I wasa driving a 4 door Jeep on 35" tires and getting close to 15 mpg. So, the 20 mpg I'm getting out of the Mustang has been great. I'll slow try to slow down next time, lol. My commute is only every third day. There one morning, back home the next.

The auto has a shorter OD ratio in 6th gear than the manuals do. 75-80 MPH in an auto is like turning 2400 RPM.

I have gotten 25-25.5 multiple times on trips home, south of Houston, doing 80-85 on I45 almost the entire time. Surprisingly the over 2k theory isn't as bad on these cars as I've seen in the past. I've actually found that there is a second sweet spot around 80 MPH that if you set cruise at, you can still get good MPG for the speed and RPM you are turning.

The in dash MPG calculator is really accurate. I've hardly ever been more than +/- 0.5 MPG off hand calculations with it, and over the life of the car it's been a running average of +/- 0.3 MPG difference

Everyone, here is a copy of the spreadsheet I use to figure out RPM vs speed, gear, tire OD, etc. Make sure to download it and save if to your computer.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4weuy6umya...lculators.xlsx

It's a hot rod and a part time toy for me, who cares about mileage. lol

Not everyone has the luxury to just throw money at the gas station.

You mean the one or maybe two tanks (two tanks is rare) of gas a month? lol

In my opinion, if gas mileage is that great of concern for someone with one of these cars then you most likely can't really afford the car in the first place.

I personally wouldn't go past a 3.55. On old less hp mustangs I would always go right to 4.10s but anything close to 2500-3k rpms cruising on the highway is going to kill your mpg by 1-3 I would say. Every car is different so you won't really know what is going to happen until you do the swap.

I wasn't directing that comment at you.

I call bullshit on this. Some people actually try to budget themselves. Doesn't mean they can't afford it. Just means you can't do a whole bunch of random running the roads just burning gas to burn it. I can afford my car, but I can't afford to be careless about how much gas I use. There is a difference. Shit adds up quick.

You're in denial.

I kinda agree with you.

How does that make me in denial? I'm just curious to hear your reasoning, seriously. I can't agree with you or disagree unless I know how you came to that conclusion.

To me, if you're that financially stretched if you're having to budget the gas for it you can't afford the car. When you buy a car it's given its going to use so much fuel for regular use as a commuter. There was obviously much better choices for a commuter for fuel economy that would have been better suited for your budget. Being things are that tight, if something happens the car needs repairs, you're at the dealerships mercy depending on them to honor the warranty in order to fix it, if they don't, you're going to be in a bad spot. Side note to it, if you're stuck with a near stock car because of needing the warranty, you're not getting a full enjoyment from the car not being able to mod it as you want and that's if you can afford to mod it at all. /shrug. JMO's.

I can agree with all of that. But I'm not setting a fixed amount of money to be spent on gas. Just trying to cut down how much gas I use and trying to cut down the miles I put on my car as well, in the process.

However, I am driving my car more than the typical daily commuter, roughly 2k miles a month. I knew what I was getting into when I bought the car, and I knew gas was going to the be the most expensive part. As for dealership work, luckily the blow struts were the only issue I've had, and it was my own doing that caused that. I've also not be hard enough on myself in terms of my other spending habits besides car parts. Plus I never intended on having a dog as soon as I did, but oh well. Not sure why I felt to give an explanation for myself, but I did.

No worries. I just explained because you asked me to. To each to their own.


Btw, I completely understand being thrifty or just outright cheap for whatever reason. You have to be in todays economy in my opinion regardless of how much money you have because it's so unstable.

I just don't understand people who live beyond their means spending more than they make living off of credit cards or stretching themselves so thin if anything goes wrong they are screwed.

That's the new American dream. Media, politicians, everyone deems it as an okay lifestyle, so naturally everyone believes them. Unfortunately people don't realize what they are doing, and that by doing so, it only drives the economy down even more than it already is.

The moment IRS and CC debt settlements started to be paid off at a fraction of the value was the moment all of it was doomed. IMO, that should've never been allowed. You rack up $20k in CC debt, you will work and pay that debt off to $0, not pay $4k and have the rest wiped clean. Because that just shows they can go out and spend that much again and still get off for paying $4k again....:mad: /rant