[Zebedee]

At what point will the cost of fuel make driving anywhere unviable for you? Unleaded is currently £1.979/L at the nearest garage to me.
If i'm working 5 days the money from one of those days goes solely on paying for the fuel to actually get to the job.
I know a few people who are now spending upwards of £150 a week just driving to and from work (£5k+ just to drive to work).

Days out somewhere at the weekend are now a rarity for us as we just can't justify spending £20 or more just for a run out somewhere, and spending over £100 on fuel plus the cost of tickets make VW shows a thing i only see in magazines or on social media.
I got bought a tank of fuel as a birthday present last month so i could go to Stanford Hall.

When will you call quits on driving?

 

[Sol Ford]

Fuel prices. How high before you stop driving?

It won't.

Yes, it's dear, but it's still cheaper than beer and spirits. An hour in the pub buying just your own drinks probably costs £15(ish). That, currently, gets enough fuel to get me to the coast, North Wales, the Lakes, the Peak District, etc.

 

[Zebedee]

Fuel prices. How high before you stop driving?

It won't.

Yes, it's dear, but it's still cheaper than beer and spirits. An hour in the pub buying just your own drinks probably costs £15(ish). That, currently, gets enough fuel to get me to the coast, North Wales, the Lakes, the Peak District, etc.

£15 only gets me about 35 miles.

 

[monsoir-excelenty]

From what I see everyday all over the UK it hasn't discouraged use of the motor vehicle one little bit.

 

[notails]

I can't reduce the amount I drive for work as I'm mobile and need all the tools , ladders etc. My prices have had to increase to cover the fuel. As for pleasure driving , I enjoy it so will keep going.

 

[Sol Ford]

£15 only gets me about 35 miles.

You'll just have to balance it off against more hours in the pub 😁

 

[Bada Ben]

It is indeed painful, I haven't changed my car usage, (don't use it for work, and gave-up long distance shows a couple of years ago).
Shop-around for fuel, Supermarket prices are often slightly better, yesterday I found unleaded at 1.76/l, so filled the tank on my 1.5 Golf.
That'll do me for around 500 miles, maybe prices will go down again before I need more, (fat chance )

 

[dc66]

I found my local shell was 1.69 a litre, so I got all excited and filled up.......with V power by mistake at 1.99 a litre lol

 

[Clem]

I try and drive as little as possible anyway nowadays. But, yeah, it’s made me think twice about journeys a bit. I filled a five litre can the other day which was just shy of a tenner … made me think.

I’ve a mate whose job circumstances changed since he bought his last (uneconomical) car meaning he’s now spending about £100 a week to go to work. Ridiculous.

 

[AntB]

Well I filled my vans tank with diesel back in december, before all this started...phew.
But now I only have 3 galls left, so I will have to pay £10 a gall and put a few in to top it up a touch.
Fortunately I don't drive much anyway these days, so it does not affect me to much.
still sucks though. ;(

 

[Jim]

Have noticed the family 7seater going through an insane amount of fuel, put £30 in today and needle hardly moved 😳

 

[Shamrockez]

At the moment I’m in a temporary role working mostly from home. It was supposed to be a 6 month trial then a decision on if it should be made permanent or not. The 6 months was up in April and we keep being told it will become permanent and the roles would go live to apply to be full time in June…. Then Boris announced that 90k civil service jobs would be cut, so they can’t make it permanent yet, so have extended the trial for another 6 months.

I was doing 25-30k a year before, so working from home at the moment is a bit of a relief in terms of fuel costs. We get paid 45p a mile (up to 10k miles) which on some of my cars barely covers the fuel cost, let alone wear and tear.

 

[FordCorsair]

Back in 1992 I used to spend £50 a week on fuel to get to and from my place of work (driving over 100 miles a day). I was paid £150 for 5 days a week. I used to fit my car club (Ford Capri) social life around any overtime work at weekends, like going to club meets or the occasional show and then going back in to the office.

Now, I'm 3 days in office, 2 days at work from home and get high 50's in to low 60's MPG on my Passat (or 700+ miles on a tank full)

Doesn't answer your question though: I think there would be anarchy on the streets before I had to decide whether to use the car or not. Just go out less and other things go on hold (like the 1302S Beetle resto...)

 

[Clem]

I’ve just got my ‘work’ driving licence so I can use official cars for working off site. Our expenses (25 ppm) no longer cover the cost of the fuel let alone any wear and tear.

 

[cbst3]

I think it may well cut down my driving, but I don't see it stopping it, and where I live, we can't walk to the shops! I am lucky that we will most likely be able to weather the cost of living storm, although it is hurting us - electricity has shot up, and my last lot of heating oil cost £567 compared to £350 just 3 months previously (and under £300 for the one before that). It's also good timing that my car (Leon Cupra) lease is up this month and I had already agreed to replace it with a Golf ehybrid, so hopefully my petrol consumption will decrease substantially.

We did go on a journey of 150 miles at the weekend and a bit of care saw over 40mpg, so there's scope for driving habits to ease the situation too. I did get the sense also that the M4 was quieter than usual and the average speed of traffic a touch lower, so perhaps it is having an impact on everyone's habits.

Fuel was cheaper in Buckinghamshire than here in South Wales as far as I could see...

 

[cbst3]

Back in 1992 I used to spend £50 a week on fuel to get to and from my place of work (driving over 100 miles a day). I was paid £150 for 5 days a week. I used to fit my car club (Ford Capri) social life around any overtime work at weekends, like going to club meets or the occasional show and then going back in to the office.

Mid 80's and I earned £10 a week from a Saturday job, £5 of which went on petrol in my Beetle and translated to well over half a tank! That got me to school and back every day, plus a bit of other driving around, and to work at the weekend, although it was pretty close some weeks.

 

[gojira]

It'll have to go pretty high. All the alternatives for me to get to work or my daughter to school are more expensive. I don't really do non-essential journeys as it is, as my 7yo has adhd which makes her a bit of a ticking bomb if we go anywhere or do anything that we can't easily abandon and go home. To save money on travel I'd need to move house so the travelling becomes unnecessary, which would cost me £0,000s.

Bit of a tangent, but I've been worrying for a few years now about the amount of money I have invested in VWs and what will happen when petrol gets too expensive. If anything it seems car prices have gone up more than fuel which makes no sense.

 

[slim_adi]

It won’t to be honest - well not yet at least. I’m not working at present, my partner invigilates at a local school on a zero hours contract so, although she uses the van (T5) she could use public transport if she wanted.
apart from that we do the weekly shop which is an 8 mile round trip.
our diesel usage is spent on camping weekends and trips out with the grandson now. I’m not stopping what makes us truly happy just yet !

 

[Dave Dorson]

It won't.

What will happen a fair bit I suspect, is come pay review, a LOT of staff will be putting pressure on their employers, or making excuses for not being able to come in, just because of the cost.

That'll either lead to those businesses lobbying government to sort it out, or a shift in the way people work, similar to how we did during that pandemic that everyone is not taking seriously anymore.

 

[300CE]

I count myself lucky in that I use a scoot for my 45 mile daily round trip to work. Cost is up about £4 a week with the increase and currently costs about £17ish to fill up and lasts for 5 days. Hitting about 103mpg at the mo:

I commute on the south circular and even with the increase beats the £50 a week it’d cost on the train in both time and money.

I use the Beetle at weekends and nearly had a heart attack when I stuck in super unleaded at 1.97. Certainly won’t be going to far.