jtsmith said:
Also, as the price of gas goes up, the mods pay for themselves sooner!
Very true, but how do you know gas prices will continue on an upward trend? I definitely think gas prices will be bad in the short term, but look at examples of oil price spikes in the past. Every time the prices have dove tremendously. What I think will happen is that all the increased money invested in new oil sources (the sands in canada, and the rocky mountains) will eventually cause an oil excess again, and prices will again be cheap. So I highly doubt that oil prices will stay high forever. Plus, with increased interest in alternative fuels, demand for oil will eventually drop, thus causing a new supply/ demand equilibrium, and oil prices again are bound to drop.
Also another clarification, my calculations were based on my experience of a 2mpg increase on the highway. One of those MPG has been as the result of acetone, which is well worth the costs. The other 1mpg is from the intake and exhaust. Considering these are relatively the cheapest performance add ons to a car, and one of the best performance boosters, I cant hardly justify buying more performance parts in order to save money on gas, especially because they added about .5 mpg each. The only other mod i would consider, and that I think would make a noticible difference is a better tuned chip for 87 octane.
Aldive, Obviously you save a tremendous amount of money in yearly fuel costs. Also, I applaud you for being one person that is seriously curbing the amount of gas you use, and you are helping to support volatile countries (middle east) less and less. Please dont take my argument as an attack on you. I think the work you have done is amazing, and i really wish i could see those gains. Along with IZwack, I am also curious to the amount of money you have spent on your car to get it to where it is now.
For the amount and the way I drive, however, as stated before, I cannot justify the huge costs of tuning, more performance mods, and synthetic fluids (I plan on selling my truck at 90k - 20k from now). Because I am utterly obsessed with personal finance, I did the cost-benefit analysis for myself and even the intake and exhaust dont make sense financially, but they do to me for performance and sound.
So, my decision in the past and now is to save my pennies, not spend more than i need to on my car, and invest that money. Amazingly, I have been lucky and have been invested in Exxon Mobil and two Alternative (Ethanol) fuel companies, and the gains have been tremendous.
This is why my belief that the opportunity cost of the initial "investment" on performance mods is not worth it when the money could be invested in other ways, but again, this is ONLY for the way I drive.
If anyone is interested in having me do a cost/benefit analysis for you on this subject, or anything else, I am glad to do so. It is good practice for the finance and accounting that I am studying at college.