Another silly fuel economy post

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Zen_master
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Postby Zen_master » Sun Dec 01, 2013 1:49 pm

skinny2 wrote:-I run premium at times. Never noticed a difference in mpg.

-Never heard of an OEM block heater for these. Most OEM heaters I've seen seem to be oil pan heaters. I've had better luck with coolant heaters which is what I had on a VW TDI. I would have heat instantly with that one which was good on a diesel because it would take so long to heat up. In fact there were times the engine temp would drop after starting if it was super cold.
Thanks for the info. Sucks they don't make block heaters.

The unit I have on my Jeep is a true block heater. Had to punch out one of the plugs on the side of the block to install it and coolant came pouring out. Works great on the vehicle. In fact, when the Jeep was my daily driver I would plug it in to a standard wall outlet timer to come on a couple of hours before I left for work (as opposed to plugging it in directly to the wall immediately after shutting off the motor). While this didn't always translate to starting the vehicle at ideal operating temp, the coolant temp gauge was north of 100 degrees which meant less than a mile of driving it was at full heat.

Would be great if I could find something similar for the Pathfinder.


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akley88
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Postby akley88 » Sun Dec 01, 2013 2:57 pm

check this out for a heater

http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f8/e ... ter-36201/

the heater was never offered in the us but it is offered in canada.

http://www.nissanpartscheap.com/OEMPart ... 6P700.html

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Zen_master
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Postby Zen_master » Sun Dec 08, 2013 8:34 pm

akley88 wrote:check this out for a heater

http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f8/e ... ter-36201/

the heater was never offered in the us but it is offered in canada.

http://www.nissanpartscheap.com/OEMPart ... 6P700.html
Much appreciated you going through the effort to locate this. Sounds promising but when I search the part number I don't see which engines it fits. My understanding is the Frontier was not offered with a V8 option. Curious if Nissan has a OEM block heater for the VK56DE motor.

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Postby Zen_master » Sun Dec 08, 2013 8:41 pm

Experimenting with running 93 octane for a while to see if it improves fuel economy. Will report findings in weeks ahead.

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shaggyT
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Postby shaggyT » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:14 pm

Zen_master wrote:Experimenting with running 93 octane for a while to see if it improves fuel economy. Will report findings in weeks ahead.
Please do. I'm running 93 and I'm averaging 11 mpg. Might be the cold NYC weather, but I'm not sure.

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akley88
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Postby akley88 » Tue Dec 10, 2013 7:34 am

shaggyT wrote:
Zen_master wrote:Experimenting with running 93 octane for a while to see if it improves fuel economy. Will report findings in weeks ahead.
Please do. I'm running 93 and I'm averaging 11 mpg. Might be the cold NYC weather, but I'm not sure.
i run 93 and average 17 even with my heavy tires

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Postby Zen_master » Wed Dec 11, 2013 2:58 pm

Might have a complication in my test. Swapped the air filter for a new one this past weekend. Probably going to skew the data in the interim.

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Postby Zen_master » Wed Dec 11, 2013 3:00 pm

akley88 wrote:
shaggyT wrote:
Zen_master wrote:Experimenting with running 93 octane for a while to see if it improves fuel economy. Will report findings in weeks ahead.
Please do. I'm running 93 and I'm averaging 11 mpg. Might be the cold NYC weather, but I'm not sure.
i run 93 and average 17 even with my heavy tires
Do you drive highway mostly? If I do long trips with little or no traffic I can average 19 or so. My daily work commute sucks on fuel economy. First, it's short so half the time is spent just getting the vehicle up to operating temperature. Second, it is bumper to bumper traffic almost the whole way in. I rarely get above 40 mph on the expressway. Lots of stop and go and idling in a 5,000lb V8 powered vehicle is going to make mpg dive.

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akley88
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Postby akley88 » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:22 am

Zen_master wrote:
akley88 wrote:
shaggyT wrote: Please do. I'm running 93 and I'm averaging 11 mpg. Might be the cold NYC weather, but I'm not sure.
i run 93 and average 17 even with my heavy tires
Do you drive highway mostly? If I do long trips with little or no traffic I can average 19 or so. My daily work commute sucks on fuel economy. First, it's short so half the time is spent just getting the vehicle up to operating temperature. Second, it is bumper to bumper traffic almost the whole way in. I rarely get above 40 mph on the expressway. Lots of stop and go and idling in a 5,000lb V8 powered vehicle is going to make mpg dive.
yeah. im a auditor so im always traveling to clients mostly on the highways. this week my daily travel is 120 miles. around town 10mpg isnt unusual. but thats expected with what i have done to my pathy.

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BigEz
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Postby BigEz » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:43 am

93 here... I'm running Bullydog's "Performance" tune and I have advanced my timing an additional 2 degrees, so all I have used is 93 octane, except the few times where 91 was all that was available.

I drive about 250 miles a week, almost all @ 70mph on highway. I have been getting about 16mpg, but that quickly drops to below 12 or 13, if I do much city driving. I get about 8mpg when towing a 3500lbs, 19ft, travel trailer at 65mph.

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Postby Zen_master » Thu Dec 19, 2013 8:40 pm

with gas hovering around yearly lows anyone else thinking about using these folks?

http://www.mygallons.com/

skinny2
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Postby skinny2 » Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:31 pm

Zen_master wrote:with gas hovering around yearly lows anyone else thinking about using these folks?

http://www.mygallons.com/
Couple thoughts:

-My biggest issue would be the 6% up front fee and $.06/gallon sell fee. That's $0.25/gallon at $3.00. So gas has to jump up a quarter to just break even.

-They get to sit on your money for awhile.

-There's no type of consumer protection here. If they go bankrupt you're out the coin.

Let's say you're like me and buy about 100 gallons a month. You buy in today at $3.00 ($3.25 after fees). Is there really enough savings here to risk it? Fuel jumps to $3.50 and you strike....saving...$25. Big deal. Even at $4 you save $75. Once.

It's gambling. Plain and simple. I buy over 2 million gallons of diesel a month for my company. Totally different situation as the numbers are great enough to take on long-term contracts. I've already locked in 80% of fuel for 2014. A lot of it is $0.10/gallon higher than current spot prices...but it allows us to budget and know what our fuel costs will be. I've done this for a long time and it really seems like it's 50/50 whether we make out or lose on the contracts.

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Zen_master
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Postby Zen_master » Sat Dec 21, 2013 9:08 pm

skinny2 wrote:
Zen_master wrote:with gas hovering around yearly lows anyone else thinking about using these folks?

http://www.mygallons.com/
Couple thoughts:

-My biggest issue would be the 6% up front fee and $.06/gallon sell fee. That's $0.25/gallon at $3.00. So gas has to jump up a quarter to just break even.

-They get to sit on your money for awhile.

-There's no type of consumer protection here. If they go bankrupt you're out the coin.

Let's say you're like me and buy about 100 gallons a month. You buy in today at $3.00 ($3.25 after fees). Is there really enough savings here to risk it? Fuel jumps to $3.50 and you strike....saving...$25. Big deal. Even at $4 you save $75. Once.

It's gambling. Plain and simple. I buy over 2 million gallons of diesel a month for my company. Totally different situation as the numbers are great enough to take on long-term contracts. I've already locked in 80% of fuel for 2014. A lot of it is $0.10/gallon higher than current spot prices...but it allows us to budget and know what our fuel costs will be. I've done this for a long time and it really seems like it's 50/50 whether we make out or lose on the contracts.
Yea, I've tooled around with a spreadsheet to figure out the breakevens. At a purchase price on the website of $2.97/gal last week you're all-in breakeven would be around $3.21/gal.

No doubt in my mind come late February or early March we see fuel in Ohio north of $3.29 with a Summer peak of somewhere approaching $3.99. I've been tracking my fuel consumption on GasBuddy for about six months and I've used around 475 gallons since early May in one vehicle.

If I were to buy the next six months of fuel for around $1,500 worth of fuel or around 500 gallons. At an average pump price of $3.69/gal I'd save around $240 on fuel.

Now I have little doubt that retail pump prices will be higher in three, four, or six months than they are now. And I'm sure they'll be higher than $3.21/gal for 87 octane. What it boils down to is whether the savings is worth the hassle of going through this process.

And I think the more accurate word is hedging as opposed to gambling.

skinny2
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Postby skinny2 » Sun Dec 22, 2013 9:14 am

Zen_master wrote:
And I think the more accurate word is hedging as opposed to gambling.
Perhaps technically....although given the unsecured position it certainly could be a gamble. The financial markets don't like the word "gamble" which is why I like to use it for things like hedging, investing, swaps, etc. I deal with bankers all the time and enjoy making them uncomfortable :lol:

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Postby Zen_master » Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:50 pm

Borrowed a friend's 2013 Dodge Ram 1500 with a quad cab, six foot bed, and 5.7 Hemi V8 to move some furniture the other day. The fuel logger showed 18.6 mpg when I got in it from his city/hwy mix. I ran it about 225 miles with a 90% mix of hwy to city though there was some backing in and extended idling and for the bulk of the trip I was doing 80 MPH with the trip back hauling 800 lbs of patio furniture in the back. I dropped it back off to him with 19.7 mpg on the computer. The instant mpg computer was showing several periods of over 25 mpg on the highway.

That 8-speed transmission sure is sweet. It shifts into the next highest gear promptly at 2,000 RPM and drops down to 1,500 before running up to 2,000 again. In overdrive it will do 65 MPH at 1,500 and 70 MPH at 1,650 RPM.

Really wish the R51 had more gears.


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