Your tuning and car performance guide

Have you noticed how gas prices keep going through a yo-yo effect, but the trend just keeps getting more expensive. If you remember 2008, gas prices were on average at $3 a gallon at the beginning of the year and jumped to over $4.5 a gallon through the summer. The increases in gas prices was taking a big toll on many of my friends and families wallets. But not mine, I purchased a CNG Car (compressed natural gas) that not only saves a load of money (only an average of $0.75 a gallon equivalent through 2008) but is far and beyond a cleaner solution for the environment.

We took advantage of the great gas prices we could get while most everyone else was conserving or paying loads of money on their gas. During the summer of 2008 my husband and I took trips to Las Vegas, Nevada, Arches National Park, Utah, Los Angeles, California, Boise, Idaho and many others. Gas prices weren’t an issue because we were paying 3-4 times less for natural gas than regular gas. Plus, almost everywhere we went there were natural gas stations where we could fill up our CNG car. A good example of this is in the summer time we took a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. From Provo, Utah to Las Vegas it is about 380 miles. With gas prices being around $3.75, this trip would have cost us $120.00. Instead of paying that price, we took our natural gas car with the natural gas price being $0.87 gallon equivalent, and the trip cost us $30.00. We could spend money in Vegas and have some fun instead of spending money on gas to get there.

Last fall I was doing my student teaching, and my husband was starting a business. This left our income very low for a time. At times like these are when you are looking out for a way to save some money. Our Super Saver was our CNG car.

While we would normally be paying over $200 a month for fuel, our CNG car was costing us about $40 a month. Having an extra $160 a month during that time was a real blessing to us. Even though our income has really improved since then, having those extra savings every time I fill up my car is great. Especially when I know that I am doing my part in polluting less.

After using a CNG car for the last couple of years, I can’t see why I would ever go back to gasoline cars. This is probably why I’ve seen so many more cng cars out on the road, you know, the cars with the light blue diamond that says CNG in the middle. The real question is, “why don’t more people use CNG Cars?” Especially in this economy when you can drastically reduce one more expense.

I’ve owned a CNG car for a couple years now, my husband has owned them for much longer. There are many ways to go about purchasing CNG cars. There are used and new cars, you can also get your current car converted (costs around $6K). Also, hitting the alternative fuel market soon is the CNG Roadster, it get 70 mpg and runs on CNG. Reserve it soon though.