At what point does it make sense to buy a more fuel efficient car?

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I wouldn't mind a leaf or similar if I can charge it at the new workplace, not sure yet. I'm currently renting so I can't install a fast charger at my house yet

Look at buying a cheap commuter car as a way to save miles/wear & tear on your F-150. If you truck is relatively newer and has decent miles on it, do you want to rack up the miles on it quicker and then have to replace it sooner with another newer more expensive truck. 

I like having a cheap commuter car that I can pile the miles on. Maintenance is cheap, tires are cheap. And my nice vehicle can be enjoyed on nice days and last much longer since I don't have to drive it everyday.

It's simple math; if you can find something decent for a low price it works.....if not then not.

i sold my mint condition bonneville ssei because I found a $300 echo that got double the gas mileage and didn't require 93.  But god damn that bonneville was a nice ride.

I think the math can work. John Welsh probably shared a better tool with the EPA calculator but I made a spreadsheet that I have used for decision making. It isn't set up to compare having one vehicle to two but you could change it around so it works. I will share it if you are interested, PM me. Screen shot below. You put in the variables, it spits out what it costs per month in depreciation and fuel. If you aren't pounding an extra 20k miles on your truck it isn't going to depreciate the same, same with maintenance, those costs should go down (I would argue at least the same) as the second vehicles maintenance costs. 

It saved us money long term. When the wife was doing grad school after work 5 days a week she was driving 500 miles a day. The Sierra was fine, but at an average of 20mpg doing that it was getting expensive. Spent $2k for the first accent with a manual that she averaged 39mpg. 2.5 years of that was almost 30k miles. At (then) $2.00 per gallon it almost paid for itself in that time span. She ran that car for 7 years and 150k miles. In the truck that would have been $15k in fuel. In the accent it was Under $8k. $7k more than paid for all the maintenance, insurance and registration etc with money left over. 

So the answer isn't always no. It just takes the right circumstances and preparationg for long term use. 

I daily'd my '77 Silverado with an iron head, 11:1, 8inHg, loose converter, deep gears, 10mpg, for EIGHT years. 

And every couple years I'd crunch numbers, and at best, buying an econobox but still having the truck insured was close to a wash.

Last spring, gas up here (and I HAD to run premium) was threatening to become $1 per Kilometer in the truck.  I crunched numbers, and it made sense to buy some econobox.  I bought a Hyundai for $5000 (CDN).

Within a year and a half, it had paid for itself in gas savings alone. 

I still kept the truck insured, but only drove it maybe once a month, and up here insurance is $90 a month per vehicle for me. I eventually sold the truck, but I had another one in the wings.

I couldn't justify NEW, and I've never owned new, but cheap on gas is cheap on gas, and fixing up some old turd to be reliable is still cheaper than payments.

I'm thinking I'm just going to wait and see, maybe. My truck is depreciated enough and gas is cheap enough here, that even the cheapest econobox on marketplace wouldn't make sense unless I was driving even more. If gas prices go back up In the near future, that could change the math, though. In an ideal world I'd just buy a motorcycle, but no way in hell do I trust Atlanta drivers with my life like that

In reply to gixxeropa :

Atlanta is rough.  My commute is more rural so I'm not constantly afraid of other drivers.  I still have a short stretch of I-20 though.  On it I often wish I were in something larger.  

I think the time to consider a more efficient car is when you're considering buying another car anyway.

Saving $2500 per year on fuel is equivalent to knocking $200 off a monthly payment. The payback for a new Model 3 or Bolt is short relative to a new gas car that costs almost the same, long against a car you already have that you'd like to keep for another few years. 

An often overlooked option for those not looking for a cargo hauler or tow car are the small engine turbo cars.

The Ecotec engines, for instance, in 2.0 turbo form put out 260 bhp/280 Tq stock, 290/340 with a mild factory tune and with a bit more work and a modified turbo, 375/375 (that's my particular stopping point in the interests of reliability).

Thee magic of that is that if you aren't into boost (and you would seldom use that on a long haul)  they get around 30 mpg.  It is like having a bigger engine hiding in there that you can kick in whenever you want.

chaparral said:

I think the time to consider a more efficient car is when you're considering buying another car anyway.

Saving $2500 per year on fuel is equivalent to knocking $200 off a monthly payment. The payback for a new Model 3 or Bolt is short relative to a new gas car that costs almost the same, long against a car you already have that you'd like to keep for another few years. 

 

I'd like to add another hidden cost here: Insurance costs.

New cars may or may not be more expensive to insure, especially if it's full coverage over liability.

In reply to RyanGreener (Forum Supporter) :

You'd think, but when I dropped my cayman with full coverage and went to just my f150 with liability, my insurance only went from 120 to 90. Which isn't super expensive or anything but I was expecting more savings tbh 

In reply to wspohn :

The f-150 powerboost seems nice for a tow vehicle. 24mpg city and highway and similar towing capacity to the v8. You can get a few more mpg with the eco boost but a lower towing capacity. ( I think, why do the towing numbers have to be so complicated to get a straight answer for?) 

In reply to gixxeropa :

The Powerboost trucks seem to struggle meeting their EPA ratings in the real world:

As noted, efficiency gains only pay off on a per mile basis. The more you drive, the sooner you recoup. So if you can find a super cheap hybrid econobox, you're going to be putting tons of miles on the vehicle, then the math can work out. If this is truly short term, and there are no inexpensive, efficient options that appeal to you then you just have to bite the bullet.

In reply to gixxeropa :

You've got that backwards. The F-150 with the 3.5L Ecoboost has a higher rated towing capacity than a similar truck with the 5.0L V8. 
 

I own both. The EB is definitely the more powerful one, and the better towing animal. 

In reply to SV reX :

Yeah that's what I remembered, but Google kept giving me different numbers so I wasn't confident. It's definitely the one I'd buy

i think what I really want is a plug-in hybrid full size truck, but that doesn't exist apparently

In reply to gixxeropa :

Isn't that what the Powerboost is?  Ecoboost + batteries and electric motor?

wspohn said:

An often overlooked option for those not looking for a cargo hauler or tow car are the small engine turbo cars.

The Ecotec engines, for instance, in 2.0 turbo form put out 260 bhp/280 Tq stock, 290/340 with a mild factory tune and with a bit more work and a modified turbo, 375/375 (that's my particular stopping point in the interests of reliability).

Thee magic of that is that if you aren't into boost (and you would seldom use that on a long haul)  they get around 30 mpg.  It is like having a bigger engine hiding in there that you can kick in whenever you want.

This is why the Forte confuses me so much. At highway speeds of 70+ it's spinning 3k+ rpms, making boost. Power is always instantly there at those speeds. But it knocks down 37-39mpg. 

In reply to SV reX :

The plug in is what I'm missing, unless I'm mistaken on what the powerboost is. I'd like basically a lightning with a gas range extending motor

quick mockup i made (Ford, an invoice for my services will be in the mail)

In reply to wspohn :

Absolutely something to be said for the 2.0L turbo. Similar motor in my Volvo knocked down 35.5mpg on a long road trip over the Summer. Tune is much closer to the stock Ecotec numbers, but it gets out of its own way pretty well

When I was commuting 120 miles round trip to work/home and gas hit $5 / gallon 8 ish years ago, my fuel bill alone was around perhaps over $500. I leased a Chevy Volt for $275. Even with insurance and gas for the volt, my monthly cost was cheaper than continuing to drive my rx7. A big plus was being able to use the hov lane and saving 30-60 minutes per day. 

The math will work in some situations  

ymmv 

Another thing to consider for these calculations is maintenance cost.

Not necessarily applicable to OP's situation but my company recently pulled the "return to office" trigger and now I commute from San Francisco to San Jose (~90 miles a day round trip), 3 days a week.

My Volvo gets ~24MPG on premium gas, which isn't great, but isn't terrible. However it also seems to need $200-400 in parts every month to keep going along with my time to do the work or additional compensation for someone else to do it. When I was working from home all the time I could delay the maintenance as much as I wanted but now this has become a "project daily driver" that requires a consistent cash infusion.

Despite my enjoyment of the car, the math is starting to look an awful lot like a dedicated commuter that's cheaper to run is the answer.

In reply to RyanGreener (Forum Supporter) :

just about anything you put on the road here is $800 a year liability only, and another $90 for tags.