Posted on 08/29/2012 9:28:16 AM PDT by .454Puma
I always said small diesel automobiles are the future...not hybrids, not electric cars. I used to be a Chevy guy, but no more; Ford is the American automobile company to watch. With his new 58 mpg turbo-diesel B-Max model (sold in Europe), Ford demonstrates clean diesel technology is the future. Not hybrid, not electric, not pixie-dust powered.
(Excerpt) Read more at transsylvaniaphoenix.blogspot.com ...
They are back now, but not in all the cars they were in. IS that because of cost, weight/size? I don't know. There is no longer a 43 MPG HWY Beetle.
My old 96 Dodge Cummins, with a lot of maintenance, tuning, tweaking and care, gets over 20 mpg, and I’ve loaded over 4000lbs on the back of it. I just hauled 2000lbs over 60 miles, and couldn’t tell I had a load at all. It pulls over 8000lbs of boat and trailer, and still gets around 15 mpg. So I don’t find it at all surprising that a small diesel car can get 58 mpg. What I do find surprising is the price of diesel, and this government’s war on diesel.
no mention of price
We have the BMW 335D.
Drive nice on the highway, and it really does get 50 MPG.
It is the same in-line 6 as in the X5D and 7-series, but
in a much smaller car. It is speed limited from the
factory, but if you get the no-limit chip, the car really
does go 180 mph.
Yes, 50 mpg and 180 mph. Mine rarely gets past 165 mph
during my 5 mile commute.
A few weeks back I drove across Germany, Luxumborg, Belgium and the Netherlands in a Seat Leon 6-speed 4 cyl turbo diesel. Lots of time at 120 mph. Mileage was like
40 mpg in mixed driving.
The 4-cylinder turbo diesel BMW 5-series crushes the
Prius in real-world fuel economy.
In 1997 I drove a BMW 525TD for a few days. This was a diesel 500-series station wagon, on lease to my company’s European regional sales office.
Ran fine; you’d have a hard time distinguishing it from its petrol-engined counterpart. When starting, you’re supposed to wait for a glow-plug preheat cycle, which I regularly forgot to do, but it always fired up without a problem. (This was in the late summer, so I guess it didn’t really need the preheat.)
Sadly in their world, people are the cheapest thing to replace, as long as you consider them property of the state, and they do.
Not having an emergency doesn’t mean it’s readily available. Just checked things out on my drive to and from the gym, 3 stations, one 16 pump, two 8. 16 pump station didn’t have diesel on the price sign but had the typical (for this area) 2 pumps of diesel, first 8 pump had it on the sign (but not in a different color) and the usual 2 pumps, second 8 pump didn’t have it. So that’s 32 pumps of gas and 4 pumps of diesel, that’s the difference between ready availability and limited availability. And yeah sure, you can always plan ahead, but because it’s of limited availability you need to plan better.
“Yeah. All the old problems of diesel are pretty much gone, except the ability to pull in front of any random pump at any random gas station.”
When you consider that you have an extra 200 to 400 miles to look on a tank of gas, searching for diesel gets more manageable.
...and, in any case, with the rise of diesel pickups, there’s not any problem finding the fuel any more. Not true for CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), though.
http://www.thedieseldriver.com/2011/05/new-volkswagen-passat-tdi-with-800-mile-range-introduced/
“And yeah sure, you can always plan ahead, but because it’s of limited availability you need to plan better.”
I think that you’ll find most diesel owners do not plan ahead, they simply start looking a bit earlier if in an unfamiliar area, roughly about the same time a gasoline engine owner would have to look (due to his lower range). On long trips that’s not even necessary, since virtually every gas station on a major highway (and most minor ones) sells diesel. It’s just cases such as hanging out in the San Francisco area that would make owners a bit more cautious.
In 2013, Audi is bringing a 3.0 TDI in the A6, A7, A8, and Q5. Output on the order of 240 hp and over 400 ft-lbs. Q5 mules getting 40 mpg on the highway at 80.
If most of the service station you past sell diesel, you will have a hard time convincing anyone that it isn’t readily available.
A service station having additional pumps of gasoline does not make the diesel less available.
Did you see any long lines waiting to get to the diesel pumps while the gasoline pumps did not have the lines?
Do you really consider waiting behind a car or two to get the diesel pump make it not readily available?
The pantheists at the EPA do not want engines that can meet reasonable emissions and fuel economy standards, or even unreasonable standards. They want NO engines, They want you living in a mud hovel, half starved to death and dead at 40. Like Gaia intended. The new diesel technology interferes with that goal. That’s why they fight to keep it out.
So, when we pay a little more to buy ethanol free gas, we are wasting our money?
It’s the last 30 miles that always matters.
Depends on where you’re. I already described the diesel situation in Tucson and other SW parts I get to. There’s still a good 10 to 20% of stations that don’t have it, and the ones that do only have it at 2 pumps out of their 8 to 16. When all stations have it on at least 50% of their pumps there will be no problem, until then it’s gas for me.
If you don’t plan ahead you wind up passing the Shell with diesel and go to the Shell without. I know where all the gas stations are on my normal routes around town, but I don’t bother to know which ones have diesel because I burn gas, if I had diesel I’d have to keep track of that. Which is planning better, just as I said. I was actually kind of shocked when I decided to pay attention yesterday that the station I mentioned didn’t have diesel, I’ve filled up there often, it’s the most convenient one on my lunchtime gym path.
“Tiny shoebox with no accident protection - BAD IDEA!”
You would be surprised at the amount of “accident protection” in most of the small cars today.
I would rather get in an accident, ANY accident in a Ford Focus than I would the same accident in, say, an old Chevy Impala or Ford Galaxie from the 60s or 70s.
32 pumps at 3 stations between my work and my gym all selling gas.
4 of those pumps at 2 of those stations selling diesel.
That’s the difference between readily available and limited availability.
I don’t see long lines for diesel because if there was enough demand to make long lines they’d put it in more pumps. Like I said, that’s the circle, people don’t buy diesel vehicles because it’s not readily available, and it’s not readily available because people don’t own enough diesel vehicles to create demand. What I do see though is that the 2 pumps at a station that have diesel tend to be the most convenient corners for entry and exit, which makes them the most popular pumps, which makes them the most often occupied. My “favorite” station (until Chevron sold it) was a 16 pumper with 2 diesel on opposite corners, I almost never got gas at the diesel pumps because they were always occupied, I’d swing into the middle pumps where there were always one or two empty. And yes sometimes there’d be a car waiting in line at the diesel pumps.
Having to wait in line because it’s only at 2 pumps while gas burners have their selection of a dozen unoccupied pumps is limited availability, by the very definition of the words. See there is a limited number of pumps available, pretty easy stuff.
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