RFMustangGT said:
best way to get the most MPG on a stang is park it, buy a beater honda, and only drive the stang on weekends. thats what I'm going to have to do real soon.
I too was thinking about buying a beater Honda to commute to work with to save money on gas.
Then I did the math and realized that it's not a sound decision economically unless you sell your current car and actually replace it with the beater.
Let's say you buy a beater Honda for between $2K and $3K. (Yea, I know, some will say that's not a beater. But, buy anytihing for less than that and you will spend another couple of grand to get it running and keep it running... brakes, tires, water pump, timing belt, yada, yada, yada... been there, done that).
Let's say that you get 1-1/2 to 2 times the gas mileage with the beater Honda compared to your Mustang, e.g. 27 mpg to 36 mpg vs 18 on your stang.
The savings in gasoline expenses end up only being about $250 to $350 per year depending on how many miles you drive each year and the cost of gas.
That means that it will take about eight to nine years of gas cost savings just to recover the initial cost of buying the car. (On the contrary, if you instead just spend that money on buying gas instead of buying a second beater car, you could buy gas for about 3 years with that same money, depending on how much you drive.)
Add to that the hidden costs of auto insurance and property taxes on the car, and the picture gets even worse.
Even with all of that said, there are still times that I think I just may do it anyway. If you could only look into a crystal ball and see how long this gas price crazyness was going to continue, it would be an easier call.