Comments on: Focus on Reliability and Fuel Efficiency (29/365)

By: jim

jim — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:13:07 +0000

Maria, yes a 2003 SXT is worth around $4k give or take. 2003 is only 8 years ago. Dodge sold over a million Neons and there are certainly many thousands of them still on the road. Neons were below average reliability but that doesn’t mean they all fall apart in a pile of rust after 3-4 days.

I drove a 1995 Neon for several years and over 80k miles with no major failures. Had to replace a starter motor once. At the same time my friends new Honda had the transmission completely fail and need replacement 2-3 times. Of course thats just anecdotal… but lets not act like Dodges all fall apart and certain other makes are guaranteed to run forever.

By: David

David — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:26:31 +0000

Thank you Derek, but I claim little credit (as a frugal person should, of course). The June 2008 edition of Science magazine contained a paper by Richard Larrick and Jack Soll called “The MPG Illusion”, and there is now a website dedicated to the relevant issues. Since psychology and economics are not physics, there is of course some doubt as to whether the paper should have appeared in anything calling itself “Science”, being perhaps rather more suited to “Philately”, but…

By: maria

maria — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:49:57 +0000

Oh my Gosh!! A 2003 Dodge Neon is worth 4 grand!!!
Seriously, I can’t believe there is still a 2003 Dodge Neon that is road worthy.
How old is this picture???

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:54:01 +0000

Hmmm… well, you know what I mean.

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:51:46 +0000

Thanks David #7, your example was interesting and made its point well. Don’t compare gallons, compare miles!

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:18:45 +0000

I think he lost instrest before the sale.

Yet I’m here, too.

(But I can easily drive 100 reimbursable miles a day. Sadly. )

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:17:08 +0000

I can’t say it any better than #24 Izabelle @ 7:54 pm January 30th, 2012, “…and yet a mix of morbid curiosity and the great comments keep me coming back.” Running dry idea wise is why Amy (rhymes with “decision”) ended her column, put all her work into the wonderful three volume set, “The Tightwad Gazette” and retired. The author of this blog has covered all the important stuff, sold the blog and lost interest. Hence the dull retread of a not very interesting book being flogged for 365 days in a row when he will not have to think up a subject. I make it a point to never look at the mass of ads.

By: Raya

Raya — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:49:05 +0000

25000 miles per year is 100 miles per work day – if you calculate based on the assumption that you only use your car on workdays.

But when you add in weekend travel and more distant travel once or twice a year that “100miles per work day” will drop.

By: SwingCheese

SwingCheese — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:05:47 +0000

@14, Izabelle: We, too, have a 2001 Ford Focus. We’ve had ours for going on 7 years now, and it has never needed anything more than general maintenance and upkeep. We just paid the registration fees, and even those are cheap (as are insurance, repairs, etc.). I love our Focus!!

By: Mister E

Mister E — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:47:29 +0000

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people who really just come here for a chuckle, certainly a large share of the commenters.

Really though, the best was his desire to live among Nordic peoples.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:54:05 +0000

…and yet a mix of morbid curiosity and the great comments keep me coming back.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:48:34 +0000

IMHO, he jumped the shark when he advised ladies to swim in their underwear (!)

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:55:50 +0000

I don’t know…is any of this any worse than the time Trent said, in two consecutive posts on the same day, that he needed to spend both more money on books and less money on books?

By: Amyk

Amyk — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:40:43 +0000

Trant, I believe you have jumped the shark!

By: kc

kc — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:36:37 +0000

Code Blue! This series needs emergency care.

This post is poorly thought out, sloppily written, and features a reference to a site that Trent claims is a “significant factor when (he’s) deciding on what car to buy,” that is in fact for the UK. Really?

TSD is going downhill awfully fast.

By: Sara

Sara — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:28:51 +0000

You need to include insurance…which can very between cars too

By: jim

jim — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:02:41 +0000

The Reliability Index linked in the article appears to be U.K. specific and doesn’t seem to cover the US market.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:21:08 +0000

As a fellow blogger, I must say that a quick proofread isn’t too much to ask.

I don’t run my blog full time, still have a day job, and get a fraction of trent’s traffic. I would guess that my average post takes me 2-3 hours longer to produce than his.

I still find time to at least read for spelling.

What the heck is a Galoon?

PS. This series is horrible.

By: Troy

Troy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:00:43 +0000

So the site was sold a few months ago.

And the payout rolled in and T-man decided to cash-out and pay off all his debt. Disregard the fact that this move now very much alienates him from his readership…for he is no longer one of “them”

He now has little incentive to hit article homeruns. Because he sold out, and doesn’t own it anymore anyway. It’s not his baby…its someone elses.

So he writes articles like this one inside series like this one with major assumptions and missing or unrealistic key information.

Of course the smart thing would be to compare used cars. And to estimate normal 15K miles per year. And the solution in saving expenses is in driving less, not spending more. If you put 25K miles on you car per year your mileage isn’t the issue. The time driving is.

No…the 90%+ depreciation in 6 years is not based in reality, but little in this post is. Go find me a “reliable fuel efficient” 2006 vehicle of any type that is selling for less than 10% of it’s purchase price.

Get ready everyone. This is exactly what “I’m really not into it anymore” looks like.

By: David

David — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:45:29 +0000

Bob can’t get a car that does 40 mpg because Bob does not exist – he is a character in a problem designed purely to show that miles per gallon is not a sensible way to think about fuel efficiency (which it is not, but a lot of people think that it is).

If you are set the following problem in an examination:

A bath has two taps, one of which dispenses seven litres of water per minute and the other nine litres of water per minute. The water drains from the bath through the plughole at a rate of five litres per minute. If the bath has a capacity of 120 litres, how long will it take to fill the bath?

you should not answer “Why don’t you put the plug in?” but Johanna would doubtless advise that you should.