Transparency in the Top 10.

[bowtieguy]

YESSSS!

i'm in the top ten in the 4 door, non-honda, light colored, less than 75% hwy driving, gasoline automobile catagory.

[Jay2TheRescue]

... And I'm in the top ten of gold GMC full size extended cab 4x4 pickups! I think I'm also in the top 10 of rusty 1981 Buicks, and rusty blue 80's Chevy 2wd pickups...

-Jay

[GasSavers_BEEF]

itsjustagame,

my truck was my baby. i sunk a lot of money into my truck. it was pretty fast too (in my opinion). I put new performance tires on the back of it and only had about 100 miles on them when I sold it.

baby on the way so you have to let go of some of your toys.

if interested, I was beefyride3 on dodgetruckworld.com I think you can still bring me up. been a while since I was on there. I thought of it as a little rocket ship. I didn't dyno it after my last run of mods so I don't know where it was when I got rid of it. probably for the best. my goal was 300hp and 400ft-lbs. (not rear wheel but fly wheel) I lost about 20-25% in the drive train.

[Jay2TheRescue]

At this point it doesn't make sense to sell my truck either. Mine's coming up on 10 years old, and has just over 150,000 miles on it. It runs flawlessly, but that's because I had all the service done on schedule. This spring I had flushed all fluids (including transfer case & differential), and got the fuel system cleaned. Just last month I spent a tidy sum on new tires and an alignment. Even though its a nice truck loaded with lots of options I'll never be able to get a decent amount for it because of age and mileage. I might as well just keep it and drive it till the doors fall off Even then this truck is running so well that I think even if the doors fall off it will still be running well. I think it will be quite some time before it rusts too. I've got a deep scratch in the paint in one spot, and there is no trace of rust. I think Chevy used galvanized steel on these things. I've seen some of them that all the paint peeled off, and they still don't rust. Realistically speaking I figure I could easily put another 10 years and 150,000 miles on it.

[diamondlarry]

I am feeling very guilty about not participating in the forums for such a long time. I read through this entire thread and have a few concerns as well. #1) Scooters are not cars and they shouldn't be in the same category. In Indiana, anything with an engine of more than 49.5cc is considered a motorcycle. Maybe the same thing should be considered here? #2) Setting minimums can be difficult since everyone's situations are so different. My son is driving my old car(DOHCtor Green MPG) now and he is currently working on a tank he started on 07/29/08 and he is at ~735 miles with 1/4 left on the guess-gauge. I also once went 1143 miles on a tank in my Prius and it took over a month to do that. Plus, my son's Saturn only has a 12.2 gallon tank and my Prius has 11.9 gallons so each fill would be relatively low compared to a car with a larger tank.

I like the idea of the 90 day cycle best of all but even that can limit some members. I'll try to post more often if I can.

[Jay2TheRescue]

IMHO anything with 3 wheels or less is a motorcycle, and 4 wheels is a car or light truck, more than 4 is a truck.

-Jay

[bowtieguy]

it's good to hear from you Larry!

nice job in hypermiling AND passing it on to your son!

[itjstagame]

Larry, I think my rules would work fine for all your cars but your Son's. But if he's only gone 700 miles since 7/24 ish then he shouldn't be worrying about the Top 10 on gassavers anyway :-).

I've also seen other sites like ecomodder's take into account actual miles traveled with bicycles or walking vs. driving. That makes a lot of sense too, I don't want anyone driving 1000 miles on purpose for a top 10 spot :-).

I would like to see more categories. If not just for the fun of it. Like have the ones we have on for the main screen, but you should be able to list all of them by any requirements you want. I think I'd like to see 4 door vs. other, or station wagon or trucks.

It might annoy more people in the initial vehicle creation step, but I feel the more options/fields the better, then we can always use them later if we want.

Like, the issue now is because we have gasoline, diesel and motorcycle as categories.
Maybe:
Type (motorcycle, car, truck, other(for home builts, bicycles, gokarts, street legal quads, etc))
Sub Type (if you pick motorcycle you'll get asked for cruiser or sportbike or scooter, for cars it'll be coupe, hatchback, sedan, wagon, SUV, minivan, van, convertible (maybe we need to add a 'crossover' option, but those are just wagons IMHO), any others ? If you pick a truck we can ask for shortbed or long bed or panel truck/delivery truck maybe? and options for cab, extcab, crew cab.
Engine size (we can ask in cc or have it ask cc if you pick motorcycle and litre if you pick something else)
Fuel Type: Diesel or gasoline or CNG or electric (we can default it to gasoline so the majority of people aren't bothered by it), also we can have these by check boxes instead of drop down and you can pick multiple, which will make you in 'hybrid' category.

I think that's all of them. Then our current top 10 would just be gasoline cars, and motorcycles would be motorcycles, but we could easily show cruisers vs. sportbikes (doubtful we'd have much of either), we can see SUV, minivan, 2 door vs. 4+ door. We could see everyone with engines below 2L or in the 3-4L category.

Of course we already have year and weight so we could show ton MPG or all cars in a certain decade.

It might be interesting to see the majority year of cars and if they're mostly hatchback/2door, etc and how much above EPA each group can get.

Granted we shouldn't go crazy and try to cater to all possible options, etc and we can add as the need arises, but the more data we have in the database the more options we have for displaying that data (by different searches/types) and I think it'd be a lot of fun.