My truck goes through a lot of fuel. It's got an ancient 390 cubic inch (6.5L) V8 topped with an even more ancient Motorcraft carburettor, and the whole boat weighs in at around 5,000 pounds dry. A substantial portion of the time I'm driving it, it's got lots of cargo in the bed, which usually brings the gross weight up near the 7,000 pound point.
I figure I typically get low-teen gas mileage. 12mpg, or so.
Anticipating the engine's thirsty disposition, the designers of this truck offered it with dual fuel tanks—and indeed, mine was ordered with this option. I think it can swallow between 40 and 50 gallons of gasoline, although I haven't actually verified this.
With gas prices around here these days, a full load of fuel is worth somewhere between $120 and $200. That's ... a bunch.
I bought the truck with really crappy fuel filler caps—they leaked if I parked the truck on a hill after completely refueling, and I think they allowed a fair amount of gasoline to atomize into the road behind me. And most importantly, they didn't lock.
So since I had to replace the caps anyway, I figured I'd upgrade to locking ones.
Now that I think about it, though, I'm not even sure how the hell someone would walk off with 40+ gallons of gasoline. It's heavy.
If you ever need a paint job, try the $50-paint-job.
That's totally sweet!
Although the paint isn't usually the costly part—an "adequate" paint job will really only run you around $300 in paint. It's the prep work that's the problem: sanding, bondo-ing, and primering; and although that stuff isn't very spendy, it takes forever to do right.
If you're in a position like the Corvair guy was (with a prepped car but no paint) then the Rustoleum route may actually work. Otherwise, it's probably worthwhile to cap off all of your sanding effort with proper base, color, and clear coats.