Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Detroit Gas Prices - Find Cheap Gas Prices in Michigan

According to detroitgasprices.com, there is a station in Garden City, wherever that is, charging 3.92 a gallon. I searched gasbuddy.com and that is higher than any gas station in San Francisco, Honolulu, or New York City, you gougers. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and the site has the 2 and the 9 reversed, it's still more expensive than buying gas in New Orleans right now! I'm sure the attorney general is paying attention, but in the meantime I'm going to cut back on driving the big car.

11 comments:

Kendra Lynn said...

Wow...Garden City isn't that far from Canton. I'm afraid to know the prices here as well.
I just talked to my sister. She lives and works in the Grand Rapids area and she said that its around 3.25 or so there.
RIDICULOUS!

Anonymous said...

I just put $45.00 into my Jetta 1.8T (I miss $0.89/gallon!). Luckily, I got about 30.3mpg out of my last fill-up. I wished I got the Turbo Diesel as those are supposed to get about 40+mpg on a gallon of diesel.

I figured out that it costs approximately $7.73 to go round trip to work in Romulus and home in Ferndale again (a 72 mile round trip).

At my job, many of our venders (truckers, airlines, steamships) have a fuel surcharges which have been shooting up. I told my boss I'm going to start charging him an 11% fuel surcharge.

Edmunds.com says that these are the "Top 10 Most Fuel-Efficient" new cars for 2005:
# Honda Insight — 61/66

# Toyota Prius — 60/51*

# Honda Civic Hybrid — 45/51

# Volkswagen Golf TDI — 38/46
Volkswagen Jetta TDI — 38/46
Volkswagen New Beetle TDI — 38/46

# Honda Civic HX — 36/44

# Toyota Echo — 35/42

# Toyota Corolla — 32/41

# Scion xA — 32/37

# Honda Accord Hybrid — 30/37*
Pontiac Vibe — 30/36
Toyota Matrix — 30/36
Scion xB — 31/35*

# Dodge Neon — 29/36
Toyota Celica GT — 29/36*

-Intern Paul

Anonymous said...

Crap!
I just figured out that I could save about $50.00/month if I sold my car and bought the Jetta TDI, at current gas prices...
... or $85.00/month if I got an Insight
... or $135.01/month if I just bought a house only 5 miles away from work. But then I'd just blow that visiting my friends in Royal Oak and Beverly Hills...
Let's hope gas prices go back down because I don't want to move to Romulus, Inkster or Taylor!

-Intern Paul

Laura said...

I happened to glance at the pumps here in Montrose (Colorado) and it is up to $2.89-2.99/gallon for regular which most people can't put into their cars because it is only 85. Plus, which is 87 is about $2.92-3.07 depending on where you go. I'm not looking forward to filling up tomorrow morning. How about we all go on strike?

Jonathan said...

Paul, you need to get a blogger ID. Why remain anonymous?

Now, on VW's web site a New Beetle GLS 2.0L L(gas) is $18,770 and a 1.9 TDI is $20,010. So before the fuel savings begin you have to make up that $1,200 engine option - it works out to 400 gallons of gas at today's prices, since premium diesel isn't cheap either. Still, I see your point, and the more the gas prices go up the fewer gallons of fuel make up the price differential. Can you work from home more often? That commute blows.

Isn't it disheartening that the Vibe, the only domestic vehicle on the top ten for fuel efficiency, is made by Toyota? My understanding is that it's basically a Corolla underneath, which is also on the list. What is really interesting to me is the Celica GT, which is a fun, fun car - it proves you can go fast and get great fuel economy.

Is Garden City nice Kendra? If the gas prices are indicative of the cost of living, I think I'll pass for now.

Jonathan said...

By the way, how does Colorado get away with making 87 octane "plus?" In MI plus is 91 (which was premium fuel when we were in Cali) and premium is anywhere from 92-94 octane.

Anonymous said...

What if I got the Blogger ID "anonymous"??

But if you finance that extra $1200.00 TDI engine over 36 or 48 months, that works out to $25.00-$55.00 per month (depending on your interest rate). Combine that with the cheaper price of deisel (not MUCH cheaper, but cheaper) and you've not only got a lifetime of savings but a cleaner environment, aggregate demand decreases and you see lower gas prices at the pump! We all win!

And this is only assuming prices stay equal. Have the prices ever stayed flat since they first started going up from $0.89/gallon 6 or 7 years ago? By the time I have paid off the car, the price of gas will have increased. Even guessing conservatively, the price of gasoline has increased an average of $0.25/gallon/year. If this trend continues, this puts gas at $4.00 or higher by the time the car's paid off, increasing my savings (again conservatively) to $65.00/month. And then, when the car is paid off, the car will keep paying dividends (relative to my 30.3mpg Jetta 1.8T) for another 3-4 years until I trade it in for a windmill powered Viper! :)

Yeah, the Celica's probably a fun car, but it isn't much better than my VW 1.8T in gas mileage. You know those EPA estimates are way off. It probably gets 31-32mpg in real driving conditions.

The other option is the hybrid engine. Not only do you save tons of cash on the gas consumption but you get a tax write-off too! http://www.ucsusa.org/hybridcenter/incentives.cfm

BTW:
Honda Insight $19,750
Toyota Prius $23,850
Honda Civic Hybrid $20,684

Realtor.com and mapquest show some houses in Garden City less than 10 miles away from work! Kendra, you might have a new roommate soon! :)

-Anonymous Intern Paul

Jonathan said...

Still, it's $20K to buy a new diesel, whereas you owe much less on your current car. Is the savings worth spending a boatload of money? Even though my Jeep gets (substantially) less than 20 MPG in the city, the gas issue is offset by the cheap insurance relative to driving an Acura, and the employee pricing makes it pretty affordable to run. With the VW, you have high insurance to deal with offsetting the fuel efficiency (not to mention sky-high repair costs and $50 synthetic Autohaus oil changes). I only drive 12 miles a day though, or about $15/week with $3 gas. For you the savings would obviously be much higher.

Kendra Lynn said...

Garden City is "okay", I guess. A little too close to Inkster for my comfort.
I live two cities west of Garden City, and I love it here in Canton.
I think it may be expensive to live anywhere right now!
With the economy the way it is, not many people have much money anyway.

Scott and I hope to move to Traverse City someday...but we have to really save to do that!
I didn't notice any outrageous gas prices when we were there last weekend! They were a little less than Canton last weekend.

Ahhh...dreams...how else would we survive?

Laura said...

As far as Colorado getting away with 87 as plus...I really don't know why it is that way. Some say it's cheaper to produce that way and others say it depends on where the refining of the gas it done. All I know is that we get ripped off. Because we live in a rural, mountain area (we're in a valley though), we always pay more than those on Colorado's Front Range (aka Denver Metro). I miss Michigan and it's 87 regular!

I have to agree with Kendra about Garden City. Although, they do have a bakery (if it's still there) that makes wonderful Apple Fritters. My mom used to stop there on her way home from work. Yum!

Oh, about Canton. I used to live there. I can't believe how much it's changed! It has gotten more & more upscale in the past 10-15 years. Unbelievable!

Kendra Lynn said...

Canton is sooo upscale, that Scott and I are wanting out. Ford Rd. is so busy that it takes us at least 20 minutes to drive less than ten miles sometimes. Its absolutely crazy.
Canton does have its good points though.
There are alot of nice community things to do, especially during the summer, and we enjoy taking our girls to some of those things.

Garden City has some good points as well, but as I said before, Inkster is just too close.

Intern Paul, if you don't mind a little gangster activity, you could move to Garden City.
Maybe its better if you move closer to the Westland side than the Inkster side. :)