Survey: Optimal price of gas is $3.27

By Karl Henkel | June 7, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

What’s an acceptable price for a gallon of gasoline?

The answer: $3.27, according to a new study from auto-valuation website Kelley Blue Book.

The survey, conducted in May, shows that the current optimal price for a gallon of gas has risen 27 cents, from $3.00 in January, based on responses from 467 new- and used-car buyers.

This means that if gas is $3.27, consumers will accept prices ranging from $3.09 to $3.44 per gallon, and it won’t affect their vehicle consideration criteria, such as overall price and fuel-efficiency.

Many in the area, including Mike Gay, 42, of Youngstown, said they’d be ecstatic if gas cost $3.27. Gay filled the tank in his Ford Taurus on Monday from the Gateway Gas Mart on Market Street at $3.75 a gallon.

AAA reported Monday that gas prices rose 8 cents in the past week, but prices in the Mahoning Valley remained steady, averaging $3.77 per gallon, well outside the acceptable range, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge report.

Gay, who this summer will travel to North Carolina with his wife and four children, said even $3.50 a gallon would be respectable.

It’s only when gas reaches $4 a gallon, as it did last month in the Valley, that a majority of consumers — about two-thirds — say it will affect vehicle consideration, according to KBB.

If gas were to reach the $5 mark, 90 percent of respondents say it would impact vehicle consideration.

When changing cars isn’t an option, such as in Gay’s case, other cuts are made, such as in 2008, when gas was $4 a gallon. Gay and his family visited North Carolina that summer, also.

“There were lots of things we couldn’t do on vacation because we had to cut back,” he said.

Consumers might not have to change their vehicle-driving decisions a whole lot in the next month, according to the study, because 52 percent of respondents think gas prices will either stay the same or decrease through the end of June.

The numbers correlate with better-reported economic conditions; 21 percent said their economic situation was “poor,” compared with 27 percent in February. Auto-loan qualification worries decreased 11 percent since the beginning of the year.

Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and market analyst at KBB, said these factors are major pluses for automakers.

“If consumers feel more optimistic about the near-future state of gas prices and more confident in their personal economic situations, this will bode well for the automotive industry,” Nerad said.