all the car advice listed above is great. my advice would be to quit your minimum wage research job, and get a higher paying job. professors prey on students' insecurities and use them as cheap labor for their research projects. assuming you're only involved in the research to better your resume for grad school/jobs/etc., offer to help do the research for free on your spare time, and get a better paying job as your primary source of income. that way you can still list the research on your resume, and have enough knowledge to sound like you had a major part in the project during interviews. if you're doing the research job, because you like zoology research (and plan it for a career), then sorry, get used to being poor and asking for advice on how to eek gas mileage out of a car. i had $5/hour research jobs in college, tutored students $5.25/hr, and tutored for the MCAT $17.50/hr, and i regret all those bullshit jobs except for the MCAT tutoring job.