Just playing with excel and did a scatter of octane vs gas mileage. Interesting to see the higher MPG blobs. Those are associated with long distance (300-600 mile) highway driving.
DougW did pass the time by typing:
Oh.. I should mention the lower octane is what I use up in Colorado Springs, if the jeep was fed that at lower altitude the engine would resemble one of those
3d jigsaw puzzles covered with oil.Remember when we bitched about paying $0.50?
Earle
I remember pumping it for $0.32, and they had Gas Wars at that price where they shaved cents off the price to lure in customers from the place on the next corner, or the place across the street.
J Strickland did pass the time by typing:
Yep. Now I use
Going to get one of those credit cards that gives cash back, that will help a bit.
Still cheaper than it was in the 70's when taking the cost of money into account. Won't be long though before we smash that record. Just be glad we don't live in Europe.
Boy, is that ever true! I made one trip from COS to Abilene a couple of years back where I had a 30-35 kt tail wind behind me all the way down into the Panhandle (racing tumbleweeds at times ). Gas mileage was so good that when I got to my usual pit stop in Dalhart I still had plenty of gas so I pushed on into Amarillo (85 octane regular @6500 ft here, 87 octane regular @3100 ft there). Pulling the long hills north of Amarillo got interesting - even with the knock sensor on the 88 I was getting pings and the computer was retarding the timing so far I felt like putting my foot out to push. Filled up south of Amarillo with the 87 octane, ran 4-5 miles and gained a whole bunch of power back with no pinging. Coming North, I generally get
2-3 mpg better mileage going back uphill than I do going down since I'm running with the higher octane stuff on the way back. I suspect that the knock sensor allows the computer to advance the timing a little more with the higher octane - but I'm too cheap to buy the premium just to check it.
I came across an old snapshot of me standing beside my first car in
1957. Behind me is a gas station in Brownwood, TX, (home of the perpetual gas war) advertising regular for $0.12, "HiTest" for $0.21. Even infaltion doesn't make that price look too shabby today .
Oh, why not? ;-)
Thom.
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