Welcome to The Christian Car Guy Radio Show. The talk show dedicated to helping Christians buy and sell cars by the book.
Not the blue book, not the orange book, but by God's book, the Bible. Call The Christian Car Guy with your questions. 1-866-34-TRUTH.
That's 1-866-348-7884. What does being a Christian have to do with buying a car? You're about to find out.
Here's your host, Robbie Dilmore. Is gas worth it? That's the issue you may be considering now that gas has dropped so radically. Certainly premium or mid-grade fuel looks a bit more affordable these days, so would that be something that would be good for my car, you may be wondering. We have a lot to discuss on that issue this morning, and I'm just going to guess that I'm going to surprise a lot of you with my discussion on that. I'm going to think that a lot of folks have a misunderstanding when it comes to fuel, so we're going to be getting into that in just a few minutes.
And we would love to know your experience with premium fuel or mid-grade, or what are your thoughts on the subject, or maybe you have a question. We'd love to hear from you. It's our callers that make this show quite often. 866-348-7884 is the number to call in, join the discussion.
If you're digitally gifted, you can do 86634 TRUTH. And here to help us out this morning, we have one of our very own Jesus Labor Love participants, Joe Abendola from Abendola Automotive in Greensboro, North Carolina. Welcome, Joe.
Thank you, Robin. And as soon as I mentioned this topic to Joe, he was like, oh, you're going to get me going now. It's a conspiracy theory about fuel, premium gas, the gas station, all the gas owners have gotten together to create this myth that premium gas gives you more bang for your buck and all this stuff. So he's right up on this subject, but you may have a very strong opinion.
86634 87884. Let me just start off by saying if your owner's manual calls for you to use premium gas, far be it from the Christian Carr guy to disagree with what your owner manual says. So if your owner's manual says you need a particular level of octane, then you go by that. That's that's not even up for discussion here. I'm just talking about the people whose owner manual say they can use regular gas or they can use mid-grade or they can use premium.
What's the difference and what all goes into that? And then coming up at the end of the show in our appraisal by the Real Black Book, that's where we search the Bible for hidden treasure, cry out for discernment, lift up our voice for understanding today with your perhaps new understanding of premium and red, gray fuel. The question is, are you a four stroke Christian that has some significance? And you'll understand as we get a little further in the show.
Are you a four stroke question? That's one of the things I ask. Probably the first year I did this show many years ago, and it's still one of the most popular posts. At Christian Carr Guy dot com, so we're going to discuss that coming up the end of the show in our appraisal by the Real Black Book, the Christian Carr Guy show, we are bringing the kingdom of God through an automotive platform. So what a great way to maybe get folks involved with the kingdom that wouldn't normally want to listen to Christian radio.
And so we want to provide that platform. You know, somebody is into cars, race cars and that kind of thing, and you would like them to get a little bit more familiar with or you want them to include Christ in that passion. And by all means, have them tune into the Christian Carr Guy show where we also talk about things like grace, car driving and not speeding. We always say that if you're following Jesus, I assure you, he's going to speed limit. And I do tell you that Americans waste 200 million gallons of gas a week on speeding.
In other words, if everybody drove the speed limit, we wouldn't again, if you think acid cheap now, you wouldn't believe how inexpensive it would be if we wouldn't speed. And we talk about staying out of the bondage of car debt, staying out of the bondage of car debt. And in doing so, we need to take care of our cars. And we talk about that you see tractors, they've been running out in the elements since the 40s. Well, if you take care of your car, it'll last as long as you do. That's why we say it's a live show and we love our callers.
Today's topic is premium gas worth it. 866-348-7884. And you can find out more at christiancarguy.com. As always, we got Carrie is in, I'm not going to attempt the name of the city, but it's in Washington.
Carrie, you're on a Christian Car Guy show. And the first question is, how do you pronounce the name of that city? Snohomish. Snohomish? Snohomish, yeah. Well, I should have known. You should. It's the next Redmond of Washington. Oh, wow. That's just fun to say.
I'm going to be practicing that all week now that I've learned that. So you got a 2001 Lexus and tell me what's going on. The right hand passenger door, the electronic window or the electronic lock doesn't work anymore. I mean, you can use your key fob or you can use the the lock on the driver's side, but it doesn't it doesn't make it go up and down. So you got to just push it down with your hand. Does it make any kind of noises when you hit the button? No. Most likely that sounds like an actuator if it's only doing that one door.
That's the only door. Right. And the good news is, Joey, that we have found recently that a lot of people are getting used actuators. You can get them at whoever is your used parts dealer. You know, like 109, you pull it here in our area. But I guarantee you there's somebody in Washington that sells those used a whole lot less expensive than buying it from Lexus. Oh, yeah, right.
Anything is more cheaper than buying from Lexus. And it's not a hard one to put in, is it, Joey? On that one, you're probably looking about a couple hour job. You have to take that door skin off and get into the mechanism of it.
Not terribly difficult, but one of those that appears to be what's going to happen. And not uncommon, unfortunately, for power door locks. But here, we appreciate your question very much. I bet you with your Lexus, it calls for you to use premium gas, right? Yes, it does actually.
So you're not going to have an option in this discussion because, as I said, if it says it in your owner's manual, then by all means, that's what we got to do. And fortunately, the prices dropped lately, so what's it down to in Washington? I'm interested.
I think it's about $299, $297 somewhere around there. I love that, too. I would like it more at one, but we love the two. Well, thanks for calling, Kerry. I hope we helped.
Thanks a lot for your help. We appreciate it. Sure. God bless you. All right. Bye. So getting right into this issue, in order to understand fuel, we have to understand a little bit about engines.
And there's a really simple way now before I don't want to lose anybody here. So if you've never thought, well, wow, how does the engine in my car work, here's a really simple Christian car guy explanation. I think it's really cool when you picture it in your mind. And the first thing I ask people to picture is most of us have gotten a syringe, a hyperdermic needle at some point in our life, or we used one for some purpose. And when you're picturing that syringe, if you've ever watched The Nurse, what she does before she gives you the shot is she sticks the needle in the solution, and she pulls back on the cylinder, so to speak.
She'll pull back on that part of it to draw the fluid because it creates a vacuum. And so if you were to take that syringe apart and look inside that little cylinder, the little plunger thing that she pulls back on is made out of rubber, and it actually has a couple little rings on it. Well, interestingly, the cylinders of your engine inside your car has, depending if it's a four-cylinder or a six-cylinder, it has cylinders just like that cylinder, that syringe. And inside that cylinder is a piston which is very similar to that plunger.
And just like you would see little rubber rings around that plunger in a cylinder, the piston has something very similar. Because when that piston goes down on what they call the intake stroke, so we've got a four-stroke engine, so we're going to talk about what are these four strokes. When that piston comes down, it's just like that nurse drawing the solution that creates this vacuum, and it sucks air and fuel into the cylinder through the intake valve, through the intake manifold.
But nonetheless, just like that syringe, it's going to pull that fuel and air. As that piston comes down in that first stroke, it's going to pull that fuel and air in. Now, when it gets to the bottom of that stroke, the valve closes. And the next stroke is called the compression stroke. And so now that piston, because the piston on the other side is pushing it up, is going to push that piston up very, very hard and very, very fast, which creates all kinds of compression.
That's why it's called a compression stroke. It compresses that fuel and the air very, very tightly. Now, when it gets right near top dead center, and sometimes, depending on the car's timing, right at top dead center, then there's a spark plug up there. And that spark plug is going to ignite. The little electricity is going to come down there.
It's going to throw a spark. Well, when that spark hits that fuel, guess what it does? It pushes that piston down very, very hard and very, very fast, and that is called the power stroke. So now the piston goes down very, very fast, and that's the power stroke. Then the piston is going to come back up one more time. This time the exhaust valve is going to open, and it's going to push the exhaust back out there. And so now you see that's a four-stroke engine.
Intake stroke, compression stroke, power stroke, exhaust stroke. What does that have to do with gas? You're going to find out when we get everything to do with premium gas, which may really surprise you what premium gas is when we come back.
And stay tuned. We've got so much more coming at you on a Christian Car Guy show. And all of a sudden a rod started knocking, went down in a dip and started rocking. I look at my mirror and a red light was blinking. The cops was after my hot rod lately.
Well, they arrested me and put me in jail and called my pop to go my bail. He said, son, you're going to drive and drink, and you don't quit driving that hot rod lately. So the question that we'll always ask Joe is, was he using premium gas when that started to knock him? One of those things that we are all asking today, is premium gas worth it? And that's the discussion today on the Christian Car Guy show.
We want to try to go back to that for a few minutes. And we were describing, if you missed the first segment, exactly how a four-stroke engine works. If you listen to that, you understand that the use of premium gas has a great deal to do with how your engine operates. And the two strokes of the four-stroke engine that really are affected by premium gasoline or regular or mid-grade are the compression stroke and the power stroke. So as we described, when the piston is coming up in the cylinder for that compression stroke, it is pushing very hard on fuel and air, and it's coming up very fast.
And compression itself creates heat. As a matter of fact, in a diesel engine, because they have like 22 pounds per square inch in their cylinders, that compression alone creates enough heat to ignite the fuel. So diesel engines don't have spark plugs. They don't have an ignition system at all because they create enough heat with their compression in order to ignite the fuel. Well, that's the challenge for a low-octane fuel, is that if you are on your compression stroke and you're using too low of octane fuel, on the way up, the fuel ignites before the piston gets to the top. And when it does, it creates this bad knock. We used to call it a ping because what happens is the piston is pushing down on the crankshaft when the other side piston is trying to push it up. And so you get this horrible issue that puts a lot of pressure on your crankshaft. You lose your power stroke completely because you don't get the energy of that, so it burns too much gas. And so why does low-octane do that?
That's the question. Why would low-octane burn? Why would it explode before it got hot enough? And there's the issue with octane. Octane has everything to do with the flash point of the fuel. I always thought when I got into school that premium gas meant it had more oomph, it had more power.
It really has very little to do with it. It has everything to do with what's the flash point of the fuel. Because the low-octane, like regular gas, will explode quicker than high-octane fuel. And because of that, at a lower temperature.
And because of that lower temperature, it would cause a car to ping. So, like our friend with the Lexus, they run higher compression. And with higher compression, you need more octane. Because as it gets hotter, with that more compression, you have a bigger chance that that fuel will ignite prematurely. So, if it ignites prematurely, it's hard on your engine.
So, the manufacturers, when they started to figure all this stuff with computers, they figured out a way to detect a ping, a knock, pre-ignition. That's what they call it when the fuel explodes before the piston gets all the way up. So, they figured out a way to cool the cylinders off, which essentially they retard the timing, which I won't go into all that, in order to cool the cylinders off so that you won't have pre-ignition. So, now we have computer systems that make sure that if we even run on the lowest octane fuel, on regular, that the vehicle will not have pre-ignition. Because it's going to keep the cylinder temperature so that it won't ping. It won't have that pre-ignition. So, what then would be the advantage of premium gas? Because you can't have pre-ignition with most new systems, right, Joe?
Yes. With the new systems, whether you're running mid-grain, premium, you're not going to have pre-ignition as a problem. But what you will have is the computer will affect the timing when the cylinder will actually fire. And because the closer you get to top dead center, the fuller you get your power stroke, you see.
If you get a complete power stroke, you get a better burn and you get more gas mileage. So, the only way that you can really decide whether or not you need premium or mid-grade or regular is to do a careful study of what kind of fuel economy you're getting. And you may find, because your car doesn't have pre-ignition problems, that you don't get an extra mile per gallon by using premium. And thus, you would have no reason to use premium. It's not cleaner.
It doesn't have more additives. It isn't anything more than higher octane. And one time, when I was in school, they showed this beautiful illustration of higher octane fuel that I'll never forget. The instructor took a glass tube and he took some regular gasoline and he put an eyedropper in and he dropped it, one eyedropper, you know, one little drop of fuel in this glass tube. And then he lit the end of it and it went, bam, it just exploded because that low octane fuel explodes quickly and it almost seemed to have more power than the premium. And then he took an eyedropper with some premium fuel. And when he dropped that little drop in there, if you could have seen it, he lit the end of it and it created this blue flame that went as a curve across the cylinder and it was like woof. And you could see a gigantic difference between the way that that fuel burned in that cylinder based on the octane level.
And this is what's happening inside of your cylinder every single time the spark plug fires. So all this is to say, simply put, that the simplest way to figure out, do I need premium fuel? Do I need mid-grade fuel or do I need regular fuel in a newer car? I'm talking about something, when did they, about 93 or so we've had, you know, a knock detection or ping detection in the computer systems, would you say, Joe? Probably back to about 88, 89.
About 88 or 89. So if you've got a car older than that, yeah, if you're hearing the ping of pre-ignition, then you've got to run premium or you've got to run mid-grade. But if you're 88, 89, 90, then the only way you can really see whether or not that fuel is worth what you're paying for it is, okay, am I getting enough gas mileage improvement in order to overcome the cost of the fuel? Because essentially, right, Joe, it's not going to hurt their car anymore to run regular gas.
No, these cars are designed to run on regular gas. You are right, you do get marginally better gas mileage. But in most cases, it doesn't really outweigh the… Right.
And the other thing, the other aspect to all this, and again, if you have an opinion or whatever, we would love to hear your view on this. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH, you may have used premium all your life and you want to tell us, you know, it's been really good for your car. Certainly, again, if your owner's manual says you're supposed to run premium, do not, do not go against the owner's manual.
That's what the warranty is, all that stuff is connected to that. So by all means, we're going to have a little more discussion on premium fuel. We're going to talk about what does that have to do with the Christian life.
And we've got some stuff coming up on the Jesus Labor Love, so you want to stay tuned. We've got so much more Christian Car Guys show coming at you. And I am guessing that the Little Deuce Coop ran premium.
Because when he's got stroking board and all that stuff, it increases the compression. And when you do that, right, Joey, then that is going to require some premium fuel. And back in the days when they were building hot rods with, you know, 13 to 1 compression, stuff like that, you had no choice but to run premium fuel. But we are talking today, is premium worth it? We'd love to hear from you. 866-348-7884, 866-3 for Truth. We've got Sweeney in Richmond. Sweeney has been using premium sometimes. Welcome to Christian Car Guys show, sir.
Hey, guys. I have a 2013 Hyundai Accent, and I noticed about after a year, the pistons or the Lister, if you could hear it, were running a low premium gas. Really? So I did the upgrade to a medium or V-Com, which is like Shell's thing to clean the pistons once a month. And it does pretty good, because when you accelerate, you can actually hear the engine, you know, that's going wild. But I put a K&N filter in, and now I'm getting like 45 to 50 miles a gallon. Wow.
Wow. And you bring up a great point, Sweeney, in that when we discussed what's going on inside those cylinders, if there's any carbon that builds up in the cylinders, then that carbon in the compression will ignite the fuel without the spark plug, which causes the very issue you're talking about, that pinging. And so if you get carbon buildup in your cylinders, those fuel additives and fuel cleaners and things like that will really help, you know, reduce that pre-ignition system. Or, again, if you go to the mid-grade or the premium gas, then you know that that's not happening. But if you're hearing your engine ping, there's no doubt.
It's time to be thinking about doing something in the mid-grade or at least a mid-grade or a premium. Exactly. I heard that from the radiator, they said all the gas is the same, it just depends on what additives they put in it. Is that actually good for the piston? All these different additives and stuff you tell them to put in it?
Right. They're putting those additives in the fuel to clean the fuel systems, you know, so that you don't get – there's a sort of a resin that builds up. It especially builds up in the throttle body.
And if it builds up, you know, in the cylinder itself, then you get that carbon and you have all sorts of things like that. But there are lots of very inexpensive fuel additives that you can buy, you know, at the dollar store, for that matter. You know, gum out, STP, and a lot of those things are, you know, an inexpensive way to get rid of the carbon without having to get premium or mid-grade fuel all the time, right, Joe?
I tried gum out, and it blew one of my oxygen systems, so I had to replace it. Ah, well, that'll – Well, I'm glad you pointed that out. The premium gas, I was wondering, what is in it besides just the octane or just the additive they put in it to make it run better, make it run smoother? No, the premium fuel is simply just higher octane. And the additives are the same. And interestingly, you'll find that a lot of times that the gas coming out of the gas trucks, even though it may be Shell or BP or whatever, all coming out of the same distribution center, and so, you know, it's very, very similar.
And like Joe says, some people think that's a conspiracy theory. But it sounds like you're working hard on it. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
I appreciate you calling in. Well, that's a great point. You want to be careful using those fuel additives because you don't want to end up with a sensor.
You look like you were – just say, Robbie, what are you talking about? Fuel additives, you get what you pay for. You got to watch which ones you get. If the chemistry is not good on it and it's basically kerosene in a little bottle, you're throwing your money away. If it's good additives that truly get in there and break up the carbon, then it's a very good thing. And we don't have an additive sponsor, so just tell us, which one do you recommend, Joe? I use petrochemicals.
That's okay. Just because it's – You like the chemistry. I like the chemistry and it's the man that I trust that knows a lot more about the chemistry of it than I do. What he says, this is what I sell because it's the best.
Petro. Well, there you go. That's the word from a man who's out there working on these cars every single day. And there's no substitute for your experience and we would love to hear yours.
866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. And talking about experience, we have at ChristianCarGuy.com all this description, all that's going on with the four-stroke engine and even the Christian – are you a four-stroke Christian – aspect to that, which we're going to get into in a minute. But there's also there the Jesus-labor love, which is car repair labor, free car repair labor, not the parts, for single moms, widows, and families in crisis. And Joe, you had one of these that you just worked on last week that was a single mom?
Yes, I had a very nice single mom. Her son – well, her car broke down. The brakes were giving her trouble and then the alternator went out at – I believe it was in her church parking lot and she had it towed to us. She was in a situation where she'd been driving her son's car, but he came back from Marine combat training and he needed his vehicle to go wherever he was going next. And so we got her alternator and her brake son and got her fixed up. And she's on the road again.
Yes, sir. And I had one myself in Schenectady, New York, which – WDCD, I believe it is, out of Albany, carries our show, and I know some folks in Albany. I didn't know anybody in Schenectady. And it's amazing to me how when God – here comes this request. It was a widow, an elderly widow, and she needs her transportation. And I was like, wow, I don't know anybody in Schenectady.
We don't have any resources there. So I start praying. We have a wonderful group of labor-love prayer team. So whenever we get one of these requests come in, and of course we get several a week, we send it out to the prayer team first. Well, since I didn't have anybody in Schenectady, I got the request on Friday. I sent it out to the prayer team over the weekend and said, guys, we really got to pray for this one because I don't know anybody up there. And so once I figured I had good prayer cover, Joe, I started calling on Monday. And I looked down.
It's amazing how God gives you wisdom sometimes. I was looking down her references and all, and she had a guy by the name of Pastor Bob as one of her references. And her car wouldn't start.
I mean, it was, you know, and she looked like she needed a battery or she needed an alternator or something similar. And so I called. I said, well, let me just call Pastor Bob. Maybe Pastor Bob knows somebody in the car business there in Schenectady. So I call Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob's a really nice guy. I said, Pastor Bob, do you know anybody? Oh, yeah, yeah, I know Chris over there at Frank's Automotive. You just call him.
I bet he'll help. Well, just like that, you know, God opened that door. I called Chris. Chris was the nicest man in the world.
Told him I had a widow. Would he consider taking part in that? So Frank's Automotive there in Schenectady. Our hat's off to you here at the Christian Car Guys show because we know that you've helped out. And we've got car repair places like this all over the country that are taking part in this Jesus Labor Love. And as we always talk about, if you go to christiancarguy.com and you click on the Jesus Labor Love tab there at our website, you can see the people in your area that participate in that.
Not that you need to make out an application if you have a repair need. But the reason I mention that is that, wow, if you're in Greensboro and you need a Christian to work on your car, well, if Avondola is doing this to help out folks that don't, you know, they're giving them free repair, then they may be a good source for you to have somebody that worked on your car. So we are always blessed by these stories of the Jesus Labor Love. Again, it's free car repair labor.
The ladies or the widows or the situation with the families, they provide the parts. But we do try to get them free labor, and it's there at christiancarguy.com. Again, there's a service request form if you need service. There's also, if you want to be on the Jesus Labor Love prayer team or you want to help make phone calls, you want to take part in that, oh, he would just be blessed to put you on the team.
There is a form there as well to ask to be a volunteer, or you can email me. However you want to do that at christiancarguy.com. We got Alan is in Provo, Utah, and he's got an off-road diesel.
Alan, you're on the Christian Car Guy show. Good morning. Good morning. What have you got for us? First time listener. I just picked up your station a few minutes ago. Wonderful. Appreciate you having Christian values on your station.
Thank you very much. I've had some off-road diesel since 1999, and I don't need it anymore, and I don't know what to do. I don't know if it's even any good.
Can it be still used in equipment? Wow. Fourteen years old. Well, I'm going to guess that there might be several ministries that could take advantage of that, and you bring out a good point that I would say that there at christiancarguy.com, you can see there's email and expert, which has got my email or Joe's email or whatever, and if you email me that information, I know a number of ministries that very well could benefit from that, Alan. This area? Yeah. Yeah, because, see, we have that station, the Truth Network, we have that station KUTR. There is AM820. Is that what you're listening to?
We have a new FM2. But anyway, when we come back, we're going to be talking about are you a four-stroke Christian, and what is the octane level of how you're taking in your fuel? What does that have to do with being a Christian?
We're going to be talking about all that when we come back. Thank you, Alan. God bless you. Go to christiancarguy.com to find out more about all those details.
Okay, thank you. Well, just like that song, the compression stroke of the four-stroke Christian may, in fact, make you stronger, and you're about to find out that as we move on to our appraisal by The Real Black Book, where we search the Bible for hidden treasure, cry out for discernment, lift up our voice for understanding. Well, as I was thinking through this four strokes of the engine that we all have been talking about this show, I couldn't help but note, and I noted this many years ago, that there is such a thing as a four-stroke Christian. And so your intake stroke is extremely critical as to whether you get the proper octane fuel, because how many Christians have you seen, Joe, suffer from pre-ignition? And, you know, if you don't get the complete power stroke, because you ignite, because you're running on low octane fuel. And so that intake stroke for the Christian is what are you bringing in, right? Are you bringing in stuff that has a higher flash point? Are you bringing in the word of God, in other words?
Are you spending time in prayer? Which is interesting, because fuel and air is what we mix in order to make an engine run. And, you know, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit, mixed with the fuel of his word, creates this wonderful, wonderful fuel that would be what the four-stroke Christian needs. And, you know, John Bunyan put this in another term that I really have enjoyed here recently. And he, when he was describing in Pilgrim's Progress this gentleman by the name of Talkative. And Talkative, he compared to an animal that was an unclean animal. He said in Leviticus, the unclean animals were the ones that did not chew the cud. And he said they didn't chew the cud of God's word.
Well, how many people do you know, or how about you yourself? When I'm really on a subject in the Bible, it's like I'm chewing the cud. I keep chewing it in my brain and chewing it and chewing it. As I chew the cud of God's word, it makes me more of a clean animal. But poor Talkative, he could chew the cud of God's word, but he didn't have the cloved hoof.
So he wasn't separate from the world, you see, which made him unclean. But when you think about the swine, it has a cleft hoof, but it doesn't chew the cud of God's word. And so how many of us, unfortunately, we got in the day, we didn't get to spend time in the word, we didn't get to spend time, and so our fuel is messed up. So when we get into the compression stroke of the day, which is coming, I'm telling you, right up comes the piston, you feel the pressure, and all of a sudden, in order to get the right power stroke, you've got to have the right fuel.
So if I've got high octane fuel, and then just like the song says, it will make you stronger. In order to have a testimony, it quite often takes a test. And the stronger the test, it would appear, the stronger the testimony. And so as all these people are watching you in your daily walk with Christ, what's your flashpoint? What's your testimony?
How much of a test did it go through, and what did they see the outcome? How much power it has, right, has to do with how much compression. I'm just saying, same thing as a car. So now you've got this wonderful power stroke. And quite often, I don't know if you've noticed this, but I have. My most difficult time in struggling with the enemy with Satan is Saturday afternoon. You know why? I worked all week long on all these shows and all this stuff. Now I'm exhausted, literally, and here he comes. He's coming after me, and at this point in time, I've got to unload sin. I've got to get right with God. I need to have a good exhaust stroke. Because without a good exhaust stroke, what happens, Joe? You've got all this carbon monoxide and stuff, you're going to be in a mess.
It's got to go somewhere. So a four-stroke Christian, I want you to think about this. You're taking in fuel, and you're taking in oxygen. You're taking in the Holy Spirit, you're taking in the Word of God, and you've got all that. A great compression stroke, God's going to provide you with a test, I assure you.
And then what's the power going to look like behind that, and what's that feel like? And the more I've thought about John Bunyan's example of the clean and unclean animal, you know, am I walking my talk? Am I talking my walk, so to speak? It has to do, because when you think about it, that hare or the camel, the hare probably isn't as good as an example, but the camel chews the cud, but it has a foot that puts it on the ground, which makes it not separate from the world. So we've got to be able to do all those things.
We've got to be separate from the world. We've got to be chewing the cud of God's Word in order to be a clean animal. Check that out in Leviticus 11 sometimes.
And I had never really thought about that, but it connected some dots for me, Joe, is to think that, wow, this is God coming after us right there and showing us the difference between the clean and the unclean. Now, getting back to cars, because you know this is the Christian car guy show. So when we're talking about fuel, what you put into your car is going to make a gigantic difference as to how it's going to last.
How are you going to take care of it? And so it's not just a matter of actually what it's going to burn, but fuel additives do have some issues there. And so that's something to figure out on your own, really begin to do some study as to which additives should I use, because carbon does build up, right, Joe? And the older your car gets, by the way, the higher octane it probably would need. Like Old Red at 384,000 miles, it loves a good dose of mid-grade, I'm just telling you.
Old Red, you know, over the years has built up quite a bit of carbon. He might need race fuel by now. He might need race fuel, yeah. And that's the other thing, race fuel is extremely high octane. And so when you look at that, you know, there's nothing like testing your car. And this is going to sound crazy to a lot of you, but this is actually the way that I do it.
My wife laughs, a lot of people laugh. But I only buy five gallons of fuel at a time. Because when you're carrying around an extra ten gallons of fuel, that's 70 pounds, so you might as well have a bag of cement in the back of your car carrying it around as to keep a full tank of gas. If you don't believe it, check out the airlines and how much billions of dollars they save by not completely keeping airplanes full of fuel.
Because the weight, you know, car companies go to all kinds of trouble to remove this piece of metal or whatever to get down the weight, and then you go filling up your gas tank. So I buy five, five gallons of gas, but there's another method to my madness. By buying five gallons of gas, and I know Old Red gets somewhere into 22, 23 miles a gallon, I always know when the yellow light comes on, I can immediately see what I did on that tank of gas. Because if it's 115, 116, wow, I did really good this time, it was 118, 120. You see, because five gallons of gas is really easy to see. Five times 20 is 100, right? About 23 miles a gallon, you know, and it's 115 miles.
I mean, how hard is that? So by buying five gallons of gas, I know consistently, as soon as that yellow light comes on, I push my tripodometer. The very second my yellow light comes on, I push the tripodometer so that I know the next time it'll be exactly how many miles before the yellow light comes on again, you see?
And in doing so, I have all that stuff in there. Well, now the phones are ringing. But anyway, we will get those calls next time. If, in the meantime, you need the information, go to ChristianCarguy.com, go to Ask an Expert. We love to answer questions all during the week. We certainly appreciate y'all listening so much to the show. As we talked about the Jesus-labor-love, all that stuff's at ChristianCarguy.com. Thank you, Joe, for being on with us today.
Well, thank you, Rob. And how about taking in some high-octane Christian fuel this week, huh? And try that out.
See what kind of compression you can take if you've got enough fuel in there. And remember, slow down. Jesus walked everywhere. He went and got it all done in 33 years.
