the field.
There is no practical reason the pressures need to be exactly the same between tires…it doesn’t hurt but I would argue it doesn’t help either.
Pretty sure it’s calculated based on tire footprint and vehicle weight.
Taking Air Out of the Tire Equation: The Science of Tire Pressure | SimpleTire

