15 August 2014

Well folks I am back on line as many of you know we took a trip out to the Wild West this summer. One of the things I was not expecting was that the Wild West is also technology challenged or at least the camp grounds we stopped out were for the most part. So this blog has been seriously lacking of late, but never fear I am not working hard to correct this lack of inputs on my part;-).

Now for an update for you,

We were on the road for about 7 weeks,

Our F150 North Rim Grand Canyon

We traveled  9133 miles in total and 5435 miles of that was towing our 20 ft. Travel Trailer,

This used a total of 757.1 gals of gas, most of which was Premium straight gas as Ethanol just did not have the power to get us up the mountains the way I wanted. (more on the evils of Ethanol to follow).

Now the average price of Unleaded Premium straight gas was @ $ 4.00 per gallon. The highest we paid was $ 4.39 and the lowest was $ 3.35.  Our average miles per gal overall was 12 MPG. The figures above were all recorded by my truck except of course for the cost per gallon, my wallet covered that one.

According to my 2012 Ford’s owner’s manual the use of Ethanol fuel will reduce MPG as well as overall power, in addition at higher elevations (over 4000 ft.) there is an additional loss of power regardless of fuel type.

Short version using Ethanol premium gas my average MPG towing the trailer above 4000 feet was down from around 12 MPG to 8.5 to 9 MPG. That’s between 25 to 30 % overall reduction, to me that’s a lot of loss plus the truck had to work harder you could literally hear the difference in the engine noise levels, as well as feel it.

Now 25% of 757 gals is @ 189.25 gals at $ 4.00 per equals $ 757.00 dollars more in fuel cost by having to burn the less efficient Ethanol gas, folks that hurts the old wallet. Just food for thought if you are considering pulling a trailer of even driving your vehicle up to the higher elevations.

Yes it does have an impact down here at Sea Level for us Floridians but it is not as bad as at higher elevations. But one note about our local area, the price for Pure Unleaded Gas without Ethanol is on the average a Dollar more a gallon that the gas with Ethanol. I think because Pure Gas is used more in the boating world here than in cars and trucks and we all know that a boater has to pay more for their fuel that the rest of us.  I don’t know why and I don’t think that’s right, but it seems to be the way it is around here at least. But I can tell you out West in the mountains the price difference is a lot less than a dollar even in the Mid-West in the Corn Belt Ethanol Free Gas was only about $ .30 cents more a gallon that regular. Right about now you are wondering why it costs more, well because the Government subsidized alternative fuels and in this case the farmers who grow the corn for the Ethanol are also subsidized by our tax dollars. Just something to think about in this election year?

Well now on to a more entertaining topic with a lot less talking as a picture is worth a thousand words as they say, take a look at a few from our trip for now.

Left facing view from Marble point

Straight ahead view

RIght view from Marble Point

Thanks and Take Care out there in Cyberspace and in Reality.