Yet Another Gas Price Post

Who isn’t talking about gas prices these days? Even my friends who don’t drive are affected by the resulting raises in things such as food and airfare prices. I’m very fortunate to have a short commute and drive a subcompact (have I mentioned I love my Nissan Versa lately?) That said, I do have a few gas related thoughts.
Firstly, please review the following Snopes.com link and stop forwarding that e-mail. The Snopes article mentions combining trip, which is something my mother has mentioned occurring in the 1970′s. I think that I see more people talking about buying cars with better MPG’s than combining trips, which I think is sad.
One of the core gas rules I’ve followed since I started driving, passed on from my dad, is to never let my car tank get below half a tank to avoid the crud at the bottom of the tank being sucked up into my engine. Makes enough sense, and while I haven’t always left my tank half-full, I do try to attempt to avoid having an empty tank. However, someone posed this question to Click and Clack on NPR’s CarTalk a couple of weeks ago. Click and Clack responded that most modern cars have something like a sock over the fuel pipe that keeps crud from getting in the engine. Good to know. However, there are other reasons not to let your engine get empty, such as the time my car was on empty and the gas tank door was frozen shut. However, it seems that driving at 1/8th of a tank would not be a total disaster.
I hold a Discover Card. Just a reminder for my fellow card holders-register now for the 5% rewards on Gas beginning July 1-make these ridiculously high gas prices work for you!