Is all the "fuel saving" tech really worth it in the long run?

Not mentioned are manufacturing improvements. Do you want a robot or disgruntled union worker building your vehicle?

How about machining, materials, oil and fuel advancements? No more 3k oil changes required!!! Spark plugs last 100,000 miles.

Safety and convenience advancements. I was thrilled with my 1st fuel injected car. I don't have to pump the gas and start it 3 times in the winter to get it going? Wow! No choke?

I never had AC or cruise control in a car until the early 90s. I'm never going to be without it again.

Heck we even have a guy showing great examples of advancement but would never buy an even more advanced system in a 6 cylinder twin turbo. So there must be a limit of new tech for everyone.


You want simple? Why aren't you buying a Nissan Frontier? It hasn't changed in over a decade LOL.

Also of note. The Prius and Ford Escape hybrid are in the list I posted for vehicles that will likely take you to 300,000 miles. Both high tech and reliable.

cmiles97 said:

I love these technology fear discussions.

The Amish think we went down hill two hundred years ago. Nothing more reliable or simpler than an Amish lifestyle.

Posting for an Amish friend.

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Well my friend I can tell you being in the business of building apartment complexes and tracts the Amish go just as fast as our regular crews with their machines and lifts. They just bring more man power. We run both Amish and regular crews on larger projects. In many cases the Amish are faster than us with our machinery and equipment! And cheaper!!! I didn’t want to believe our modern machines/ crews were being outdone but they have been time and time again. Granted their lifestyle is what makes it cheaper....few expenses they ride in on a bus and work cheap.

JExpedition07 said:

Well my friend I can tell you being in the business of building apartment complexes and tracts the Amish go just as fast as our regular crews with their machines and lifts. They just bring more man power. We run both Amish and regular crews on larger projects. In many cases the Amish are faster than us with our machinery and equipment! And cheaper!!! I didn’t want to believe our modern machines/ crews were being outdone but they have been time and time again. Granted their lifestyle is what makes it cheaper....few expenses they ride in on a bus and work cheap.

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They also know how to make right angles and how to use a level.

Besides, when the zombie apocalypse occurs, their standard of living won't change.

cmiles97 said:

The Prius and Ford Escape hybrid are in the list I posted for vehicles that will likely take you to 300,000 miles. Both high tech and reliable.

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Haha! Nope! We had 4 Escape Hybrids at work (from both 1st & 2nd gens) and all 4 crapped out at less than 130k miles and 5 years. Dead batteries, off warranty. Dead electrical power steering, several times. CVT transmissions slipping and busting. All 4 ended up either traded in for pennies on the dollar or scrapped because repair bills on those "high tech parts" were outrageous, all while giving negligible fuel savings over the 4 cyl ICE version. Total an utter garbage, which is why they stopped making & selling them.

The only reliable part in them was actually the tiny gas engine, but the SUV will not run on it if the main hybrid battery is busted, on purpose (so you have to spend $8k on a new one to continue being "green")...

A used "hybrid" car also has low trade-in value and it is the scourge of any used car dealer lot. No one wants them because of high maintenance costs as they age.

Thanks for playing, though!

I’m not a fan of hybrids, I’d rather own a fully electric vehicle or obviously an internal combustion engine vehicle. Again I would have no problem buying an electric vehicle when the tech gets to a point where I feel it’s a good time to jump. Right now there are still hurdles and big issues. Mixing the two doesn’t work all that great and you have a lot of extra hardware to break. You are better off having a big ICE or a lot of batteries.

cmiles97 said:

I love these technology fear discussions.

The Amish think we went down hill two hundred years ago. Nothing more reliable or simpler than an Amish lifestyle.

Posting for an Amish friend.

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I’ll take an Amish built anything over everything else.

762mm said:

Haha! Nope! We had 4 Escape Hybrids at work (from both 1st & 2nd gens) and all 4 crapped out at less than 130k miles and 5 years. Dead batteries, off warranty. Dead electrical power steering, several times. CVT transmissions slipping and busting. All 4 ended up either traded in for pennies on the dollar or scrapped because repair bills on those "high tech parts" were outrageous, all while giving negligible fuel savings over the 4 cyl ICE version. Total an utter garbage, which is why they stopped making & selling them.

The only reliable part in them was actually the tiny gas engine, but the SUV will not run on it if the main hybrid battery is busted, on purpose (so you have to spend $8k on a new one to continue being "green")...

A used "hybrid" car also has low trade-in value and it is the scourge of any used car dealer lot. No one wants them because of high maintenance costs as they age.

Thanks for playing, though!

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I believe this happened but the article also listed others that didn't have your experience. From the article:

https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/cars-can-take-300000-miles.html/

In 2005, when Ford launched the Escape Hybrid, the automaker was not known for electric powertrains. Early success in New York City taxi fleets changed that. The first 18 Escape Hybrids all accumulated over 175,000 miles in a year and a half on New York streets. As of 2017, Escape Hybrids remained a significant part of the taxi fleet despite the model’s 2012 phase-out. Each one we’ve encountered had close to 400,000 miles on the odometer. If you see a used model, consider picking it up for the long haul.

762mm said:

We had 4 Escape Hybrids at work (from both 1st & 2nd gens) and all 4 crapped out at less than 130k miles and 5 years.

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We had the same experience with these on the job. They were junk and didn't hold up.

EV's don't work for us here. Our electric costs make cost/mile much higher than gasoline. And the longevity just isn't there. Prius with 300,000 miles? Bwahahahaha! Good luck with that! Our local police department tried three of them. They were junked with less than 60K miles.

Maybe one day, EV's will step up to the task. Right now, they are far more costly, less reliable, and when combined with the process of generating electricity, much less efficient. Those buying into the Kool Aid are tools.

I’ll welcome it when it’s ready, one cannot deny electric improving well enough. But internal combustion wins hands down right now and gets the job done effectively. We have two chainsaws, one is a gas burner Stihl and the other their electric model. The electric has nice torque, but the gas job will run all day and is still faster. Charge time? About 10 seconds to fuel up instead of 2 hours for battery recharges. A little tank of gas will cut large items all day. The battery ones barely make it 1/2 of the range if the gasser.

Trainmaster said:

Maybe one day, EV's will step up to the task.

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Prior to 2000 virtually no electric or hybrid vehicles had been sold. In the last 19 years over 10 million have been sold.

There are lots of tools out there and I’m guessing neither they nor their vehicles are going away