Gas costs - cents per mile

[Bill]

Several years ago, one of our members posted a question. It was:

How far would you drive off your planned route to save a few cents a gallon on gasoline?

Answers varied widely. Some wouldn't drive a mile to save a dime per gallon, while others would drive 10 miles to save a nickel per gallon. Many pointed out that the issue was the cost of the gas you would burn to make that saving. In other words, the cost per mile of driving your vehicle.

Summer is approaching and TM outings are being planned. Just for the fun of it, I made up a chart showing cost per mile, for a range of gas prices and vehicle mpg. Don't be intimidated by the size of the chart. Just select the available price of gas on the left side of the chart and go across. Then select your vehicle's mpg on the top of the chart, and drop down. At the intersection, the cents per mile cost is shown.

As an example, I chose $4.00 per gallon (about what we are seeing in Phoenix today!) and 15 mpg (about what our F-150 is delivering with a fully loaded trailer), and I see that my cost is about 26.7 cents a mile. Really? I had been using 15 cents a mile as a rough estimate, so I was surprised that the actual cost was nearly double that. I might consider this when planning my next outing.

Of course you can use this information for other things. If you are thinking of a 300 mile outing in California, where gas costs $5.75 a gallon, vs. a 500 mile outing in the mid-west, where gas runs $2.50 a gallon, you can easily see the difference. Or on a grander scale, suppose you are thinking of buying a new tow vehicle, and you have your eye on a configuration that is EPA-rated at 16 mpg. You might reluctantly ask yourself if you would save a lot if you chose a plainer version delivering 19 mpg. Easy. Just look up the cost per mile for each configuration, subtract the two to get difference in cost per mile, and multiply by 12,000 miles, the number of miles you will probably drive in a year.

As a registered cheapskate, I found this information interesting. Have fun with it.

Bill

[Shane826]

Thanks for putting this together! Gotta love my EcoDiesel truck… Full size half ton truck pulling a 3326 for under 20¢ per mile!

PS- Can I copy this (with proper credit of course) on the TMF page on Facebook?

[Bill]

Of course ! Inquiring TMers (even those who never thought about it) need to know.

Bill

[Rob Culver]

Originally Posted by Bill

Several years ago, one of our members posted a question. It was:

How far would you drive off your planned route to save a few cents a gallon on gasoline?

Answers varied widely. Some wouldn't drive a mile to save a dime per gallon, while others would drive 10 miles to save a nickel per gallon. Many pointed out that the issue was the cost of the gas you would burn to make that saving. In other words, the cost per mile of driving your vehicle.


As a registered cheapskate, I found this information interesting. Have fun with it.

Bill

Nice chart Bill. Thanks! My neighbor told me that I shouldn't own an RV at all if I cared alot about gas prices. But he had to admit that if you drive enough miles it will make financial sense to get an RV with good gas mileage. I'm getting about 18 mpg full loaded which isn't as much as I had hoped for but considering I got only 10 mpg at best on my previous class C it's still pretty good. With a regular non popup trailer, I know I'd be lucky to get 12 mpg regardless of how small it might be. Because it seems to be wind resistance that's the biggest factor and even the small trailers are tall enough to create alot of wind drag.

[Bill]

Thanks. I should point out that of course the chart covers only gas costs per mile. I thought about integrating other running costs, such as oil changes and tires. But the whole thing got out of hand, so I quit while I was ahead.

But off the record, when I am actually thinking about it, I usually add about 5 cents a mile for those other mileage-related costs.

Bill