Should I or shouldn't I?

[Quadraman]

I saw an ad recently from someone about 50 miles away with two beige G3's without hard drives for free. One is a desktop and the other is a MT. I don't know if I really want to travel that far for them but if nobody gets them they will likely be trashed so should I waste a lot of time and gas (at $4 a gallon!) to try to rescue these or hope that someone else will?

 

[IPNixon]

Hmm. Last time this happened to me, I had a Genius Bar appointment at the local Apple store (which is about that far away from me), so I was killing two birds with one stone.

If I had the extra cash to go get 'em, I would. My G3 333 tower is really nice.

 

[MacMan]

$4 a gallon, that's bloody cheap compared to what we pay here!

Might be worth saving them if you're keen to have a play with the beige G3s, otherwise they're pretty common machines so you may find one closer to home. It's a sad fact that many G3 era machines are currently being trashed, if I had a warehouse or something then I would try to save more than I already have!

 

[Bunsen]

Darn nice machine. How many MPG does your vehicle get? : [8D]

 

[funkytoad]

It's getting closer to $5 now.

 

[Patrickool93]

I personally wouldn't. Gas bounces around 3.89 to 3.99 here. In downtown Cleveland it's about 20¢ higher.

 

[Cory5412]

It really depends on whether or not you personally want a beige g3, or two of 'em. Beige G3s are common enough that, as far as I know, nobody will be really unhappy if they get tossed or recycled.

 

[Mike Richardson]

You could make it into a little trip to make it more worthwhile. For example are there any thrift stores, etc. on the way that you could visit and maybe pick up some more Macs?

 

[MacMan]

I personally wouldn't. Gas bounces around 3.89 to 3.99 here. In downtown Cleveland it's about 20¢ higher.

Without intending to drift off-topic too much, I'll just make one comment. I've just done some sums and taking a typical high-ish UK current price for unleaded petrol (from our local Esso petrol station) of £1.20 per litre, per US gallon it would cost £4.54, which is $8.84 at the current exchange rate. A huge chunk of that is tax too, it's a big money spinner for our government. So Americans are getting a bargain in comparison to us Brits!

Incidentally, diesel in the UK costs more than petrol, it's about £1.30 per litre at the moment and rising.

Of course, the average car in the USA will likely do less MPG than the average UK car...

 

[porter]

beige G3

Mine happily runs 10.2.8. I like it, but don't consider it as stable as 10.4.whatever on my B+W G3.

 

[Phreakinus]

I've just done some sums and taking a typical high-ish UK current price for unleaded petrol (from our local Esso petrol station) of £1.20 per litre, per US gallon it would cost £4.54, which is $8.84 at the current exchange rate. A huge chunk of that is tax too, it's a big money spinner for our government. So Americans are getting a bargain in comparison to us Brits!

Okay, well you need to think about public transportation here, too... Many places here in the USA don't really have any form of that.

Of course, the average car in the USA will likely do less MPG than the average UK car...

If you're talking about diesel, then yeah...

 

[Mike Richardson]

Diesel is about $4.75/gal here. Gas can be as low as $3.75/gal with various club card discounts, etc. Houston has some of the cheapest fuel in the US.

E85 Ethanol can be had for $3.50/gal on average, but only at a limited number of stations. The upside is that it burns cleaner and reduces dependence on foreign oil, while the downside is that it has less MPG than gas. Less enough where I think it's still overall cheaper to buy gas.

All of the gas here already has 10% Ethanol. Maybe if we increased that to 15%, maybe it would dent our gas usage just enough that the prices would fall. Our gas usage would fall 4.5% and even if we lose 1% of that to decreased MPG, it's over all a 3.5% drop in gas usage.

But I think a lot of people here are reducing gas usage anyway, at least in a small part just to save money. I heard METRO Bus rider-ship in Houston is up since the gas prices went up. What people do, is drive their car just a few miles to one of the parking lots they have set up all in the suburbs, and then take a bus to downtown to work. In the evening another bus takes them directly back to the same parking lot. The busses get to use the carpool lanes which also makes them faster. It costs $1 to ride each way but you were paying at least $4 each way for gas before so it's a cost savings, less pollution, a good deal overall.

 

[Quadraman]

MacMan,

When I had a gf in the UK I used to suggest to her getting her car converted to LPG because the cost is closer to what we pay for fuel here in the US. I watched her pay $42 USD for 7 gallons of gasoline and think nothing of it and that just about floored me. I also noticed during my time there that large cars and SUV's are practically non-existent. There are a few Ford Explorer/Jeep Cherokee sized models sold there, but nothing approaching the size of our more gargantuan models. The largest cars I saw were maybe Toyota Camry/Nissan Maxima sized and even those were rare. Most were entry level hatchbacks. Unless you are really rich and can afford to keep them filled up cars with low fuel economy aren't going to sell there. High road tax on inefficient vehicles is also a consideration when buying a car there.

Mike R.,

Unfortunately, unless your car is a duel fuel model, E85 doesn't do you any good. A gasoline only car can run on E15 blend without modifications, but you don't see that sold anywhere. The problem with ethanol is that corn is not an efficient source of it. Sugarcane is the best source and Brazil has plenty of excess capacity, but the government currently levies a high tax on Brazilian ethanol to keep it off the market here and instead shovels tons of our money into developing corn based ethanol which is nowhere near as clean or efficient to produce and have the people convinced that this is a better thing than eliminating the tariff on imported ethanol and meanwhile the price of food and energy continues to soar when the prices of both would fall if they allowed imports from Brazil.

 

[Unknown_K]

Look at the math. If your car gets an average 20MPG and you need to do 50 miles x 2 thats 5 gallos at $4 a gallon so $20 is spent getting there and back. It would cost more then $20 to ship a g3 MT, so if you want one cheap going to pick it up is the way to go.

Question is are there any other bits that you will get with those two systems that make the trip even more worth going? Many years ago I drove to cleveland just to get a 950 PS, it was like a 120 mile trip total (granted gas was $2 back then), but I also filled up my car with free Mac goodies I didn't even know were there. Sometimes its just fun to get out of the house and meet people you would never see otherwise.

As far as the sugar cane ethanol, Brazil has nowhere near the amount of fuel needs the US does, and has a big sugarcane crop anyway so they use the leftovers for ethanol. Hemp is great for biofuel, and cheap to make.

European cities tend to be old and laid out so that people do not need to travel as much as US cities that expanded during the time of cheap gas and automobiles. Except for the largest US cities, public transportation sucks since everyone has a car and likes to live out in the burbs.

 

[porter]

Except for the largest US cities, public transportation sucks since everyone has a car and likes to live out in the burbs.

Or perhaps everyone has to have a car because public transportation sucks.

 

[Bunsen]

Back on topic: unless you have another reason to go visit the town in question yourself, compare the cost of having them delivered to you by courier or post.

 

[Quadraman]

Well, I'm still not decided but I emailed the guy to see if they were still available. It's been a couple of days since the ad was posted so they may be gone already but he also has a 15" Apple monitor but the ad doesn't say what model. I'm trying to find other places to go while I'm up there to justify the trip but it's a semi remote area so there's not really a lot to see.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Mike R.,
Unfortunately, unless your car is a duel fuel model, E85 doesn't do you any good. A gasoline only car can run on E15 blend without modifications, but you don't see that sold anywhere. The problem with ethanol is that corn is not an efficient source of it. Sugarcane is the best source and Brazil has plenty of excess capacity, but the government currently levies a high tax on Brazilian ethanol to keep it off the market here and instead shovels tons of our money into developing corn based ethanol which is nowhere near as clean or efficient to produce and have the people convinced that this is a better thing than eliminating the tariff on imported ethanol and meanwhile the price of food and energy continues to soar when the prices of both would fall if they allowed imports from Brazil.

Well, a lot of the GM cars/trucks now have the flex fuel engines. Unfortunately my Cobalt does not, but I already get good gas mileage. I wish the situation were better with the Ethanol, but I still think that if you switched all the E10 being sold with E15, it would dent our oil imports a little bit possibly causing a reduction in price. A lot of cars only specify up to 10% Ethanol but I think 15% would probably work fine.

 

[redrouteone]

...
E85 Ethanol can be had for $3.50/gal on average, but only at a limited number of stations. The upside is that it burns cleaner and reduces dependence on foreign oil, while the downside is that it has less MPG than gas. Less enough where I think it's still overall cheaper to buy gas.

.....

My pickup can run on E85. My experience is about a 4-5 MPG drop when running on E85 which slightly raises my fuel costs at current prices. For a while E85 was cheap enough that I came out slightly ahead, but that was about 2 years ago.

If I happen to stop at a station that has E85 I'll get it, but I don't go out of my way for it.