And you guy's over there in the USA think gas is expensive at the moment? Try owning an Xterra over here in the UK with gas at nearly $8.00 a gallon!!!

If gas only cost $3.00 a gallon here we'd be drinking it, not running our cars on it!!!

You guys have plenty of other expensive, socialist problems we will let you keep as well. 8.00/ gallon with our driving distances would never work. I drive an AVERAGE of 800 miles one way to my favorite wheelign spots probably.

Dupes that we are, $3/gal now seems "cheap" haha compared to two weeks ago. But two months ago, we were paying what, $2.30? What does that tell you?

It's the taxes over there in the UK... The overall price of oil is NOT necessarily driven up by 'greedy big oil' as popularly believed... it's mostly driven up (or down) by commodities futures speculators.... people who wouldn't know what to do with a barrel of oil if it was sitting in front of them.

Add to that our lack of refineries partly because of the NIMBYs & BANANAs (Not In My Back Yard, Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and we have a problem... Hell, even one of the Saudi princes, visiting W a couple months back said basically "sure, we'll up our production, but it won't do you any good since you don't have the refinery capacity..."

Blaming everything on Big Oil or Greedy Arabs or any one thing is waaaay oversimplifying a complex problem while wearing blinders with your fingers in your ears going 'lalalalalalalala'.

Unless you blame the government, then you're probably right.

I've paid London prices for gas, and while it was cheaper at the time (79p/L I think, this was 2001) it didn't seem so bad overall because I was driving a little Ford rental rollerskate... but it got us where we wanted to go. The weird thing was learning to shift lefthanded.

And paulgw: drink your local ale - it's cheaper & way better for you!

Actually, most people here are NOT complaining about gas milage. Most of the responses in this thread, when asked if they are giving up their X's, range from "not me" to "...from my cold dead hands!!!"

Whenever someone complains here that the X gets "bad" milage, 15 people rag on said person for complaining.

Sure, everyone (not just XOC'ers) is paying for and talking about the situation, but again MOST of the things I hear are statements of prices and political rants, not whining that the milage of their current vehicle sucks. Some people are trading in vehicles as a result, but I think that actually represents a small minority.

Just the results of my ponderings, anyway!

One of the reason's gas is so expensive over here in the UK is that is had to be modified for use in right-hand drive vehicles.

Paulg (or anyone else from the other side of the pond):

Has the UK (and rest of the word) seen the same percentage gas price increases as the USA?
I know you've always paid more, but the media here in the US only seems to report the trends in this country.

I'm assuming this is a global issue, and the media here doesn't bother to report it that way since most of us americans are too self-centered to care anyway.

Not only am I not getting rid of the X, my wife and I are thinking of getting an 02 4x4 next month. Since I traded in my RSX-S ASPEC, I found that not getting speeding tickets leaves you with a little extra gas money!

Do it NROCKX!!! Being a double X family is the only way to go - we just "joined the club" a few days ago. No more "whose turn is it to drive the X?" debates!!!

Oops - back the the topic...

I MUST SAY I LOVE MY X NO MATTER WHAT THE GAS IS. NOW THAT THE GAS BY MY HOUSE IS 2.89 A GALLON I COULD CARE LESS. EVEN WHEN I GOT MY TRUCK ABOUT 2 WEEKS AGO I KNEW IT WOULD BE BAD BUT HEY I DONT CARE. GAS IS GAS AND EVERYONE NEEDS IT....I WOULD NEVER GET RID OF MY X. I LOVE IT!!!!

Click me!
& Me Too

(this is referring to your caps lock)

Um, this may be a stupid question Paulgw, but why would a right hand side vehice require modifications to the gas???

Because the right hand sided muffler bearings require different kind of gas lube.

Petrol (gas) is at an all time record high price both here and in the rest of Europe!

Petrol is sold in litres over here and the price was up to 1.07p a litre at some motorway service stations. We thought that petrol would never go above .99 a litre as the pumps only go up to.99p! We we're wrong, some service stations are selling petrol at 500ml.

But now things have died down a bit, a litre has dropped to about 89.9p a litre. Still really expensive, but at least we don't have to drive too far here to get anywhere!

ChuckH is right. Not only do the right-handed muffler bearings require a different type of gas lube, but as we drive on the left, all our roads are cambered off to the left to allow water to drain away when it rains. So we need RHD gas which is weighted with lead to the right to counteract the left-hand camber of our roads. But this did cause a few problems when driving in the other countries of Europe as they drive on the righthand side of the road, same as the US.

Although things have improved a little bit since they took the weight out of the petrol. This new type of petrol is called "unleaded"...

Not if you have one equipped with a backoff bearing selector valve switch.

Dunno about you paulgw, but when I lived in the UK we walked alot more than they do here in Lazy Bastard USA!

Hell, they even have drive through Off Licenses (Liquor Stores) and Banks. Understandable here in AZ where you really don't want to get out of your AC'd car in the summer months. But for the rest of ya'll who live in a more reasonable climate, you should be ashamed of your lazy bastardness

Nice to see a fellow Brit in here. Or are you a Yank in Brit disguise?

I also am assuming that the price of turn signal fluid must be on the rise. There has been a rash of drivers turn signals not working. And I can only assume that the cost of the fluid is going up since everyone always uses their turn signals.

Hey Jeffo - I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here in MASS, turn signal fluid has always been expensive. That's why no Mass driver ever has, or ever will, use a turn signal.

I am buying a 2006 Hyundai Sonata LX today. I might still trade the X in on it and buy a FJ40 as well.

Mine is already good-bye. traded it in for an '05 Mazda 3 Hatch back. Good bye to having to pay premium gas prices and only 15.5 MPH city/ 18 MPG Hwy. Not to mention $70 less per month in car payments!!!

Have fun with the 3! I had an '04 3 Hatch. It's a blast to drive and is good(but not great) on gas! It's actually the reason I got my X. Word of advice...don't drive in 4" of unplowed snow on top of ice in the 3 with the stock low-pro tires...not fun. Shoulda taken my jeep on that trip, but there was only supposed to be less than 1" of snow that day(ended with about 8").

Smart Move!

The thought has, reluctantly, crossed my mind in the past month or so. Dare I say, I've been checking out the '06 Honda Civic coupe. I still owe about 1/2 the loan amount on the X, so it all depends on what kind of deal I can get without getting screwed on the monthly payments.