Reply #7: None of the things you mention weighs all that much.. [View All]

[Fumesucker]

Cars today basically weigh more because they are bigger. Right offhand I can't think of a single car model that has ever gotten smaller as it was redesigned over the years.

I carried an air compressor with a 60 gallon tank in my Metro, just flipped the back seats down, dumped it in there and closed the hatchback. There are a lot of cars considerably larger where that would have been impossible to do.

Oh, and I had a CD changer, a 400 watt amp, a 200 watt amp and a 12" sub in my Metro.

Edited to add: And in my experience weight makes a difference in stop and go driving but doesn't effect highway cruise mpg much at all. My Expedition tow vehicle with a 5.4 gets about 21 mpg on the highway when not towing and about 16 mpg with a dual axle trailer with another SUV on it behind, I'm sure that the majority of the efficiency drop is due to the increased aerodynamic drag, the bare trailer weighs nearly two thousand pounds and only drops the mpg to about 19.5 or so.