Loaner car = Pain at the Pump

With MINI-E #250 in for service, I have the pleasure of driving a Dodge Ram 4X4 pick up provided by Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Morristown MINI uses Enterprise for their main source of loaners while their customers have their vehicles in for service. I've already gone on record as being against this policy so I'm not going to rant about it again, but I do wish they would use MINI's as their loaner cars, I certain their customers would have a more positive opinion on the service experience if they did.

Anyway, I knew the time would come when I would have to go to a dreaded gas station with the truck and fill up sooner or later. As you can see above, It cost me $60 bucks (it is Christmas Day so I had to give the guy $1 tip, right?) for a little over 22 gallons. I got it with a full tank and I drove 330 miles so I got a whopping 14.9mpg! These same 330 miles in the MINI-E would have cost me $9-$10 in electric.

It's kind of ironic that I have such a huge, gas guzzling vehicle as the loaner car while my electric car is being serviced. It was the only vehicle Enterprise had left and they couldn't switch it with anything else, so I guess this week OPEC wins.

I really have enjoyed not going to gas stations in my six months with the MINI-E so far. I certainly don't miss paying $40 bucks or so every 4 or 5 days , but what I really don't miss is giving my hard earned money to the giant oil cartels. I know every time I fill up some small amount of that money is getting sent overseas to some Islamic fundamentalist regime that wants to kill me. Yeah, electric generated from burning coal isn't the cleanest source of energy, but at least the people working the coal mines in Wyoming, North Dakota & Pennsylvania aren't funneling part of their profits to radical groups plotting terrorist attacks on the US.

Merry Christmas!