Cars

The House just passed the Cash for Clunkers stimulus bill. Here are some of the details that we can expect to see in it when the president signs it…

It really is possible to pay off your cars - and it puts you at a huge financial advantage!! These are the steps we took to pay off our cars…

It is obvious that overpaying for something isn’t a good idea, but with cars it is especially a bad idea. The reason is that cars are depreciating assets, so if you take a loan out for your purchase, you immediately enter into a race to pay the car loan down faster than the value drops. In my case with the convertible, I did a lot of things that ensured I was going to lose this race…

It is one of those things that I think most people realize buying a used car is a better idea for their finances, but don’t understand the scope of it. Dave Ramsey’s critics often belittle his math on his “drive for free” method, but even if the numbers are a little generous, the same principle still applies - owning a depreciating asset is a bad move, but paying interest on a depreciating asset is a really bad move! Since I started this site I have written a bit about how you can save money by buying used cars and how they affect your financial freedom .

As my radio alarm clock was playing this morning I heard a Chevy commercial with the dealership owner all basically begging people to buy American cars. I have a few thoughts about the Big 3 bailout issue. I don’t claim to know all the details of exactly what’s going on with the whole thing, so please feel free to share your insight in the comments below.

Welcome to the second episode of me trying to convert my car to run on water. I know it has been a long time since the first episode, but we have encountered some obstacles, the biggest one being that my team-mate and I don’t have as much time to work on the project as we would like. So rather than knocking it out in a few weeks, like so people do, we spend a few hours every month or so. But hey, I got patience, I can wait. And now that gas prices are so much lower, I am in no rush at all.

I had a revelation about cars that has caused me to not really care what mine looks like. It’s not that I don’t want a really fast car, it is just that there is something I want a bit more: financial freedom.

Does driving slower really save gas? If you have read or heard of any gas saving tips at all, I am sure you heard that you save fuel by driving slower. A couple of weeks ago when we left for our vacation, I decide to test it out, just to see what the results really were. I really didn’t really do much in the way of hypermiling other than occasionally hanging behind a big rig when he matched my speed. I just drove the first 350 miles at 65mph rather than the 75-80mph that would have been more likely on our way to vacation.

Which cars have the best initial quality? Personally, I was happy to see that the Fit was mentioned. If you recall we have been debating selling our 2 year old Fit, because we could probably get what we paid for it. I think part of the reason the demand is so high on these cars is the great reviews they have gotten. The great gas mileage probably factors into it a bit as well.

Doing a bit of research about flood damaged cars, my sister quickly came to the conclusion that no one really wants to buy a flood car. She found page after page talking about why you should never buy a car that has been in a flood or how to tell if a car has had flood damage. Since there have been so many hurricanes and floods in recent years this seems to be a cause for concern when buying a used car. Once a car has had flood damage..

2007 Honda Fit … Last weekend I discovered that the going price for cars with great gas mileage is still rising. I decided, just for kicks, to see what prices people were selling 2007 Honda Fits - which we have. It turns out that many people are selling the exact model that we have with similar mileage for MORE than we paid two years ago!

So, if you want to learn how to build a chair, you should go ask a chair-maker how he does it. If you want to learn how to become a millionaire, you should ask a millionaire how they did it.

Converting the car to run on HHO gas… The basic principle behind the whole thing is that you are converting regular water into Hydrogen gas which works in tandem with your regular gasoline. We have created a cell that when filled with water and it receives an electrical charge, it gives off HHO gas. This then gets added in to the fuel mixture and hopefully will yield some much higher MPG’s than I am currently getting. But we aren’t that far yet.

These are the two methods to calculate MPG’s (Miles Per Gallon). Both are very simple and easy ways to see how many MPG’s you are getting.

I was thinking about how I have spent a whole lot more money on certain items only to find out that they are just a little bit better than the cheaper alternatives. And on the other hand there have been things I have spent just a bit more money on and they were a whole lot better than the cheaper alternatives. When you look at buying decisions this way, it can dramatically change how and what you buy.

I first heard of Hypermilling when I was writing a recent post - 75 gas saving tips. It seems to be a trend among drivers that is increasing in popularity in reaction to the rising gas prices.

The Consumer Reports editors did a test and compared buying a Honda Civic EX and driving it for 15 years (225,000 miles) and buying a new one every 5 years. According to their calculations you would save over $20,000 by keeping the original one for 15 years - even after taking maintenance and repair costs into consideration. I had always assumed that it is a better financial move to keep your car, but it is nice seeing the actual numbers.

Sure, there are ways to save money on gas, but even the best gas saving techniques aren’t keeping up with the rising prices. But I got encouraged when I found this article pointing out a few of the possible benefits. The author mentioned 8 reasons why Americans will be benefited by the higher prices.

According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Americans are driving less than they did a year ago. In March 2008 Americans drove 11 billion miles less than they did in March 2007. This drop marks the sharpest drop in FHWA history. Apparently the downward trend started in November of 2007 and has continued since. Click on the graph to the the right to see more detail.

Will the Chevy Volt be the first fully functional electric car? GM (Chevy) just announced that they are going to be producing fewer SUV’s and begin production on the Volt. The Volt was a concept car back in January of 2007 that looks like it has made it to the big leagues. The car, “will be powered by a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged either via a regular electrical socket when parked or by an onboard generator while driving.