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Thread ID: 89974	2008-05-18 13:04:00	Minimizing Petrol usage in an Automatic & who controls gas prices	Chilling_Silence (9)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
670461	2008-05-18 13:04:00	Greetings all, As I download the .NET 3.5 redist package and MS Office Accounting 2008 Express, trying to squeeze out every last bit of high-speed usage before Im capped for 24 hours, I get a nice little email. In a nutshell, it advises that if a small chain of people FWD's this email on, then we'll have 200,000,000 people who no longer buy from BP, driving prices down to $1.50 a litre in NZ. (We have a population of 4 million though?) So anyways, as I think about the poor 200 million people who are going to be sorely disappointed that Gas prices wont drop if they stop purchasing from BP, I wonder what *would* happen if they did? Here's the Email: LET'S JUST DO IT ! ! ! THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' PETROL FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET PETROL BACK DOWN TO $1.00 PER Litre....hopefully This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this winter, take time to read this PLEASE. We are going to hit $ 2.00 a litre and it might go higher ! ! We need to take some intelligent, united action. By now you're probably thinking petrol priced at about $1.50 is cheap. It is currently $ 1.90 for regular unleaded. We all need to understand that BUYERS control the marketplace. . .not the sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. We CAN have an impact on petrol prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY petrol from BP NZ the biggest price up driver company . If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of BP NZ petrol buyers. I am sending this note to 20 people. If each of us s end it to at least ten more (20 x 10 = 200) .. And those 200 send it to at least ten more (200 x 10 = 2000 ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over TWO MILLION consumers. If those two million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 20 million people will have been contacted ! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... TWO HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE ! ! ! Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all ! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on Simple – send the message along to others and do not buy petrol from BP NZ . My theory (Very little time & thought placed into this, so please, debate / prove it bad / wrong): They reduce their price by 10c per-litre for 24 hours, people FLOCK to them (In search of that bargain $4 saving at fill-up time), then they re-set their price at the regular after which people have filled up their cars (Increasing the amount that would otherwise have been spent at the one particular chain of gas companies) and we're back to square 1 again, except now everybody LIKES BP because they offered lower prices for a day and are the current fav supplier... Morale of the story? I dont like Email FWD's that are going to disappoint 200 million people... And Im still going to buy from BP because there are no Mobil stations in our area, its convenient, and they're the only ones except Mobil who do 98 instead of 95/96. Which brings me to the next part of my story When driving around town in an Automatic, should you drive with Overdrive on or off? Logic says that when its in Overdrive it *should* use less Gas (Dunno why, it just does), however, I got thinking: When I drive the family van on the semi-regular occasion, I prefer to drive with Overdrive OFF for two reasons: 1) I like to accelerate faster 2) I feel like Im saving gas (But quite possibly not, leaving me with just 1 reason) My (quite possibly wrong) thoughts are this: As you drive around town, you're constantly stopping & starting, speeding up & slowing down. As you do this, you either have to put your foot down further to change to a higher gear so you accelerate at a decent speed, or you slowly accelerate, and leave your foot on the gas for even longer. Not sure if this is making sense, but stay with me. So you drive around town with it off, and save Overdrive for the Motorway. Are you likely to use less or more gas? Am I right in thinking that as you accelerate with Overdrive on, that you will quite probably be using more gas due to the amount of time which you're taking to accelerate to the same speed, even though the revs are staying lower? Or have I completely missed the boat and you should (In terms of economy) leave your vehicle in Overdrive as much as you can? Was having a bit of a debate with my father the other night when we were driving together, he thinks leave it on, I think leave it off. Dont care who's right, just want to know which is more economical so that when I *do* take the Van out, I'll leave / change it to whatever. Its a 2L Nissan Serena (1996?), in case it makes a difference on a car-by-car basis (Dont think it would, but just in case). If you're still reading the thread after all this ranting, you're crazy... Thoughts / Comments / Opinions / Facts are welcome as always Cheers Chill.	Chilling_Silence (9)
670462	2008-05-18 14:00:00	In this case, I would argue that it IS the sellers who set the prices because the demand for petrol/gas is fairly inelastic since demand is high (virtually unchanged) and supply is limited. It doesn't matter what the prices are really (upto some theoretical point) People will keep buying gas because there is no alternative fuel or method of transportation atleast in NZ since we rely on our cars so much. Fine, don't buy from BP. Every other company out there is going to put THEIR prices up since they now have more customers with the same demand. Ergo, BP might drive their prices up the fastest or be the first but every other company out there would do the same. Gull is just an oddity. PS. Is this in the wrong forum?	beeswax34 (63)
670463	2008-05-18 21:08:00	I'm not sure if this applies to all cars, but my friend was advised by the place he bought a car from not to use over-drive unless you're going over 70km/hr as it puts excessive strain on the engine. I cannot confirm the accuracy of this though.	somebody (208)
670464	2008-05-18 21:24:00	Keep your foot off the gas pedal will help and ease it down slower as you pull away from the lights. Saving petrol is not about using overdrive or not it is about making the engine work with minimum effort. If you power away from the lights only to stop a few meters up the road at the next set you would use less petrol just cruising up to the lights with your foot off the pedal, and taking it easy away from the lights again. There was a recent documentary on fuel saving where a couple took a car over many countries and beat the fuel usage record by heaps and explained how it was done. It is all in how you use the accelerator nothing more. The correct revs for the correct gear, applies to auto or manual. See SJ's link forums.pcworld.co.nz #3	Bantu (52)
670465	2008-05-19 07:01:00	Still not sure if its better to drive with Overdrive on or off :-/ Yeah it was in the wrong forum, my bad, late night... :p Not trying to "speed" away at the lights, but rather accelerate smoothly	Chilling_Silence (9)
670466	2008-05-19 08:59:00	Not using overdrive won't save fuel, but it will put a little bit less wear on your transmission. I would leave it on. Auto transmissions are programmed to work as efficiently as possible given the driver's input, and disabling overdrive is simply giving it one less option. Remember, all that turning it off is doing is forcing the transmission not to use the highest (normally 4th) gear.	george12 (7)
670467	2008-05-19 09:01:00	Last Tuesday's Mythbusters had a great demo of the savings to be made form drafting behind a truck at 3m it saved about 93% I think from memory but any closer and the effect was worse 3m seemed to be the optimum, depends how much you value your life and car or have a deathwish.	gary67 (56)
670468	2008-05-19 09:08:00	Last Tuesday's Mythbusters had a great demo of the savings to be made form drafting behind a truck at 3m it saved about 93% I think from memory but any closer and the effect was worse 3m seemed to be the optimum, depends how much you value your life and car or have a deathwish . Somebody call me? :eek: Lol @ trying to draft behind a truck . How big was it? It's super crazy unless it is transparent or you are so low you can see underneath it! You can't see ahead at all if you do this and most likely you will not have enough time to react if it needs to slow down for whatever reason, or is that part of the fuel saving? When you fuse with the truck to become its rear bumper, you add all this rear friction/weight, increasing trucks fuel efficiency by 7% so you pay him for this difference . : save 93% off your own? :rolleyes:	Deathwish (143)
670469	2008-05-19 09:11:00	Somebody call me? :eek: Lol @ trying to draft behind a truck . How big was it? It's super crazy unless it is transparent or you are so low you can see underneath it! You can't see ahead at all if you do this and most likely you will not have enough time to react if it needs to slow down for whatever reason, or is that part of the fuel saving? When you fuse with the truck to become its rear bumper, you add all this rear friction/weight, increasing trucks fuel efficiency by 7% so you pay him for this difference . : save 93% off your own? :rolleyes: I didn't say it was safe or wise just saying I saw it, I save money every day I sold my car and ride my mountain bike to work	gary67 (56)
670470	2008-05-19 09:18:00	I didn't say it was safe or wise just saying I saw it, I save money every day I sold my car and ride my mountain bike to work Oh yeah, nothing against you at all man! Was just saying, why did they (Myth Busters) bother with such a crazy thing, at least curiosity did not lead those cats to doom this time huh? I've been thinking about riding my bike (old $99 warehouse bike :punk) to work for a while now, it would be a real healthy thing to do and I keep chickening out of it. Too many of my past riding experiences have involved being chased by dogs (the bad kind).	Deathwish (143)
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