I figured that with good user reviews and a good return policy offered by JC Whitney, I had little-to-no risk on the downside, and hopefully some benefit on the upside.  So I laid down my credit card info and clicked Submit.  That was on a Tuesday.  Living in Texas, I expected delivery the following week for free ground shipping, but was pleasantly surprised when FedEx dropped it off on Saturday.  (As an aside, I am glad I purchased the Tornado before doing too much research on it; there are a lot of negative comments on it that might have dissuaded me – funny though that many of them were by people who had never tried it but made excuses on scientific conjecture for which they were not qualified).

Upon opening the shipping box that contained several items, I looked for a large box inside that would hold a tube like the one I saw in the picture on the website.

Instead there was only a small box; it said TORNADO on it, and contained what looked like a cookie cutter.  At first I was a little disappointed that I paid more than $60 bucks for about $2 worth of metal.  But I decided to give it a try anyway since I considered that I was really purchasing the benefit of the product and not just the product itself.

A gas saver that would provide me the best gas mileage for my buck, an increase in gas mileage per gallon can of course result in substantial savings over the course of a year.

Sunday I installed it in my Lexus before driving to Arkansas.  My car is a 1997 Lexus LS 400 with 171k miles.  It has 4 doors and a 4.0 litre V8.  Driving about 700 highway miles each week, fuel economy is very important to me. So having the ability to improve my fuel economy sounded very appealing to me, Assuming 24 mpg and the price of $3.25 for regular unleaded, we’re talking a little over $100/wk in fuel costs.  Multiply that times 52 weeks ($5,200/yr).

After filling up in Calera Oklahoma for $2.99 a gallon, I cruised across all of Oklahoma at 73 miles per hour and into Arkansas.  As soon as I arrived in Rogers, I fueled up at Wal-Mart’s Murphy fuel station and calculated my gas mileage.  It was 28.89 mpg!  The previous tank’s mpg was 24.67 which is just on the high side of average.  On a few occasions (before the Tornado) I have gotten as high as 25.80 mpg, and only once have I ever gotten as high as 26.27.  But 24 to 24.5 had been average.

First I calculate the increase above the average: 28.29-24.67=4.22.  Next, divide the amount of the increase by the average: 4.22/24.67=17.106%.  This was on my first tank using the Tornado Fuel Saver – 254.1 miles.  Another important note is that I had an unusually strong crosswind and headwind.  By “unusually” I mean that the prevailing surface winds are from the south at about 10 miles per hour.  However for this drive, the winds were 20mph+ sustained from the east.  And I was heading north and east for my entire trip.  Typically my mileage is worse when heading into the wind, and better when traveling with it.

From a savings standpoint, if I can save 17% off of my $5,200/yr calculated fuel cost, that is $884.00 per year.  To me, the sooner I invest my $65 the better!

I can’t think of a more cost effective way how to get a better gas mileage, installing the tornado air system definitely improves my overall bottom line.

As I mentioned, I am a skeptic regarding products claiming “fuel savings”.  And even though I was happily proven wrong this time, I shall continue to be very scrutinous of such claims.  On the other hand, I have learned you can’t always believe all the other skeptics either.  If I had made my decision based upon a review I read by one of the major mainstream media networks, I would have missed out on this one.

In regards to the advertised increase in performance power, I cannot testify.  My car is already very powerful, and I did not “get down on it” during my inaugural voyage.

Next on my review list is to purchase another Tornado fuel saver – this time for my 2000 Ford Excursion with a V10 Triton gasoline engine.  The reason I chose to try it on the Lexus first is because the car is more consistent in its fuel mileage with a narrower range of variation.  The Excursion usually gets 11.1 mpg, but is recently getting 10.5 mpg.  Hopefully I will be reporting another success story soon.

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Visit JC Whitney’s Product Page For The Tornado Fuel Saver To Find Out More About Pricing and Order Details.
 

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By the way, as of the writing of this article I have used only one tank of gas and have calculated my mileage only once.  Going forward I will check in periodically with updates of my continued results.

- Michael

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Even with the unfamiliar when you don’t know what to expect, you have certain expectations. But what I got was completely unexpected…

Last fall when my SUV’s fuel pump was failing and I was not sure what I wanted to do with the vehicle after having already fixed it several times, I purchased a van to use until I resolved it, planning to sell the van in the new year. Now that the Chevy dealership has repaired the SUV, it is time to sell the van. Usually I list my vehicles on CraigsList.org or AutoTrader.com and get good response, but I figured I’d try something new.

The process was simple enough. I went to CarOffer.com and filled out their online form. However, their interface for uploading images was quite klunky; and this is being spoken (written, actually), by an Internet pioneer who has”been exposed to everything”. But bad design finds no limits in its confusion.

Then, true to their word, I received an email in about 24 hours with my offer.

The van is a 2006 Express 3500. That means it is top of the line with a one-ton capacity. Add to that the exclusive feature of double passenger doors on the driver’s side, and the fact it has only 30k miles, and you are talking about a vehicle with a reasonable retail price between $17, 500 on the low side, and $21,500 on the high.

I sort of expected any offer they sent to be on the low side of my range, since their purpose in purchasing any vehicle would be to sell it for a profit, of course. As the old stock trading axiom goes, “buy low, sell high”. But when I saw that the offer was for $12,000, the message I perceived was, “we at CarOffer.com think you are stupid”. Asking myself, “what, do they think I am an idiot?”, the answer was clearly, “yes, I believe they do.”

While it is reasonable to expect a company in such a venture to endeavor to make a profit, it should be expected to be a reasonable profit. In my case, there is nothing reasonable about CarOffer’s offer.

Now after my experience with them, I found one news article that quotes the CEO as saying:

“We anticipate that most vehicles acquired through this alliance with Pep Boys will be three to five years old and valued at under $9,000.”

Well, maybe, but they are going to have to do a much better job of expectations management for their potential sellers (that is, inventory suppliers) to avoid alienating them altogether and blowing all hopes of keeping anyone’s attention. If they are not careful, they might be seen as lame logic instead of lanelogic.

Regards

——–

PS: Somebody has something to say about it at The Ripoff Report.

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