The poor frequently don’t own cars either. I think you’re overestimating how many folks own cars that are so poor they won’t bother maintaining their cars.
This thread is about the truth value of the claim. And no, making others aware how much an impact properly inflating tires will have is not like telling them to not get sick.
His numbers don’t apply to any situation I’ve ever experienced regarding tire pressure. I’ve never, ever experienced 20% loss of gas mileage. I just repaired a flat tire that was running on 5 lbs of air and my mileage dipped 3%. I suppose it might be true if all 4 tires were about to fall off the rims but that is an unlikely national scenario.
And modern fuel injected cars do not need tune-up’s in the classic sense. There are no points to regap, carburetors to adjust or fouling plugs due to lead. Automotive computers tune the engine multiple times every second correcting for conditions of temperature and air mass. It then checks the exhaust as a post operation check.
Tune-ups have been replaced by extended maintenance programs. Carburetor adjustments were eliminated by fuel injection and points were replaced by electronic ignition. Plugs that use to wear out at 10,000 miles now go 60 to 100,000 miles. Modern cars are so consistent and reliable that my state eliminated e-checks. They were a waste of money. It didn’t make sense to burn gasoline on an extra trip to prove the engine was operating properly.
That’s the point! They’re both dumb points. It’s not the basis for a national energy policy. People have been telling other people to keep their tires inflated for years; this is nothing beyond the obvious.
Nope, the prices are from repairpal.com – check 'em yourself (2003 Ford Taurus DOHC engine, zip code 48126). Remember, we’re talking about people that don’t maintain their cars. If they maintained their cars, they’d not have a problem. So your point about replacing a PCV valve yourself doesn’t make my number inflated. These types of people will pay the prices I posted to have their PCV valve replaced (or more than likely, they just won’t have it replaced).
I also (and much more than an aside) indicated that if someone doesn’t need all of that work, you could figure out the numbers yourself. Apparently, you were too lazy to do that. So, that one tune up costs $150, versus a savings of $100. However the likelihood for these types of drivers to still need other service is still very high. There’s nothing inflated about this. It’s sheer simplicity.
Of course the obvious thing you could do to shoot holes in my argument is adjust the price of gasoline, the number of miles driven per year, or the fuel economy of the car that I mentioned. I picked values that seem to be common, and are in line with a 2003 Taurus (a perfectly common car). Don’t ignore my correct math and tell me I’m full of it out of some irrational emotional attachment to your side of the argument; work on some figures!
zut, thanks for quoting the proper quote, and putting it into a better context.
By 2030? OK, so first figure in the next 22 years of nothing special happening… then assume that nothing else changes in the next 22 years to make the comparison even more meaningless… then assume that the 200,000 hasn’t been exaggerated in any way…
Keeping tires properly inflated is NOT his freaking energy policy.
You’re missing a big chunk of his statement. His claim went a big step further and told what an amazing amount that keeping tires properly inflated can have. I doubt this was as obvious to most (certainly not me) as you claim.
What? It sounds like you just said the type of people that don’t maintain their cars will only pay other people to do it for them if they did.
Nice. So you make a bullshit checklist of yearly costs for maintenance including getting new spark plug wires installed and yearly O2 sensor replacement, and if I call you out on this, I’m lazy for not subtracting your nonsense from your total?
It’s inflated. I’ve always owned a car for over 30 years and my average price for inflating my tires and tune-up type maintenance (exhaust systems rusting out, needing new tires, etc. doesn’t count) have never been close to $580 a year. On average it’s probably even less than $58 a year.
Good. Then you now realize we should just be talking about keeping tires improperly inflated alone to account for conserving as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. So why are you still talking about the supposed high costs of tune-up type maintenance?
The problem is people have lots of money, or at least credit. I see everyday people having high speed, cable, and many cell phones. You know what if you have that you ain’t poor, but they think they are.
I went to World Harvest Foodbank to help and the director says if they don’t stock things like Twinkies, chips and get this, even give away McDonalds, the kids will just walk away hungry.
Hardly likely, I haven’t seen anyone in that place that is actually hungry.
It’s all about perception, people love to bitch about being poor, but in America, outside of alcoholics-druggies, uninstituationalized mentally ill people there aren’t any really poor people.
So why should anyone skimp on gasoline, they won’t until they have to choose. And that choice won’t happen because they aren’t POOR enough.
But if you already keep your tires properly inflated, and you hear one guy running for president saying, “Hey, keep your tires inflated; it’ll help save you some gas money” and the other guy running for president saying “Pffft! Obama says you should keep your tires inflated! More like O-DUMB-a!” your trust will shift a little more toward the guy who’s not sounding like an ass.
And very little of what is presented in a campaign is a revelation is any useful sense.
Totally OT, but thank you for that mention. I needed a site exactly like that and didn’t even expect one might exist.
Back to your regularly scheduled GD-in-GQ.
But if you go back and read lots of earlier posts, there’s still the question of how many people don’t check their friggin’ tires. His numbers assume we’re all dummies that don’t know that properly inflating our tires saves gas. I’m surprised that you’re essentially admitting to being such a dummy, since if you know how to change your PCV valve, you must know something about cars. Other than that, it’s basic science.
Yes, exactly. If they knew how to maintain their cars themselves, then they’d be maintaining their cars. There’s a huge cost save by being able to do so.
Yes, because I mentioned a less severe circumstance under the list, and pointed out the cost for that too. If you don’t like the list, make up your own rather than arguing about mine. That’s laziness. And I never mentioned yearly.
And of course you’re representive of the population of the United States, whereas I’m citing real world data gathered from thousands of mechanics across the country. The plural of anecdote isn’t data. Also consider that I never indicated that was a yearly charge. In fact I distinctly recall mentioning that one must start from somewhere, i.e., that the presumption is that you’ve got to convince someone who’s not maintained their car to get it into good working order. The list that you think is so unreasonable are common items that often need to be worked on for a neglected car. They’re valid costs. I do maintain my car, and so for me, those costs aren’t outside of my normal budget. Obviously for people that don’t maintain their cars, those are added costs, and therefore valid for consideration.
Because you’re still wrong and need factual education about such so that you don’t look like a fool when you spout out nonsense. Of course you do still realize that the tire inflation thing is still open, and is predicated on some misbelief that 90% (I made up that number, but it’s unknown, so that’s okay) of our national vehicle fleet is running about on underinflated tires. In many respects, that comes back to people who maintain their cars, since pretty much any place that changes oil also corrects your tire pressure as part of that service.
Without hard data, Obama’s statements are just “feel good” nonsense that sound reasonable only on the surface. Before anyone can claim otherwise, we need all of this information:
[ul]
[li]How many vehicle miles are driven per year in the US? How many vehicles is this?[/li][li]How many vehicle miles are driven on underinflated tires? How many vehicles is this?[/li][li]How many vehicle miles are driven on vehicles that require tune-up? How many vehicles is this?[/li][/ul]
*Exclude vehicles where this is an oversight, as such will be corrected during the next already-planned maintenance period.
Now of the subsets of vehicles above, we need to determine:
[ul]
[li]Which percentage are likely to perform the maintenance if repair cost <= projected personal savings?[/li][li]Which percentage are likely not to perform the maintenance if repair cost >= projected personal savings?[/li][li]What are each of these groups’ contributions to the total vehicle miles and gasoline consumption.[/li][/ul]
At this point, we can go back and run the calculations to see if Obama’s suggestion isn’t just a dumb point. I posit – without knowing any of the hard data – that the majority of people that can maintain their cars already do so, and that the majority of people that don’t maintain their cars won’t (or can’t) do so (for all of the reasons we’ve been discussing), and therefore there are no (well, rather “marginal”) savings to be gained.
This is GQ. I’ve been offering GQ information. My facts can only refuted with other cites. We can’t arrive to a proper GQ analysis without the further information that I am soliciting. So are you up to the task?
I don’t know if any of you listen to NPR but Margie Kriz of ‘National Journal’ Analyzed The Candidates’ Energy Plans and both plans look grim. However, when asked at the end of the Broadcast which plan would work the best - she said all of our analysts say that inflating your tires correctly, and making sure your car is tuned up is the best way to save on gas in the short run. Basically, stating that Obama’s message is the best we have to work with in the short 3-5 year run.
That’s a non-statement. As I pointed out earlier, cars don’t need to be tuned up. The onboard computer tunes the engine many times a SECOND.
The statement is a strawman in that it is a non-policy. It’s like saying the best policy is to do nothing for 3-5 years. That means we’re screwed in the future just as we are screwed now because politicians did nothing for the LAST 3-5 years.
Nice. This is the third time in two different threads that you insult me through dishonesty. I never said I didn’t know keeping tires properly inflated would save gas- and you know I didn’t. I said I didn’t know it could have such an impact that Obama claimed if everyone kept their tires inflated.
Everyone that knows how to do something necessarily does it? I don’t think so.
It’s not laziness. It’s unnecessary for me to do so. This thread is not a debate about how much maintenance costs. It’s a question about my math and if I missed anything. How much maintenance costs is mostly irrelevant, but your costs are over the top. We’ve also been given info by another poster that Obama was talking about tire inflation alone when making the claim about offshore drilling I cited in the OP, making the tune-up maintenance costs totally irrelevant.
Then what are you comparing my experiences to? I was talking about yearly costs.
What real world data do you have that suggests if the average person wants to start paying more attention to maintaining their car, the initial cost will be over $500 for tune-up type maintenance?
I started this OP to if my calculations were right. It was to see if others are up to the task. If you’ve got any info that will help with an amended calculation, feel free to post them.
Cars do need to be tuned up and that will cause them to run more efficiently and save fuel.
Yes, tune-ups aren’t what they used to be, but they still need to be done. Replacing the air filter, replacing or cleaning the spark plugs, replacing the distributor cap and rotor, replacing the fuel filter, PCV valve, and possibly the O2 sensor and spark plug wires are all still things that need to be done.
That’s a pretty strong statement, considering that I dug up actual numbers from actual research in my post above, and you’re ignoring them. Let me do one better this time: Go here. You can download an Excel file containing actual tire pressure data from 11,530 vehicles.
Well, no, actually. Without hard data, Obama’s statements are unverified claims. It’s nonsense only if you have a strong body of evidence or experience that makes the claim extraordinary.
The factual information on vehicles I’ve already covered. The information on consumer attitudes is an interesting discussion, but beyond the scope of Obama’s claim.
Indeed.
Supurb! I wasn’t ignoring it – honest. Just missed it while fending off RazTaz’s obtusiveness. I’ll run through the data when I get a chance, but a quick review indicates some missing, relevant data. Specifically, what’s the source of the data pool? Were these 11,530 vehicles in nice suburbs where everyone maintains their vehicles, or 11,530 vehicles in a socio-economically depressed area where the drivers are lucky to be able to put in gasoline? Yes, it is relevant.
Unverified claims of this nature are nonsense. Don’t honestly tell me you can’t see the difference. It’s not like he made a conjecture (“maybe this will yield that”); it was indicated as fact, without any facts to back it (although I promise to look at the spreadsheet, the missing social/economic data will leave things vastly incomplete).
Uh, no it’s not. In fact, his entire absurd claim is dependent upon consumer attitudes. Look, I’m grateful that you found the data and sorry I missed it earlier, but without an economic analysis of owner behavior (and in particular studying cost benefit ratios [I’ve done this latter, and no one’s factually disputed it]), Obama’s point is useless. It’s all about feeling good. Feeling good won’t solve the problem though. Actually seeing if people can/will/want to inflate their tires and tune up their cars is essential. I’ve not disputed the factual numbers and savings for fuel economy. I won’t dispute the numbers in the spreadsheet.
So instead of addressing my valid points, you feel offended that I pointed out that you yourself (not I) were calling you a dummy? Despite your protests, what you said is: “His claim went a big step further and told what an amazing amount that keeping tires properly inflated can have. I doubt this was as obvious to most (certainly not me) as you claim.” I read this as this: “(certainly not me)” (meaning you, TazMan) having no idea what an amazing amount that keeping ties properly inflated can have. So do you friggin’ know that inflating your tires is a good thing or not. On one hand, you say “certainly” that you didn’t, and now you assert that I know you didn’t say that, even though it’s further up in the thread? Can you be more schizophrenic? Your inconsistency is further evidence of your emotional (rather than logical) involvement.
Oh, don’t know about the other threads. You’re still a newbie. I generally don’t aim to insult people, but emotionally frail people often feel that way. Then again, your other comments could have just been stupid. In any case if a token apology makes you feel better, then, well, sorry.
Do you want a fantasy version of an energy reduction plan that doesn’t need any study of consumer sentiment, or other relevant facts? A statement that’s just as meaningless (but easy to spout off publically) on the surface? Facts don’t matter, either. Okay, I’ll give you this: “We could reduce our consumption of oil for automobile fuel use to 0% of today’s levels, if only every consumer would convert their cars to run on natural gas or propane.” You see the logical problem with uttering such stupid non-sense? Yeah, it’s factually correct, and it looks good on the surface, but there are other, serious considerations, and you’re continuing to be just too ignorant to consider them as part of the equation.
Ok. Knock it off with the insults.
That’s the factual question this thread is about. Let’s try to get it back on topic. If someone wants to start a Great Debates thread about this subject, the debate can continue there.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
No, you are flat wrong. The car tunes itself. If the air cleaner gets dirty then less air gets in. The computer will still measure out the amount of fuel per volume of air. What a dirty air filter will cause is lower performance because less fuel can be burned. It does not change fuel economy like it would in a carbureted non-computer controlled car where a different throttle position would draw more fuel due to the design of the venturi. And modern cars don’t have distributor caps or rotors.
As I pointed out earlier, plugs no longer foul out with lead. You don’t clean them anymore at 10,000 miles. They are now serviced at much higher mileages and even then they don’t need to be replaced. The best reason for replacing plugs under 100,000 miles is to prevent them from welding to aluminum heads. You will not notice a change in mileage (with the exception of performance/turbocharged motors). Everything else you listed are use-to-failure parts. They either work or they don’t and replacement intervals are designed to circumvent failure. They now fall into the same category as a water pump or timing belt.
There is nothing on a modern engine that can be tuned. It is either functioning properly or it isn’t. Suggesting that “tuning” cars will increase fuel economy is a sound bite. It was true in the days of carburetors and distributors but those days are gone. It is why we stopped e-checks in my state. They were a complete waste of money and increased the amount of fuel burned on an unnecessary trip to a check facility.
However, Magiver, don’t modern cars get lesser gas mileage when they are running more poorly? I’m pretty sure there is a cite somewhere for that… I think if someone isn’t in the financial position to fix something, they might let it go for a long while, which may impact their mileage. I think the point is however, the other part of my post above, they were talking about economic feasibility of both candidates plans and how neither of them are all that great. Obama’s words were just a comment, he wasn’t suggesting it as a policy replacer, some people got that impression.
Randomly chosen, apparently. There’s a methodology section in the site I linked to above that you can also peruse at your leisure.
You’re simply wrong. Indicating a fact without providing proof isn’t inherently nonsense. For example: “The volume of water in Lake Superior is greater than the volume of water in Lake Michigan.” I’m offering this as a fact, without any facts to back it. Now if the offered fact is extraordinary (“I can fly by flapping my arms”), then it may very well be nonsense.
This is General Questions. The statement Obama made was “if everybody was just inflating their tires,” “we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling.” The truth or falsehood of that statement does not depend on consumer attitudes. If you wish to debate what the likelihood is of getting everyone to inflate their tires, or even whether Obama was proposing that as an actual policy statement rather than a statement of fact, there’s another forum for that.