Bedlam wrote:
jdc1 wrote:
I just figure I need to pee or stretch my legs every few hundred miles. Why not do that while filling up?
Some areas or states have much higher fuel costs. If you can drive through those areas rather than fuel up there, your flexibility stills allows you to make stops for other reasons.
So let's say you save $0.30/gal on the extra 30gal of fuel you can now carry (yes, you can find stray situations where it's higher but more often than not it will be less). That's $9 per fill up.
Let's assume you get 10mpg towing, so 60gal is 600 miles (if you run down to fumes)
At $9 per 600miles, I looked online and the tank without installation is about $1400. Let's say you do the installation yourself and there are no additional parts or modifications needed. That's going to take about 100,000 miles to break even.
Of course, unless you happen to frequent destinations that have big price differences, most of the time, you will probably be more like $0.05-0.10/gal difference and you are going to be looking at 300-500k miles to get enough cost savings to pay for it.
Also for most people they are likely going to pay for professional installation...so what another $500 in up front cost.
Then if you look at high vs low prices...they tend to group together. (West coast expensive, south central cheap, upper midwest mid-price)...so it's not as simple as buy in a cheap state, pass thru an expensive state and then fuel up in the next cheap state.
Now if you get an inexpensive in bed tank ($300-500), fuel savings paying for it may work out but now it comes at the expense of the bed space used up.
