Quote: My one-ton truck was my daily driver until the last gas spike. At $3/gal it was just under $100/tank (up from $60 or so @ $2/gal), and needed 1 tank/week. So $400/mo was just TOO expensive! I re-insured the Contour (which was seeing maybe 1000 miles/year). There's no way around driving the truck as it's my business vehicle, but now I can generally make 2 weeks between fill-ups. So the $150 or so in savings per month more than makes up for the cost of insuring and driving the Contour again.
Your truck cost you $400/month to run every day. Cutting that in half by using the Contour cuts that to $200/month. The only way you're saving $150/month by using the COntour is if it's only costing you $50/month to fuel and insure it. And I really doubt that's the case.
Doing some quick, rough math if you were using 30 gallons a week in the truck then you were probably driving about 450 miles a week. Which would take a Contour about 18 gallons to go -- or about $54/week.
If driving the truck costs $100/week, and the Contour costs $54/week and you drive 2 weeks a month in each of them, then your total cost is $308 per month. That's a savings of only $92/month over driving the truck every day. Figure in the added insurance costs to drive the Contour, and you're probably only really saving $40/month or so not $150.
I'm not saying that's exactly your case. You might drive more in the Contour than a 50/50 mix. I'm just using your case as an example of how even at $3/gallon, the cost savings of driving a considerably more fuel-efficient vehicle generally aren't that great. Particularly when considering what benefits you might give up when doing so (like not being able to visit a job-site easily because it's a day you drove your little car instead of your truck).
