Should you hang on to your SUV or wait for gas prices to drop?  The short answer:  Trade it, sell it, whatever you have to do to get out of it now.  Unless you are independently wealthy, and can afford to have a rapidly depreciating liability sitting in the garage, that is. 

I know it sounds rough, but think of it as tough love…somebody has to tell you.  If you don’t like the trade-in value of your SUV now, just wait six months…you’ll really hate it when gas hits $5 a gallon. 

Why the drop in your SUV’s value?  The laws of supply and demand are hard at work in America.  Simply put, anything that has four wheels and gets 30 miles per gallon or better is in demand.  If that’s your ride, relax…you’ll be just fine.  In fact sales of fuel-efficient cars are through the roof. 

If, however, you’ve been caught up in the SUV craze that’s taken Americans by storm over the last ten years, I feel your pain, but don’t make it worse by hanging onto that dinosaur…dump it now!   If you haven’t figured it out yet, let me spell it out for you:  GAS PRICES ARE NOT GOING DOWN, no matter who’s in the White House or any other house.  Unless Congress gets it’s head out of the sand and starts allowing oil drilling on US soil, we will continue to see oil and gas prices rise as demand goes up. 

Keep it in perspective

How much does it really cost to drive your SUV?  How much would you save at the pumps by trading?

Let’s compare a Grand Cherokee that gets 17 mpg and compare it to a Jeep Patriot that gets 24 mpg.  Driving 15,000 miles per year at $4 per gallon, you’ll spend $1,027 - or $86 per month - more on gasoline with the Grand Cherokee. 

At $4 a gallon, a vehicle that gets 20 mpg will cost $1,000 more per year, than a vehicle that gets 30 mpg.  Okay, so it’s not chump change, but it’s no reason to jump out of a window either.

source:  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/savemoney.shtml

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