AskDong

I’ve never driven a car that’s needed anything but the cheapest gas available.  My family drove a car that ran on regular when it meant leaded well into the 80s.  I’m not sure how to fill up a tank with anything but the cheapy under 90 octane stuff.  I have friends who drive nicer cars than mine, not hard to do given I’m still rolling my windows down by hand, who fill up their cars with the good stuff.  Some places call it super, or supra, and others call it plus or premium.  Whatever it’s name, it’s got more octane, and apparently some cars need more octane.

How many of us actually even know what octane is, or what the difference between 87 octane and 93 octane? The octane referred to at gas stations is technically 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane), one of the isomers of CH3(CH2)6CH3.  For those who haven’t take organic chemistry, an isomer is a particular configuration for a particular molecule.

Isooctane looks like this (that is if you could actually see it):

Another isomer, 2-methylheptane - (CH3)2CH(CH2)4CH3, meaning is has the same atoms – the same number of hydrogens and carbons but configured differently looks like this:

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I’ve decided to start a new series on my blog.  It’s basically link-fest, but instead of covering posts from the recent past that have interested me,  I’ve decided to put a twist on it.   I’m only linking to articles that are in the same category.   This week, it’s Cars and Driving, hence my Auto category.   These articles aren’t necessarily recent, but I’ve made an attempt to make sure they are at least from the past Year.

• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity tells us the benefit of driving a car into the ground.
• GenX Finance Explains the 6 Types of Standard Auto Coverage
• How Nickel Dodged a Speeding Ticket
• Mapgirl’s thoughts on Car Dealerships
• Shop Local, Mark at Financing Your Family tells gives his business to the Local Tire Center, and gets extra benefits
• Trent tells us the 25 things we should always have in our car
• The Digerati Life gives us the 10 Reason to Buy a New Car
• Though I think most personal finance bloggers would advice buying used. PFADvice tells us How. How to Buy Used Car
• And, at some point the old clunker needs to replaced, One Frugal Girl let’s us know when it’s time to throw in the the towel

I hope you guys enjoy the inaugural edition of One Topic.   I have yet to decide if this will be regular feature or not.   Guess it depends on if people think find it useful or not.

Happyrock has great post on what our cars say or don’t say about us. Personal finance bloggers are sometimes obsessed about cars or rather obsessed about not being obsessed with cars. I’ve decided to share a picture of what my car looks like. However I’ve decided to have a little fun with it. I’ve done a little research and have included the cars of some of the other personal finance bloggers. Most of these pictures are generic pictures I obtained from the web that may not be reflective what the actual cars look like. I tried to match actual color when I could.

Featured are Flexo from Consumerism commentary, Mapgirl, 2millionBlog, Blueprint For Financial Succes, FiveCentNickel, and HappyRock. I would’ve like have included more personal finance bloggers, but these are folks I could quickly determine what they drove. Continue on to see who drives what.

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