Creature comforts.

[phalanx]

I sure did have to cut those down with the price of gas. But I'm remote and its 15 miles into town one way.I guess i got to comfortable with lower gas prices. . But my truck gets 21MPG or this would be really bad. My old F150 only got 8MPG. So i guess it evens out.

[ironglow]

  I have a Jeep Patriot..it gets about 25 mpg.  I guess that is not too bad..

  Last vehicle I had was a Kia Forte, which got about 35-38 on short trips, and up to 45 on some  interstate sections.

   About now, miss that Kia..   ..But of course, I don't drive a lot of miles these days.

[phalanx]

  I have a Jeep Patriot..it gets about 25 mpg.  I guess that is not too bad..

  Last vehicle I had was a Kia Forte, which got about 35-38 on short trips, and up to 45 on some  interstate sections.

   About now, miss that Kia..   ..But of course, I don't drive a lot of miles these days.

I’m looking for a little car i can pay cash for. But they are all expensive. Out here its good to have two vehicles just in case.

[ironglow]

When my wife was still alive and driving I usually kept 2 and sometimes 3 vehicles...but in my present situation, one is enough.  Then too, my son lives next door and he usually has 4 vehicles there.

[Ranger99]

Anything that gets good mileage
sells for a premium right now even
if it's a rust bucket,  around here anyway

[ironglow]

Anything that gets good mileage
sells for a premium right now even
if it's a rust bucket,  around here anyway

  Sme thing happened during Jimmy Carter's crazy inflation and gas prices of the 1970s.. At that time the wife and I were already driving beetles, along with my Datsun truck.  At that time, I talked to a Honda salesman, who told me that he was selling Hondas for well above the MSRP.
   I thought that was not really right..but they were doing it !

[oldandslow]

Capitalism at it's finest. Buy low, sell high. 

Selling well above factory listed price has been going on around here for sometime due to the scarcity of vehicles caused by the covid restrictions and I expect it to get even worse now with the fuel price panic. My solution is to just drive what I own and forego any pleasure trips. It will get above 30 mpg at 65 mph which is our highest speed limit in this area. People will jump on the high mileage bandwagon with more fuel efficient vehicles plus do less driving, oil companies will bust a gut drilling for new oil (if slo jo will let them), the demand for oil will drop, people will jump back on the big inefficient vehicles with the little, efficient vehicle owners stuck with them because no one wants them while quite a few oil companies go broke because of the drop in oil prices. Then the cycle will repeat.

[phalanx]

The oil field is a bad place to think you can make a lifetime career out of it. Bust and Booms, hire you one year then lay you off the next.

[Ranger99]

A neighbor all but moved to west
Texas a few years ago when they
were laying a big pipeline and drilling
like crazy. I thought he would probably
need a wheelbarrow to carry his
money around that he was making.
He started pouring buckets out
buying toys and luxuries and I had
told him " you really ought to put
some of that dough back or buy a
few bonds or something, and there's
nothing wrong with your truck that
you should buy a new one. No use.
Cash was burning pocket holes and
he didn't save 10 cents,  and sure
enough,  they shut everything down
down down. Needless to say,  the
bills he incurred didn't go away and
there wasn't any money to pay for
them

[ironglow]

Speaking of scrounging for gas..  When I was serving in Texas, some of the guys reminisced about going as teen drivers, to the wells in the field, and there was some kind of fluid that they could snitch..and would run their cars.

  I guess it wouldn't run them well..but they ran..  I don't know what it was, but they talked as if it were some kind of byproduct of the pumps..or Christmas trees..

  Perhaps somebody from oil country can elaborate..especially if they ever run their car on it !

[nw_hunter]

In my younger days, I decided to make my fortune in the oil fields of OK. Lasted a few years, though the fortune was small. I used Drip gas (wellhead gas) often in my work truck. It smelled terrible and didn't run as good as refined, but it was sort of free.

[Dee]

In my younger days, I decided to make my fortune in the oil fields of OK. Lasted a few years, though the fortune was small. I used Drip gas (wellhead gas) often in my work truck. It smelled terrible and didn't run as good as refined, but it was sort of free.

LOL, my father in law kept my wifes' old Chevy gassed up with drip gas when she was a teenager.  Them old cars would burn anyt.

[ironglow]

Dee and NW;

  Thanks for the "fill in", I only heard those Texas & Oklahoma guys joking about such a thing..but didn't fully understand it.

  Can you elaborate a bit?  Was there some kind of collector pail such as we have here, when we tap Maple trees on a small scale?

  Was it leakage from the fittings?

[phalanx]

My Dad used to use drip gas, but he would filter it through a rag first into a bucket just in case. Some of those wells have H2S present and it will dang sure kill you.

Description:
Drip gas, so named because it can be drawn off the bottom of small chambers (called drips) sometimes installed in pipelines from gas wells, is another name for natural-gas condensate, a naturally occurring form of gasoline obtained as a byproduct of natural gas extraction.

[oldandslow]

It used to be a common practice in my younger days. In my young days I knew where there was "drip" in a qathering system pipe line. It was just a 55 gallon barrel buried beside the line out in a pasture and collected distillate or drip as it is commonly called.  I am certain a pumper had installed itto provide fuel for his vehicle. Lots of people in the oilfield ran their vehicles on drip. The company that I worked for had a pumper that had a side gig as a contract pumper. After retiring he continued with his contract pumping and we had a tank battery where you could bleed drip right out of a separator and he would stop by and fill cans once a week to provide fuel for his truck for the next week. There was a valve and 1/4" copper line installed just for that purpose.  If it doesn't go though a meter the company doesn't know it exists. I also knew a mechanic that worked in a gas plant. They processed lease gas into butane, propane, and white gas. He told me he ran a '54 dodge car over a hundred thousand miles on that white gas. Getting a "54 Dodge to run a hundred thousand miles on any gas was quite a feat but white gas is a step above drip in cleanliness.

[ironglow]

Phalanx and O & S;

   Thank you for your clarifying information on the subject.  I have long wondered what those guys were talking about.
  I don't live in "oil country", but it starts in the lower half of my county, then goes down into the Pennsylvania fields.
  Then again, I don't know if the 'drip gas' thing happens with the Pennsylvania fields.

[oldandslow]

This is the Permian Basin, the source for West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for high grade oil in the US. The company I worked for drilled some gas wells in the Morrow sands that also produced distillate that would run in your vehicle as it came out of the ground. Yes, they would clatter and chatter under heavy acceleration but other than that ran fine. Some of the ones that used it retarded the timing to reduce the knock which reduced mileage but it was free to them. Gas wells are normally short lived as they produce from a lens, just an under ground bubble containing a finite amount of gas and fluid. Eventually they turn into produce water wells.