How much would a car trip from seattle to missouri and back to seattle cost?

A friend of mine is wanting to come and get me with a rental car and bring me back to seattle to stay with him for a week since i have never been there :) he is also wanting to bring me back to missouri and drive back home with the rental car when it is time for me to come home so with your BEST guess about how much do you think all of this will cost gass and what not.How much would a car trip from seattle to missouri and back to seattle cost?
since there are too many variables missing from your equation I'll give you the tools to figure it out. You plug in your specifics and bam, there's your answer -

What type of rental car is it?
How many miles per gallon (MPG) does the rental car get on the highway?
How much is the rental car per day?
How big is the gas tank in the rental car?
Where at in Missouri? You don't say but I guessed Springfield.
Seattle to Springfield is 2,041 miles one way or 33 hours without stopping.

Take the distance between Seattle and Springfield (or your town) and divide by the MPG for the rental car. This will give you the number of gallons required to get you from point A to point B one-way. Take that number and multiply it by the price per gallon for regular unleaded in Seattle and then again by the price per gallon in Springfield. Those will be your gas prices to and from for picking you up and taking you to Seattle. Then you need to figure in food, a hotel for at least a night going and coming back and don't forget the cost of the rental car for those days. Since he plans to make the trip twice then once you get the total, multiply by 2 and you will see, its an incredibly expensive trip to the point that it would be cheaper if he bought you a plane ticket.

Lets say the car gets 30 MPG on the highway.

2041 / 30 = 68 gallons of gas required for a one-way trip.
68 x $3.69 = $250.92 just in gas 1 way but he's doing it 4 times
$250.92 x 4 = $1,003.68 just in gas
4 nights of hotel rooms 1 going, 1 coming, 1 going, 1 coming at $60.00 = $240.00
$50 per trip in food = $200 for a total of $1,443.68

That's before the $26 per day use of the rental car but you are already way over the cost of a 1st Class ticket round-trip.How much would a car trip from seattle to missouri and back to seattle cost?
Here's how to figure it out: number of miles traveled divided by MPG for your car multiplied by the [average] cost of a gallon of gas.



I'd guess it would be much cheaper - not to mention easier - to fly to Seattle and back.