I see Marc's points are very well expressed and I agree with him. However at the same time I bought a diesel powered vehicle mainly because of the power and mileage increases versus a gas powered truck of the same size. My old 95 chevy z71 got about 12 miles to the gallon, and weighed probably 2 thousand pounds less than my old PSD. I got around 16 mpg average in the PSD. Most of you know I recently sold my PSD. One of the reasons that contributed to my decision was that I just couldn't get much more than a best of 18 or so mpg out of it. I still wanted a diesel, I still wanted a "big" truck, but I needed my dollar to stretch as far as possible. I went with a cummins because it was affordable for one, has great power, is still big to me despite stock height, and at the same time I get close to 20 city mpg and have come close to 25 highway. I also like having a manual because I can choose to put it in a higher gear versus in my powerstroke I didn't have much of an option until the pcm told the tranny to go into OD. My tank is only 3 gallons less than my psd, yet I've noticed a substantial decrease in the amount of time between fill-ups. My common-rail cummins won't blow smoke no matter what I do, which sucks in one way but in another I look at it as less of my money visibly coming out of the tailpipe. I had way too much fun blowing smoke in my psd, lol. I miss that, but with prices threatening to go over 3 a gallon again this summer I can do without the smoke. I do still think that the price of gas/fuel is totally uncalled for. For a long time throughout the late 90's and first few years of this century I never saw fuel get anywhere close to 2 bucks a gallon. It hit around 1.60 a few times but was pretty consistent in the 1.30's for a couple of years. Then one day it went over $2 and I have NEVER seen it go below that since. I'm also quite bothered by the fact that diesel is the same price and in some cases higher than a fuel that it's a "leftover" from! We're all entitled to our opinions regardless of the facts that are presented to us. My opinion is that something is being hidden from us, and we're all getting bent over and having tree trunks jammed up the derriere. Ifdon't see the price getting to 5 or 6 a gallon. It's hard enough on people paying the $4 that some were paying last summer. Even people that have small hondas and fuel efficient cars will feel the pain. Especially anyone that averages less than 20mpg. Think about it...some people go through 30-40 gallons a week commuting. Do the math...that's nearly a grand a month on gas/fuel! Many people wouldn't be able to afford it, crime would probably increase as people would run out of money and turn to other means of getting it....just my thoughts.....i'm done
