first off i live in southern california where there is no public transportation! second i blame al the tree huggers!!! we have plenty of oil here in america where we could had gas at 45 cents a gallon.anybody who thinks that bush and cheny are not getting rich from the war is a tool.i saw somebody say that cheny quit and doent have stocks, im sure he has plenty of friends who are giving him kick backs for getting them the job thats how construction works!. if the govt doesnt step in like saudi arabia,mexico,and other countrys and stop them from rasing the price of gas this country is in for a world of hurt.

 

OMG, it's 25%+ better than Prius. Unbelievable! But the lovely part is the torque

After travelling in UK (So'ton. Cambridge and London) and France (Paris), I found that American here might not need to buy small car, but we shall buy better fuel efficient car such as BMW 520d or the like. In those places I travelled above, parking spaces and the roads are way too small to own 5-series. But here, parking space and road are ample. As long as car is getting 50mpg, I believe American does not care much about the size. But, if we need to go beyond those mpg figure above, a smaller car is another plus.

I like driving small car like 3-series, but with kids, that's out of question.

 

I agree there is plenty of bigger cars that get great gas mileage. I think in the future us in America are going to have to seperate lighting quick performance for MPG to keep the size of car many of us like. Though I must applaud many of the car makers. There is alot of large sedans out there that can pull 30 MPG+ on the HWY.

What do people on here consider good gas mileage in your area of the world??

I got to be honest driving even small vehicles with smaller engines (4cyl. non turbo) in the city I've notice I get no where near there est. MPG in city driving. I think many times I get similar mileage with in 2 MPG then I get in many 6 cyl. cars that are know to be fuel efficient for there class. I've yet to really see much better then about mid 20's in the city on any car that I've driven through the years. I know many of my friends feel the same way. Seems to me if you have a fuel efficient car regardless of size or motor size you seem to fall in that 19MPG to 24MPG in the city. I just notice this more often then not because I drive alot for my job and through my years I've had my fair share of rental cars and many times I'm shocked at the poor MPG that I get in return for the type of car I'm driving. If I get 18 MPG give or take in 545i (530/535 of about 21 to 22MPG ) and 22-24MPG in a little Saturn in the city I'll swallow the 4 MPG no matter how high gas prices are or in many cases maybe only 1 or 2 MPG different. This seems to ring true with many larger sedans out there with V6 plus engines in them. My mother has a new avalon (had it for about a year now) and she gets a solid 22MPG in the city and between 29MPG to 33MPG on the HWY. To get much better then low 30's on the HWY you got to have a little Corolla or something. But if your driving 80% in city and only 20% on HWY is it worth having a little Corolla to justify the better mileage for only 20% of your driving. My friend says his newer Corolla get around 24MPG to 28MPG at best in the city. On the HWY he has hit 40MPG but usually more in that 35 to 37MPG. I guess my point is I applaud what alot of these car manufactures have done through the years to close the gap on little fuel saving cars to what tradtionally has been the gas guzzling market of are larger cars.


P.S.: I idle alot on my job and one thing I've notice is there is a huge difference in the amount of gas some company's engines take to idle over others. Ford for one I've found to be horrible if not the worse by far. Chevy seems to fall on the lower side also but not as bad as Ford. Chrysler/Dodge about the same as Chevy. Audi(the best I've seen) Nissan, Honda, and Lexus have been great. Don't use my 545i for work enough to say where it falls into. But I assume with BMW getting the most out of a motor usually it would do pretty good. For the amount of time each day I idle I'm seriously considering a Camry Hyb. for my next work car when my Lexus finally dies. At least then I won't use any gas when I idle.

 

Crude at US$130+ per barrel. Some analyst says that the actual price should be 60% of the current, the other 40% is pure speculative price. Someone or some group somewhere is laughing all the way to the bank !!! thats market forces for you. Meanwhile honest hard working people are paying thru' their noses for practically everything. Free market they say, I say BS

 

The Best Ive ever Had out of my 525d touring is 44mpg, That was sat in the inside lane of the motorway at 60mph on a journey of 410 miles round trip motorway all the way, I took my car several times back to Irvines Bmw and was told that that was good, even though I explained that I was getting more than that with my E39 525d M sport with which I regularly achieved 58mpg.. The advice I was given was to downsize engine to a 520d with the same output of my engine (177) and then I would get similar mpg. They said that the fuel economy of my (OLD) 2003 E39 was always going to be better than my E61...Technology going backwards....And that the 44mpg I was now achieving was actually very Good...The fact that I was only averaging 32mpg in everyday driving conditions was also more than I should really have expected..
I realise that the figures that are quoted in their glossy sales Brochures are rarely achievable But to be this far out is very decieving..
I am one of those sad people that are quite happy to sit back in my car and let the world go haring past.
I am light footed as I can always achieve 55-60mpg in my sons 320d, and I am always being told by him to get a move on when we are taking both cars out..
In 2000 I owned a 523i with which again I could, on a run, get 45mpg with out to much bother.
I will be changing cars in 2009 and as I have already said may seriously look at a petrol model, the price difference at the petrol pumps these days doesn't really justify the premium That Manufacturers charge for their diesel models.. the price of a gallon of petrol being 50p cheaper than diesel..
And as for the Government debating whether to put off the 2p tax hike or not is just like offering your kids a penny chew instead of the Whole Bag of sweets that you know they really want, but hope that will shut them up for the time being..
As well as producing an extra 55000 barrels of oil that is being proposed by Gordon Brown heres an Idea for Him................
Try Keeping more of the Oil we produce in British Oil Fields For Ourselves..The British Public

Excellent Topic By The Way

 

Yep and that is the biggest issue in the whole oil/gas pricing...............Speculative/Future market. I just like how they use any damn reason in the world no matter how little in the big picture to raise the price of gas. Examples being......oil rig shut down for a schdule maintance, couple oil platforms shut down for two days because of weather, what is Iran doing??, and I mean this list could just go on and on. The speculative of the market is what really pevees me off the most. Did anyone speculate that the U.S. used less oil last month?? Nope. Oil goes up $5 a barrel and the next day the pumps go up 5 cents a gallon. Oil goes down $8 a barrel the next and the pumps stay the same. Next week oil goes up $5 to $6 a barrel and the pumps go up another 3 cents a gallon. Make no sense.

Oil prices + Gas prices + simple Math = Consumer being pinched for every nickel possible.

 

Another thing I want to add is that in America, salary/living cost ratio is higher than most of the world since salary is higher and stuffs are cheaper, so American possibly can tolerate for higher gas prices than other part of the world.
One example is that the car is about 30% cheaper than UK, and salary is about 30% higher. Cost of goods and foods in UK are mostly twice as much as US. So, I still found that we're still OK. Last few weekends, I found that the Lexus LS 460 is still selling $3000 over the invoice, Stevens Creek BMW and MBZ are more crowded than Toyota and Honda.

 

I agree we can hold on longer. Though other segments of the market take a hit. In the US we are over whemled with things to spend money on in the entertainment sense. That part of the market is really starting to feel the pinch from us cutting back on things. I think Europeans have a much better grasp on the basics of life then we do in America.

 

Here in Turkey, we are paying around $11 per gallon. about $2.83/lt or ?1.88/lt

SY

 

cars are 30% cheaper in the UK? I think you will find that all E60 are considerably more than the equivalent USA cost and we get less std equipment. It may be that our wages are a little higher (minimum wage is approx $10 an hour) but then we get screwed for high costs on everything. Even the USA built cars (such as the old dodge neon) were sold at approx 70% more cost than the USA price.

$10 mimimum wage might look good, but bear in mind we pay 31% taxes on that after $11k is earnt. Its also distorted by the dollar being particularly poor against the pound nowadays.