Cheap Truck vs Expensive Car for Long Road Trip: What’s Cheaper?
Alright, here’s the scene…we are planning our holiday trip up to Maine from NYC and looking to rent a car. Since very few people do heavy work or move apartments through the holidays, trucks are really cheap…about $50 cheaper! That said though, what about the cost of gas? Everyone knows how much I love data, so I did some maths and put together the following analysis.
Dodge Ram 1500 Highway MPG: 20
Corolla Highway MPG: 35
Total Trip NYC->Maine: 446 miles each way, 892 total miles.
Average Cost of gas the last three months (thanks siri->wolfram alpha): $3.63
Truck: 892 miles / 20mpg = 44 gallons * $3.63 = $161.90
Corolla: 892 miles / 35mpg = 25.5 gallons * $3.63 = $92.51
So, cost difference for gas is $69.39, which is much larger than the $46 difference for cost, let alone saving 18.5 gallons of gas! Corolla here we come…
