Average mpg , cost to travel .

[Darin1960]

Originally Posted by EA37TS

Whenever I am asked about my fuel consumption my response has always been, "if you have to ask it is too expense for you". Since my current rig does not have a distance to empty readout the only reason I am concerned about MPG is to determine my travel range between fuel stops for planning purposes. I also refuse to drive 15 miles out of my way to save 1 or 2 cents per gallon. To use 1 or 2 gallons of diesel to save 2 dollars per tank is, IMHO, stupid.

Funny you mentioned driving out of the way to save 1 or 2 cent. my Father in Law ( now deceased) had a gas station literally across the street from his house and used to drive across town, about a 15 mile round trip to save 1 or 2 cent per gallon. I told him it was costing him money to do this and he said hows that? I said this car gets about 15 miles per gallon in town so you are burning a gallon of gas to go get this 2 cent savings and if you filled your tank up from empty , you only save 40 ct ( 20 gal tank x 2ct per gal savings) in the meantime you are spending $1.50 ( gas was $1.50 a gal at the time) to drive to this gas station . He finally go it.

[Alpine36]

With maintenance, tires, fuel, insurance and CG fees I figure about $1 a mile.
Scary how accurate that figure is when you total everything up at the end of the year and divide it by miles traveled. Sometimes there's even enough wiggle room for a jug of Bib and Tucker to come to grips with it all lol.

[ThomB]

Originally Posted by coastalrider

Very simple: It's almost always 8mpg (25'-45', diesel or gas, pulling something or not).

This is one reason I like to keep track. I'd be happy to get 8mpg, I would have saved about 15% in fuel costs (a little over $1750 over 3 years).

[Podivin]

My RV gets GREAT mileage, I'm always thrilled when I check the mileage "wow, it's that good?!?".
Of course I'm comparing my 7 mpg RV to my previous 1.25 mpg boats. All things are relative.

Like some of the others, I just do a fast in my head calculation to verify that nothing has changed. Beyond that it's just not a worry.

[richp5]

I plan trips that the detestation is within a days drive or multiple weeks trips as time is the major consideration. I enjoy the rv but as I'm still working time is the most important consideration. Example: my son is graduating from Utah State and we have four days available for the event. I could drive there in a twelve hour day which I've done in the past but the costs for fuel and the campground are the same or a little more than flying, car rental and the increased hotel fees (jacked up due to all the families arriving for the ceremonies and only ten hotels in town). So even if it's a push cost wise, why spend 2 of the 4 available days on the road. When I retire in the next couple of years then I would make a ten-day trip out of it seeing other sites on the way and back.

[US1]

I'm a boater for the most part. My last 2 powerboats, (27' Fountain with a supercharged 502, followed by a 32' Fountain with twin 502's) and currently a 34' Baja cruiser w/twin 454's would get less than 1 MPG while running down the lake. Not uncommon to go thru 200 gal during a poker run weekend, at over $4/gal on the water. So if my motorhome gets 8-9mpg.....I'm good with that.

Though I will say, we just bought this RV (our 1st) less than a month ago, and the PO said its a 12mpg machine, and from reading all the comments, me thinks me got snookered.

[Waiter21]

I like to keep track of my expenses. I budget about $0.50 per mile for fuel. This is high, but keeps me in budget and planning expenses. We plan on about 7500 miles a year, so before we hit the road, we make sure the finances are available. to cover the expenses.

The MH is a lot cheaper than my airplane. It burned about 12 GPH, and I like to fly 5-10 hours a week.

In my ole jet (L39) it burned about 200 GPH at about $2 per gallon. This was a couple hours a week but I'd generally get my expenses paid for this.

[C5c5]

I was very poor growing up and well into adulthood. Our well ran dry during the drought of 1988 and we could not afford to fix it. We got our water by filling used milk jugs at the local laundermat. Took sponge baths after boiling the water on the stove. We used an outhouse. I took advantage of taking showers at school after gym class. Did this for 2 years until the well recovered.

My parents literally concerned themselves with fuel mileage down to the penny because even pennies mattered at the time.

I remember being almost out of gas in my car when I was a teen in the 90's, and going to the gas station and adding only 25 or 50 cents because that was all I had.

Miles per gallon mattered big time for many years. I'm not poor anymore, but the habits and thinking of all those years remain to this day.

Old patterns of thinking and managing things relating to survival are hard to break for some.

If I can see even a slight improvement in mileage, it makes me feel good. Speaking for myself, the micro attention paid to mileage is a psychological feel-good act based upon experiences a long time ago. Intellectually I know I do not NEED to concern myself that much anymore, but it is the FEELINGS that keep me doing it.

I'm getting better at it, but again, old patterns relating to survival are hard to break.

[TIME2CAMP]

Not sure what you are wondering, but there is more to consider than the money. It is also about tradeoffs between lifestyles. But let's first state that we want to travel to new places and are evaluating cost/lifestyle of the options.

Gas is a large part of the bill on the RV side, but what you spend to get into the hardware amortized over the use period could be bigger. This is the big cost, if you buy a unit for even 20K and use it a few times a year stay in hotels.

Staying at other people's places (hotel, homes, etc) is more expensive than a campground, can be more expensive if you eat out but the cost is offset by benefits like not having to dump tanks, set up, and so on.

So bottom line this is about more than money. It is lifestyle, comfort and a little emotion. But definitely look into ALL THE COSTS before writing the check. Many don't and that is why there are some great deals on slightly used equipment.

And yes you can get into this for reasonable amounts. We have a 2004 pickup and a 2013 19 foot camper that cost us less than 20K including everything we needed. We have made the commitment to use it 50-60 days a year and there is no way we could travel this much with all our toys without this rig.

[IC2]

The only time I worried about fuel mileage was when I had a gasser pickup tow vehicle with a 28 gallon tank. At 7-8 mpg, that was less then 200 miles before you ran dry. That meant I had to plan the next stop again at about 150 miles further down the road. The current diesel TV is usually in the 11-12 mpg range with a 39 gallon tank or about 425 miles which is over a normal day's ~350 mile drive for us now. Now I fill up after we setup for the night and am ready for another day of travel.

Cost of fuel, whichever it is, is a cost of our enjoyment so really isn't a very big factor in our travels though in Canada at over $4.00 USD per gallon will hurt a bit.

[texasrs]

Alpine36


I figure $1 per mile cost (not just fuel) also.


Ray

[RightUR]

Originally Posted by Darin1960

Funny you mentioned driving out of the way to save 1 or 2 cent. my Father in Law ( now deceased) had a gas station literally across the street from his house and used to drive across town, about a 15 mile round trip to save 1 or 2 cent per gallon. I told him it was costing him money to do this and he said hows that? I said this car gets about 15 miles per gallon in town so you are burning a gallon of gas to go get this 2 cent savings and if you filled your tank up from empty , you only save 40 ct ( 20 gal tank x 2ct per gal savings) in the meantime you are spending $1.50 ( gas was $1.50 a gal at the time) to drive to this gas station . He finally go it.

Hmm. Nice. "And a child shall lead the way."

[Unplanned Tourist]

My wife is from Norway, so while her folks were alive, it was a trip there every 10 months on average.

We still travel, but going in the MH is as cheap or cheaper than flying somewhere and staying in a hotel or B&B.

Fuel mileage is measured in miles per gallon, but MH travel is always measured in SMILES PER GALLON.

Also, years ago my dad told me the real cost of driving is right around 3 times the cost of your fuel. Well he was right! When you add it all up it works out.

Happy Glamping.

[RightUR]

Economist say (historically) it takes 4 and 1/2 yrs to get out of a recession. So it'll take longer to come out of a Great recession. We had to give up camping when the great recession hit. But thank God I still had a good job. So I could start making plans for when we came out of the recession, yrs down the road. We are blessed that we Owned/own our house and cars so the only costs we had were Property taxes, car ins, home ins, gas, utilities. Finally some yrs later we were able to get back into camping. But this time I wanted a Class A. I started my research way back. So after 5 yrs of Research and budget panning and saving, we settled on our "Space Shuttle." We got a heck of a deal on it. But I'm usually "overkill" on the things I do. So when I worked on a RV lifestyle budget (4 yrs ago) I calculated it on $3.50 a gallon. So far it has worked great because I come out Waaaay below my projected gas expenditure. We budgeted 60 dollars a night for CG's. But I'm retired military, so on average staying mostly on military bases it cost us 20-25 a night. Another win win. My rig takes 150 Gallons, times 8 miles, that's 1200 miles, meaning that if I see a station that charge too much for gas, inevitably down the road 100 or 200 miles maybe, there will be a gas station that charges a lil less. I've done it many times before.
As I mentioned in previous posts, we spend 14K on property taxes, for our home a yr, and around 4K on upkeep and maintenance. Those are 18K that we would spend regardless, with or without a Moho. We travel a lot now, but in may when my son graduates, we'll be fulltiming. When I did the budget planning for our 8k mile per yr circuit, we didn't even come near that number, even at $3.50 a gallon. If I have to "pinch" pennies it won't start at Zero, it'll start when I hit $18000, because either way i'd be spending that anyway.