This new video series has been in the works for a couple of years. I was getting ready to launch it in the third quarter of 2011, but when Google drastically slashed the amount of traffic it was sending to this website in mid-July of that year, I put the series on the back burner. This is the reality of life on the Internet. Google controls the bulk of the traffic to content websites. They decide who gets traffic and who does not. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Is it reality? Absolutely. The sites that do exceedingly well in the rankings today are big sites that can afford staffs that specialize in search engine optimization, as well as those that use tactics that optimize their rankings. Smaller sites, particularly one person operations, are simply out of luck in Google’s new world order. Quite simply, they determine what you see.
gas mileage
Ain’t Fuelin’ Hangout with EricTheCarGuy
In the first of a series of hangouts we have planned to support our new video series, Ain’t Fuelin’, I chat with special guest Eric Cook, a.k.a. EricTheCarGuy on YouTube. Eric and I run long on a bunch of fuel economy and car maintenance, including: is it worth it to have an engine rebuilt on a car with 200K on the clock and is there a market in refurbishing older fuel efficient cars, like the Honda Civic and Volkswagen TDIs?
GMC Yukon Gas Mileage: 1992 – 2013
If there was a competition for poster boy for the excess consumption of gasoline, the GMC Yukon would surely be among the finalists. While the hybrid version of the Yukon 1500 may be rated at 20 miles per gallon in the city, the 2500 is rated at half that amount. Nevertheless, the Yukon Hybrid hasn’t found a huge number of buyers. The best solution for the Yukon would be a turbo-diesel engine, but General Motors hasn’t had the gumption to drop a Duramax between the fenders, for whatever reason. A properly geared diesel would likely outshine the Hybrid on the highway. Even better if it ran B20 domestic renewable biodiesel. Fingers crossed we see it soon …
I know some folks say, it’s too big, it uses too much gas
Some folks say it’s too old, and that it goes too fast
But my love is bigger than a Honda, it is bigger than a Subaru
– Bruce Springsteen/Pink Cadillac
Geo Gas Mileage : 1989 – 1997
What does a major car manufacturer do when they need a line of fuel-efficient cars and lack the time and resources to engineer and build the little beasts themselves? Why they rebadge, of course! The Geo brand was sold by Chevrolet dealerships from 1989 through 1997, offering a slew of small vehicles initially built overseas by Suzuki and Isuzu (some subsequently in Canada), and here in the States through a joint venture with Toyota. The tiny Suzuki-built Geo Metro has a stellar reputation among high-MPG econobox aficionados. The Metro was available with a ridiculously small 1.0-liter three cylinder engine that was capable of remarkable mileage when equipped with the five-speed manual. Among the cheap car crowd, the Metro XFI is the most sought-after of the tiny fuel-sippers, enjoying highway ratings in the low fifties.
Suzuki also supplied the Geo Tracker, in addition to the Metro. The Tracker was based on the Suzuki Sidekick and was available in hardtop and ragtop versions in both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive. Isuzu supplied the Geo Storm, which was based on the Isuzu Impulse. The Geo Prizm was based on the Toyota Corolla and was built at the NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) plant in Fremont, California. NUMMI was a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors.
2013 Gas Mileage by Manufacturer
It’s been one cold week here in the Swamps of Jersey! I spent the day inside today, compiling a stack of pages that break out gas mileage data by individual manufacturer for the 2013 model year. I’ve wanted to do this for some time now, but we lost our database server a while back and it’s taken a bit of hammering and sawing behind the scenes to get things rolling again. I focused on the mass-market manufacturers first, leaving out the exotics (namely Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Lotus) and the high-end luxury brands (like Bentley and Rolls Royce). If you’re buying one of those magnificent beasts, you’re not concerned about MPGs. I’ve been working on the page layout to speed things up and these pages should help a bit with site navigation. Next on the hit list: find the right sidebar widget to help folks get to what they’re looking for as quickly as possible.