Except with a twist...

My wife's POS 98 Contour blew a headgasket a few weeks ago and we decided it wasn't worth fixing.  Being as we just bought a house (the headgasket actually blew on the way home from closing) I didn't want another car payment, as I'm already paying down a 99 Jeep Cherokee which is my daily driver.  I might add that gas was 2.79/gal when I bought it, and averaging 18-19mpg/tank didn't really hurt quite as bad.  Now that it's been over $4/gal and my drive is a little longer to work after moving, I've been spending ~$8 per day to get to work and back, not counting any driving for my "outside of work" life.

My dad decided he was going to buy a car from his boss, meaning that the Saturn 2 door I told him I'd be interested in buying if he ever decided to sell it, came up for sale.  I wont say what I bought it for, but I will say that it should pay for itself in 5-6 months in gas savings to work and back alone  My wife is driving our Jeep to work, which is a wopping 5 mile per day round trip.  A tank of gas ought to last her WELL over a month.

Now for the best part...I *averaged* 38 mpg to the last tank, 70/30 highway/city driving.

I like them apples.

You know, if you're driving five miles a day round trip, that's really time to think about a bicycle.  Two and a half miles isn't shit, it's like a warm up.  Short trips are really bad on a vehicle and unless you live on a road where bicylce travel is just impossible, I see no reason not to just bike it.  

Oh yeah, I've read that Saturns have a habit of blowing headgaskets too, so you might want to have a spare.  

Quoted: You know, if you're driving five miles a day round trip, that's really time to think about a bicycle.  Two and a half miles isn't shit, it's like a warm up.  Short trips are really bad on a vehicle and unless you live on a road where bicylce travel is just impossible, I see no reason not to just bike it.   Oh yeah, I've read that Saturns have a habit of blowing headgaskets too, so you might want to have a spare.

My wife is a beautician, she works late hours some nights and I'm certainly not going to have her tearing down a state highway on a bike.  I'll gladly pay the 1.50 to get her to and from work safely

I'm not really worried about the head gasket, it's been well taken care of (unlike my wife's car) and it's a 4 banger.  160k problem free miles so far, I figure I can get another 90k out of it without too much effort and it'll have paid for itself many times over at that point.

Before I bought my Jeep I had a 93 Toyota Corolla with ~260k miles on it, the original (yes, I said original) clutch was going out and I sold it because quite frankly I needed an SUV with 2 big dogs and a gun habit

I guess gas price threads are only cool if it's bitching left and right about gas prices huh?