Are us middle class Jeepers going to be (fuel) forcefully priced out of enjoying our Jeeps? [CLOSED DUE TO POLITICS]

[MidwestJeeper]

You all know it. Gas price averages are growing almost everyday, faster than an adolescent kid.

I would like to get the opinions of other Jeepers that may be in the same boat as myself. I work hard, I work honest, I save up so I can enjoy some of the fruits of my labor and enjoy my dream vehicle.
Well, enjoy within feasible means is what I follow and what we grew up on.

$2.xx a gallon? Yeah, enjoy my Jeep without a worry
$3.xx a gallon? Hmm.... yeah ok. I guess I can drive around
$4.xx a gallon? Need to think about a few things.
$5.xx a gallon, as expected in another month or two? oops.

This is 2 years on from being at a position where I could comfortably have afforded a JLU diesel, which is still the dream Jeep in an ideal world scenario. Not anymore.

Is this situation ever going to resolve itself or are we forcefully being shoehorned into commuting less and/or going full EV? The latter is coming for sure, but I can't believe it will be a slimy tactic by those in power to force us into it.

Full electric Jeeps? Cool technology and probably high efficiency but no thanks, for me at least.

The rich, super rich and uber rich will probably use their fully loaded and modded Jeeps as their 3rd/4th vehicles or weekend toys, but that's far from reality for a good portion of us.

What can a simple honest random Joe Noname like me expect in the coming months and the next couple of years?

Your thoughts?

 

[slowpoke387]

I dont think most people buy these for the fuel economy. These are toys. And yes DD toys for many, but still toys. Most people will just pony up for the fun factor regardless of the fuel costs. The rest will either add a commuter as a DD because they think theyre saving money which always makes me scratch my head, or just sell and replace. They’ll never recoup the cost of adding an econobox to the stable in fuel savings, that makes no sense. Yet I see people do it quite a bit. It would take years to get that to actually work. And I cant see a ton of people outright selling their fun factor for a couple of bucks in fuel.

 

[MidwestJeeper]

I dont think most people buy these for the fuel economy. These are toys. Most people will just pony up for the fun factor regardless of the fuel costs. The rest will either add a commuter as a DD because they think theyre saving money which always makes me scratch my head, or just sell and replace. They’ll never recoup the cost of adding an econobox to the stable in fuel savings, that makes no sense. Yet I see people do it quite a bit. It would take years to get that to actually work. And I cant see a ton of people outright selling their fun factor for a couple of bucks in fuel.

I scratch my head on the same thing too.

I know these vehicles are far, far from being fuel efficient but the way things are going is completely bonkers. Volatile is an understatement.

 

[nU7OuxIx]

I've had the same thing in the back of my head. Luckily, I now work from home so that saves a ton of gas money. But I have been thinking about it when I plan trips. That weekend camping trip is now going to cost me $200 in gas, instead of whatever it was last time.

I'm no expert in energy and predicting the future. But part of me thinks that this summer, the price of electricity is going to skyrocket. I also think that there's more demand than supply so there could be outages from it. A lot of people are being forced into EV's due to the price of gas, but if the price of electricity goes up, then we're back at square one. I also don't think our infrastructure is ready for it. If they're talking about rolling blackouts and outages due to demand and not everybody has an EV, what's going to happen when everybody is forced to get one? Sure, you can get a solar farm on your property, but realistically, how many people are going to do that. And not many people have that kind of money laying around for it.

My thought, and hope, is that gas will get cheaper after many realize that EV's can't work with infrastructure today. And then I don't have to start calculating the price of weekend camping trips anymore.

 

[John VonJeep]

If I take a 1,000 mile overlanding trip, and my Jeep averages 17 mpg, I burn 59 gallons of gas.

So if gas jumps from $2.50 to $4.50, I pay an extra $118 for the trip.

Nope, not a deal breaker at all.

I keep a little hatchback around for my daily driver. It averages 39 mpg and I fill it up every three weeks or so. Gas prices are irrelevant to that thing.

If I were using my Jeep as a daily and had a long commute, then I can see where that would get painful these days.

 

[Steph1]

With everything factored in, we just reached $6.25US a gallon up here in Canada. If my Jeep and mods weren't all paid for, not sure how I'd react to that, cause it's suppose to keep going up.

 

[Mgg253]

Remember the idiots with 4xe’s that will never recoup our extra money spent on batteries? Current gas tank for my DD has 220 miles and I’ve only used about 1 gallon of gas. Yes my mountain camp trips may cost an extra $100 of fuel (over lower gas prices) but that is what it is. The reality is gas prices suck for a lot of people and will force them to make hard choices… and I put solar on my house 3 years ago, so the math means I am recouping my investment faster (system was 104% to use) than I would have otherwise. Energy rates are also relatively cheap in CO, if I have to buy it, about $.13 per kWh.

I made hard choices before buying a very expensive vehicle. Those choices were not buying what I wanted for many years while I saved every penny I could. Then when I finally had saved enough to comfortably buy what I wanted and not worry about the gas, I did. How many people worrying about gas prices had 45k to put as a down payment on their vehicle? I kept my previous 2 vehicles a combined 15 years always saving for buying what I wanted, not what I needed. I’ve always lived well under my means, while I am extremely fortunate now, and yes I’ve very much felt the pinch of inflation, living frugally for so long put my family in a position that we may have to cut back, but we can ride this out too. And while I’m fortunate, I’m still middle class by the economics.

 

[Gurk]

You all know it. Gas price averages are growing almost everyday, faster than an adolescent kid.

I would like to get the opinions of other Jeepers that may be in the same boat as myself. I work hard, I work honest, I save up so I can enjoy some of the fruits of my labor and enjoy my dream vehicle.
Well, enjoy within feasible means is what I follow and what we grew up on.

$2.xx a gallon? Yeah, enjoy my Jeep without a worry
$3.xx a gallon? Hmm.... yeah ok. I guess I can drive around
$4.xx a gallon? Need to think about a few things.
$5.xx a gallon, as expected in another month or two? oops.

This is 2 years on from being at a position where I could comfortably have afforded a JLU diesel, which is still the dream Jeep in an ideal world scenario. Not anymore.

Is this situation ever going to resolve itself or are we forcefully being shoehorned into commuting less and/or going full EV? The latter is coming for sure, but I can't believe it will be a slimy tactic by those in power to force us into it.

Full electric Jeeps? Cool technology and probably high efficiency but no thanks, for me at least.

The rich, super rich and uber rich will probably use their fully loaded and modded Jeeps as their 3rd/4th vehicles or weekend toys, but that's far from reality for a good portion of us.

What can a simple honest random Joe Noname like me expect in the coming months and the next couple of years?

Your thoughts?

Given that we WERE on our way to energy independence and in the last year have hopped back on to the ideological path of forcing fossil fuel consumers to pay dearly...yes many of us will be affected. The question is will those of us who use our Jeeps for DD and not as extra toys, need to make adjustments ?
I think the answer is yes, the degree is the question.

 

[Antonio]

I think many people are going to cut back on certain things they can manage just simply cause this isn’t just about the gas price increase but in general cost of living increase, if I’m planning to go on a trip etc the extra $ 100 in fuel cost isn’t going to effect my decision of going, but I can completely understand other people point of view in regards to trying to keep their expenses down, but realistically if you spent over $ 50 K on your new jeep an extra $ 100 in fuel to enjoy it, that shouldn’t really be an issue!! I feel terrible for truck drivers and farmer etc who don’t have a choice, clearly our federal government seems more interested in sending billions overseas to Ukraine vs addressing issues here at home!

 

[Remorseless]

Where there's a will, there's a way when it comes to Jeeps. Might not be fun, but there's always a way to feed this addiction. I mean hell, every city got street corners, and if you dress pretty enough, you can make some gas money.

 

[JP29]

Price of gas sucks for sure. I've been lucky enough that half the household works from home, almost halving my gas spending, and that my work is about ten minutes down the road, so I fill up about twice a month. But with the 2.0T, I'm wanting to put 91 in as a rule from now on, so I've upped my budget accordingly.

 

[INCRHULK]

Given that we WERE on our way to energy independence and in the last year have hopped back on to the ideological path of forcing fossil fuel consumers to pay dearly...yes many of us will be affected. The question is will those of us who use our Jeeps for DD and not as extra toys, need to make adjustments ?
I think the answer is yes, the degree is the question.

The US is still energy independent, or at least as close as it will ever get on fossil fuels.

 

[miweber929]

If I take a 1,000 mile overlanding trip, and my Jeep averages 17 mpg, I burn 59 gallons of gas.

So if gas jumps from $2.50 to $4.50, I pay an extra $118 for the trip.

Nope, not a deal breaker at all.

This.

It’s not ideal that prices have risen, and I’m not happy about it, but I think people sometimes get out of whack with how much stuff actually costs.

I watch cars line up for hours at places and drive 30+ minutes across town to get gas that’s $.25 cheaper a gallon. In a typical fill up that‘s under a $5 difference. If it’s even $.50 a gallon so $10 more to fill and that’s the difference between me making it and not, then I’ve got bigger issues and shouldn’t be driving a jeep.

 

[Whaler27]

Remember the idiots with 4xe’s that will never recoup our extra money spent on batteries? Current gas tank for my DD has 220 miles and I’ve only used about 1 gallon of gas. Yes my mountain camp trips may cost an extra $100 of fuel (over lower gas prices) but that is what it is. The reality is gas prices suck for a lot of people and will force them to make hard choices… and I put solar on my house 3 years ago, so the math means I am recouping my investment faster (system was 104% to use) than I would have otherwise. Energy rates are also relatively cheap in CO, if I have to buy it, about $.13 per kWh.

I made hard choices before buying a very expensive vehicle. Those choices were not buying what I wanted for many years while I saved every penny I could. Then when I finally had saved enough to comfortably buy what I wanted and not worry about the gas, I did. How many people worrying about gas prices had 45k to put as a down payment on their vehicle? I kept my previous 2 vehicles a combined 15 years always saving for buying what I wanted, not what I needed. I’ve always lived well under my means, while I am extremely fortunate now, and yes I’ve very much felt the pinch of inflation, living frugally for so long put my family in a position that we may have to cut back, but we can ride this out too. And while I’m fortunate, I’m still middle class by the economics.

Yup. When they work, the 4xe feels like a smart choice. We were planning on replacing our diesel Grand Cherokee with the 4xe version until we got spooked by all the horror stories. We still want one and will likely buy if the data show the kinks have been mostly worked out in a year or so.

We don’t put many miles on the Wrangler, so the climbing gas prices are irritating and uncomfortable, but the fuel surcharge is probably costing us only $40 to $50 per month more. It will take much more than that to move me into a Prius. Just looking at those things pisses me off — but I’m probably influenced by all the ridiculous stickers that invariably adorn them in Oregon.

 

[cafecito820]

My $.02 - people fixate way, way too hard on gas prices and will drop $5.00 on shitty coffee daily without batting an eye.

Does it suck that I have to drop an extra $20 at the pump now? Of course. But if my financial margin between owning and enjoying my Jeep and being broke is $20 a couple times a month, I should have been smarter with my money in the first place.

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