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I'm always getting email from various Vegas resorts for winter getaways. Not this winter.
Laws of mexico is different than US even with NAFTA ...becareful when driving in Tijuana and Encinada.. :lemon:
Propane is a killer. We turn the furnace off at night and we just filled the tank today. $3.29 per gallon. It took 161 gallons for just under 6 weeks. So winter heat is more than gas for driving. It is more expensive than we are used to heating with natural gas. It rarely drops below freezing here.
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I concur, when Mrs. LilEngineeringBoy was at UCSD, when I would take the train down from CalPoly SLO for the weekend, we would usually go to TJ with all of her friends from the dorm. Never did we drive into Mexico. We always stopped at the "last US exit," parked in that lot and walked across. Then we would take a cab from the lot to the clubs. That was typically the scariest part of the whole night.
The thinking at the time was that you could lock your glove box so a valet could not pop your trunk form the inside.
We (Ford) don't make a car or truck anymore with the buttons in the Glove Box.
Lush green lawn looks good, but lots of blades and has to be cut more often. And then, there is the fertilizer/weed killer expense. Perhaps stop fertilizing, let nature take over and give clover, creeping charlie and weeds a chance.
Have not heard, but wonder if Congress has laws such as CAFE for companies such as John Deere to meet some kind of efficiency for their riders. If not, maybe Deere and others could make high mileage riders on their own initiative. These would be smaller cut than 48 or 60 and would require more time to cut lawn. Would be good business for Deere to get folks to trade in big monster mowers on smaller more efficient models.
Well you can save a lot of gas and use one of these:
As for weed control I have a weed free yard without the use of chemicals. Its called pulling them up by hand.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I sold my gas mulcher two months ago and hopefully have purchased my last gas powered tool.
This is what I used, I recommend it highly.
buffalo grass
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
We have a gravel fire buffer around the house, so no lawn and no smurf turf. We do have some clumps of Mexican feather grass around and that would make a nice patch of turf somewhere. I couldn't find my switchgrass plant the other day - it was buried under a few inches of snow.
These were fun too, but didn't survive the winter.
The other thing that makes me laugh is when they post the price of the petrol on the board it reads ( $1.709) what that about ,I sooner see ($1.71)
Because 2.999 looks cheaper than 3.00. But then again buy exactly one gallon of gas and see if you can get your 1/10th cent change.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Heck, come on over and get some, I have all the creeping charlie you'd ever need and then some. Personally, I don't mind the stuff, but my next door neighbor hates it with a passion!
Normally I try to cut the grass once every two weeks during, but sometimes I slack off. And sometimes, in the spring, even every two weeks really isn't enough, and I probably waste gas having to make a second pass over areas that didn't get cut right, or having to re-start the tractor if I stall it. I made up for it over this past summer though. It was hot and dry enough that I went almost 4 months without cutting the grass!
Oh, as for saving fuel in general, I did something shocking on Friday nite. I used public transportation! :surprise: That's right, instead of just hopping in the car and driving down into DC, I went to the Metro station, bought one of those fast pass thingies for 5 bucks. Paid $4.25 for parking. Cost $2-something to ride down there and $2-something to get back. So in total, I probably paid about $13-14 to save maybe $3-4 worth of gas. But, on the plus side, it was a nice, peaceful ride down and back. I didn't have to worry about finding a parking space in DC. And I only had like a 5-minute walk from the station in DC.
Good boy. You have completed your indoctrination, and will now be graduated from Green University.
Now you'll vote for every "clean energy" law that comes before you, because you can see the value of solar and wind energy. Sure, they'll double everyone's electric bills, but that will just encourage everyone to use less electricity.
And you'll also support increased ethanol mandates. Never mind that E85 reduces fuel efficiency by 25%. It makes us feel good, and that's what matters.
Also, ignore the fact that the U.S. would need to grow corn on 90% of its farm land to make enough ethanol to meet fuel demands. That's okay, because if half the country starves to death, our fuel demands will drop significantly.
At GU, that's what we call a "win-win" situation.
So, here's your diploma. And don't miss the commencement address by that guy who tells everyone to conserve energy ..... then hops into a fleet of SUVs, drives to his private jet, and flies back to his 20,000 sq. ft. mansion.
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When I bought my 2000 Intrepid, the salesman warned me about that. He told me to just tighten it until I heard it click once, and that any tighter (or looser) could make the check engine light come on. He also said that if I ever accidentally triggered the light like that, if I put the cap back on properly, the light should go off within maybe one tank's worth of fuel. Is there any truth to that?
My check engine light did come on, around Thanksgiving. One of my friends has a code reader, but we didn't get around to plugging it in in time, and the light went away on its own. Which bothers me, because when things go away on their own like that, there's a good chance they'll come back!
And just last week, the oil pressure light did something funny. It's supposed to turn off a few seconds after starting up, but when it did, it didn't go fully off, but glowed very, very dimly. The next day it worked normally though.
Maybe the car is just getting old, and starting to have electrical issues?
Also, ignore the fact that the U.S. would need to grow corn on 90% of its farm land to make enough ethanol to meet fuel demands.
And never mind that increased corn prices already have affected the cost of food in this country. Growing corn may mean other crops are reduced in acreage.
But in good political form, what's good for ADM is good for the country--errr, I mean what's good for the people is good for the country. BTW, who does ADM contribute campaign money to, past and present? They are the big benefactors with the ethanol production. LIttle plants are being built around by small investor groups but my thinking it they aren't going to be viable for long. And they've taken a couple of years to get up and running.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I just dont get the scepticism behind your rationale.Brazil is having GREAT success with their sugar cane based ethanol.Well enough so that they are 100% self sufficient as far as automibile fuel.Exactly why is that impossible here,but of course we just have to have our SUVs,dont we ...(and I dont mean the Esacpe Hybrids) :P
Also, ignore the fact that the U.S. would need to grow corn on 90% of its farm land to make enough ethanol to meet fuel demands.
I thought I read it would take that much land to meet the new Energy Bill mandate for ethanol. Which is less than 10% of our current fuel consumption. What ever it is we are getting the green shafting.
The good thing is our gas prices have dropped under $3 again.
I think the problem though, is that you can get a lot more ethanol out of sugar cane than you can out of corn. And while Brazil's climate is great for growing it, the United States, not so much. I think it would grow well in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, perhaps parts of Florida, but that's about it.
I read something that said they aren't really 100% self-sufficient. But aside from that, I don't recall sugar cane as a food staple in manner of corn. What we should be doing/should have done is to go that route of using something that's not a food product to generate ethanol.
Anyone with Economics 101 could have figured out using corn production for a company with ethanol production capability in place more than anyone else in the country at the time would affect food prices in several ways due to the use of corn.
Of course ADM is heavily involved in large agriculture and lobbying congress for subsidies for the farmers, which benefits them more than anyone else.
And the concept that alcohol is a savior when it doesn't give nearly the miles per gallon and saying that we replace 10% of gasoline useage with alcohol (C2H5OH) while it really won't go as far as the 10% of the gasoline it replaced... is a DUH.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
A couple of fallacies behind that statement. Brazil does use sugar cane for ethanol production. It has proven to be cost effective, where corn has not. Ethanol only contributes about 20% to Brazil's vehicle fuel usage. They are energy independent because they made a huge oil discovery.
Our fellow poster's skepticism is well founded. When and IF we come up with a way to make ethanol from biomass such as Switchgrass, it will require all new facilities to be built. That will render the current ethanol stills worthless. Do you see the boom/bust scenario for several hundred midwest towns. It happened in the late 1970s and it going to happen again. Both times the US taxpayer was the biggest loser. These ethanol facilities are being built with loans guaranteed by you and I. We own close to 100 from the last ethanol boondoggle that are old rusty hulks sitting in towns that have lost their cash cow.
The ethanol business is a pretty good source of cash for the lawmakers too. The political action committee of Archer Daniels Midland Co., the world's largest producer of corn-based ethanol fuel, gave $69,000 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In 2002, before such unlimited "soft money" donations were outlawed, ADM gave $1.8 million to political parties. Its political action committee gave close to $200,000 to individual campaigns and committees.
ADM spread the money around wisely that year, to beneficiaries ranging from Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois to Democratic Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. Beneficiaries in 2004 included Hastert as well as Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
Yep most cars today have the check engine light come on if the gas cap isn't tight enough (not to sure on the to tight part, doesn't sound right). How fast it goes off after its tightened hard enough I believe is dependent on the car. Mine will goes off after a few days.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
My understanding is that Brazil found some oil reserves and that ethanol usage has drop considerably.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
An interesting thing about sugar and ethanol is the last time ethanol was popular in the 1970s, Brazil mandated cars that would only run on E100. Then the price of sugar went sky high and they quit making ethanol in Brazil. That left 1000s of car owners with no source of ethanol for fuel. The cars they are selling now are flex fuel so that will not happen again.
The corn prices have shot the price of tortillas up here in So CA by about 50%. We have poor Mexican friends in a Tecate Mission that complain about the price of tortillas. They are aware that we are burning up their source of food in our cars. Ethanol can be considered a detriment to stopping the flow of illegal immigrants. It is more reason for them to risk the dangers of crossing into the USA for work to feed their families.
For my 98 leSabre, the algorithm for checking for an air leak in the tank system was that the car is started with the coolant temp between say 100 and 150 deg. F. and it does the check to see if it can suck air through a leak. If there's no leak, the light turns off. The key for this model is doing a warm but not fully hot restart on the motor after sitting a few minutes. I don't recall that it does a recheck while the car is running in normal warmup mode from cold start to hot run. It waits for a restart.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Most ECUs these days will turn the 'check engine' light off if the fault doesn't recur within a set number of on-off cycles.
And just last week, the oil pressure light did something funny. It's supposed to turn off a few seconds after starting up, but when it did, it didn't go fully off, but glowed very, very dimly.
Probably a poor ground connection somewhere. All those sensors that cars have now really need a clean, solid ground to get a reliable signal. The MAF sensor in the Hyundai had been spitting a code at me for a while, so I finally took the MAF out of its housing and hosed it down with contact cleaner and did the same with the connector. No more codes.
If memory serves me correctly, Brazilians use about 4.2 barrels of oil per person per year. They produce about 3.4 barrels and make up the difference with ethanol or well under a barrel per person per year. In the US we use about 25 barrels per person per year and produce less than half that amount, hence the problem with production flows from farm produced fuels here in the States.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I just asked a coworker here how much oil he uses per year to heat his house. He said about 800 gallons - 4 fillups of his 250 gal. tank. So there's a good amount there. Then add in his gasoline, and all the plastics the family uses and throws out. Then of course there are all the indirect use of oil we're responsible for - school buses, goods shipped cross-country, and all our imported food from around the world.
Yes oil consumption is about our lifestyle in general.
BTW: I just filled up with 91 octane for $2.77/gal last night. I got $0.50/gal off from my supermarket program - for every $50 spent you get $0.10 off per gal. on the next fillup. Then I use a credit card and get another 3% off.
I think I use about 500 gallons of oil on average per year. How many gallons are in a barrel, again? Something like 44? I keep thinking it's 55, but I don't think that's right. That 500 gallons didn't seem so bad back in the 2003-2004 season, when I was locked in at $1.19 per gallon. But I think my last fill-up a couple weeks ago was something like $3.55. I remember the total bill was around $675. It's almost enough to make me want to convert over to a heat pump. :sick:
Close, it's 42 US gallons per barrel.
Heard on TV show recently that the corn used to make one fillup of large suv with E85 could feed one person for about a year.
And that is not just this country, but the rest of the world too. Sure people try and conserve here and there, and by using better technology. The only thing that really stops us from using resources is our ability to pay for them, which is based on supply. If gas is $0.50/gal I might own a Hummer H1 and drive 400 miles each weekend. And if heating oil was $0.60/gal you would see many more homes using it for heating, and our electric utility companies would burn it for fuel.
Personally I think I'm downsizing a little more. I just went and looked at a Volvo C30. I'd be dropping from 3.0 (5-spd auto. AWD) to 2.5 liters (6-sp manual).
Just a consideration, at that rate it would take over 360 years to drain the great lakes.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I understand there's a movement afoot to rename them the "Good Lakes." :P
The Great Lakes disappearing act (Globe and Mail)
Meanwhile, the press is reporting that national gas prices in the US are either holding steady or falling up to .04 cents a gallon in some places, like Texas. My quarterly garbage bill popped me an extra ~$1.50 for a fuel surcharge this last go round.
Meanwhile, the press is reporting that national gas prices in the US are either holding steady or falling up to .04 cents a gallon in some places,
It has pulled back a little here to. FWIW I filled up today the sign said $3.009 down a few cents from a few days before but the pump was set to $2.989. Guess they didn't get to changing the sign.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D