petrol prices

with the price of oil going up quite a lot lately and petrol heading toward's a stupid amout,why do people have such big cars ?
i see a lot of people on here with st220,big bmw's and so forth....i know the big car's give you the added comfort and ride quality of a smaller car but is it really worth it if your spending £100 a month for instance on petrol and diesel ?
just wanted to listen to people's view's on why they have such big engine car's when the price of fuel is out of control.
btw...i drive a 1.4 renault megane and it does me fine....on a 51 plate as well.
 
Because you would lose a lot more than a few hundred quid changing down cars and then you end up with something you don't really want anyway.

Also many people drive company cars who pay towards fuel or some do low mileage, like myself.
 
schizo220168 said:
with the price of oil going up quite a lot lately and petrol heading toward's a stupid amout,why do people have such big cars ?
i see a lot of people on here with st220,big bmw's and so forth....i know the big car's give you the added comfort and ride quality of a smaller car but is it really worth it if your spending £100 a month for instance on petrol and diesel ?
just wanted to listen to people's view's on why they have such big engine car's when the price of fuel is out of control.
btw...i drive a 1.4 renault megane and it does me fine....on a 51 plate as well.
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Because most people had the cars before the rampant price rises? Even so, for some people, having such a car is well worth the money.
 
Northwind said:
Don't diesels typically get better MPG than an equivalent petrol car?
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Yes. I can get 55 to the gallon out of mine without too much town driving, 47 with. But i think it's only just worth it on those figures and i have to drive a N/A diesel.

While a diesel made sense in every way at the time i had it (With the amount of towing i do it still does but to a lesser degree) the only economic reason to have one now is that i've got one and it will cost money to change it.

If i was looking for a car now i'd be a lot less picky about what fuel it runs on.
 
schizo220168 said:
with the price of oil going up quite a lot lately and petrol heading toward's a stupid amout,why do people have such big cars ?
i see a lot of people on here with st220,big bmw's and so forth....i know the big car's give you the added comfort and ride quality of a smaller car but is it really worth it if your spending £100 a month for instance on petrol and diesel ?
just wanted to listen to people's view's on why they have such big engine car's when the price of fuel is out of control.
btw...i drive a 1.4 renault megane and it does me fine....on a 51 plate as well.
Click to expand...

Some people need big powerful cars. A 1.4 megane would be barely adequate for me because i tow my boat around a lot. My current 1.9 diesel is probably not much better but does have more torque. If i was after a petrol car i think the bare minimum would be a 1.6 in something like a 306 estate, in anything bigger i'd get away with 1.8 but need 2 litres really.

Also people who take wife and 3 kids around a lot would struggle in a 1.4 megane due to legroom, storage space and power when full of bodies and luggage.
 
Super Tigers said:
Oil just hit a new record spot price of $139 last night. Expect a few more pence very, very soon.
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Even more annoyingly just 2 days before that happened it was floundering at less than $122 a barrel. Then the European Central Bank says they MIGHT raise interest rates, the US employment figures come out, Morgan Stanley say 'oooh it might hit $150' and suddenly the price goes crazy.

Thank you commodity speculators :rolleyes:
 
schizo220168 said:
with the price of oil going up quite a lot lately and petrol heading toward's a stupid amout,why do people have such big cars ?
i see a lot of people on here with st220,big bmw's and so forth....i know the big car's give you the added comfort and ride quality of a smaller car but is it really worth it if your spending £100 a month for instance on petrol and diesel ?
just wanted to listen to people's view's on why they have such big engine car's when the price of fuel is out of control.
btw...i drive a 1.4 renault megane and it does me fine....on a 51 plate as well.
Click to expand...

Because I don't fancy doing 30k a year in a tin can, thank you.

£100 a month, I spend more than that in a week usually, thankfully not from my own pocket though!
 
schizo220168 said:
with the price of oil going up quite a lot lately and petrol heading toward's a stupid amout,why do people have such big cars ?
i see a lot of people on here with st220,big bmw's and so forth....i know the big car's give you the added comfort and ride quality of a smaller car but is it really worth it if your spending £100 a month for instance on petrol and diesel ?.
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Of course its worth it. I like my car.
 
[TW]Fox;11839710 said:
Even more annoyingly just 2 days before that happened it was floundering at less than $122 a barrel. Then the European Central Bank says they MIGHT raise interest rates, the US employment figures come out, Morgan Stanley say 'oooh it might hit $150' and suddenly the price goes crazy.

Thank you commodity speculators :rolleyes:
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Yup this is what gets me. Pretty much all of the recent fluctuation in price is simply speculation of where the price will go. (like you say it was $122 only two days ago according to RBS market data and now its mid 130's) They speculate $150 and suddenly it shoots off in that direction.

Also what doesn't help is the fact that sterling has become weaker against the dollar (from 1.98 only last week to mid 1.95's this week). We are sort of hit by a double wammy at the moment, increasing base price for oil and a weaker GBP/USD Spot.
 
Funny isnt it how Morgan Stanley have large commodities futures trading funds and they issue a report showing that it might hit $150 so everyone buys and what happens to the value of MS's futures? Oh yes...

This sort of thing doesn't happen in a market driven purely by supply and demand fundamentals. Such massive spikes in price are a new thing and in my opinion can only be as a result of futures speculation.

Did you know that to buy oil futures you only need to put down 6%? Yes, thats right, you can control $1m of oil for just $60,000.... and profit off that $1m of oil when the price goes up.
 
I found a petrol receipt yesterday from 15/2/07.

83.9 a litre. Nearly 18 litres to £15.

Damn those were the days :(

Cost my mate £60 to fill his MK3 Clio petrol up yesterday!
 
I'm beginning to realise that my google skills are pretty weak, so can any of you guys find a site(s) that show upto date and accurate petrol/diesel prices for the european countries please?
 
Driving my car is one of the most enjoyable things for me in life, plus I don't spend £100 to go out and get sloshed every week like a lot of people my age do.

And only doing 6000 miles a year is a big influence too, even with the poor mpg compared to a diesel varient the difference with my milege wouldn't be more than a few hundred pounds a year.
 
theboyrob said:
Driving my car is one of the most enjoyable things for me in life, plus I don't spend £100 to go out and get sloshed every week like a lot of people my age do.
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Same.

While my car isn't exciting like an ST220 I still like it and I still don't care that I "only" get 30-33MPG. It's comfortable and not too bad speed-wise.

schizo220168, by all means drive around in a small engine'd car if you like, that's your choice and if you're not "into cars" then that's up to you, but you can't really preach at us about it... It's a fact of life that humans usually want luxuries, and to do more than what's fundamentally necessary to sustain life ;)
 
howardcanning said:
schizo220168, by all means drive around in a small engine'd car if you like, that's your choice and if you're not "into cars" then that's up to you, but you can't really preach at us about it... It's a fact of life that humans usually want luxuries, and to do more than what's fundamentally necessary to sustain life ;)
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Trouble is, once we get into that people can respond "Don't complain how much your luxuries cost then". Which is competely unreasonable in this circumstance, but also perfectly logical, and very hard to argue against. It's one of those lines in the sand I reckon...

Personally, I did 500 miles last weekend on the bike, cost me about £50 in fuel at a guess, still strikes me as very good value tbh- cheaper than crack and just as addictive :D I could detune it back to standard and get about 20% better fuel economy but where's the fun in that?
 
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