I gave serious thought to buying a VW diesel a while ago. The price of diesel fuel stopped me.
Do the math. Diesel costs about 15%-20% more than gasoline in my neighborhood, but diesels get 50% to 75% better mileage than comparable gasoline autos.
The "street" price of diesel fuel should not be a factor in your buying decision. For the sake of argument, let's say the VW got 50 mpg on a gallon of Diesel and the same car with a gasoline engine got 40 mpg. Both have 10 gallon fuel tanks. Say the price of a gallon of Diesel is $3.00 and gasoline is $2.50. A fill-up of Diesel costs $30.00 and gasoline costs $25.00. You can go 500 miles on the diesel and 400 miles on the gasoline. Costs per mile in the gasoline is $0.16 and cost per mile in the Diesel is $0.166. So for that extra $0.006 you can go 100 more miles, in the diesel at a $0.50 per gallon price differential. But I know th real world price differential is much less than $0.50 per gallon, so the costs per mile would be lower for the Diesel engine...............
There is no downward pressure on gasoline prices, d' masses are addicted to gasoline. Let the price of diesel rise too far or too fast and the OTR owner/drivers will park their rigs to save their pocketbooks.
I'm with the owner/drivers. I tank about every six weeks while at home on the Island and pay a stiff premium to get the fuel here. On the road, I do a full day on a tank.
Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns. NRA KMA
Don't let the price of diesel fuel scare you away. My wife and I just completed a 1,600 mile trip to the Big bend region of West Texas in her 2006 VW Jetta TDI and averaged 39 miles to the gallon. Not bad when you figure most of the trip was in hte mountains and the highway driving was at 80 mph (the legal speed in West Texas). Do the math we were paying on average 20 cents more per gallon for our diesel than we would have for unleaded.
"I gave serious thought to buying a VW diesel a while ago. The price of diesel fuel stopped me."
I have a 2000 VW Jetta TDI I get 45MPG plu on highway trips and on the order of 40MPG just putting around town.
I can make something between 600 and 700 miles per tank (14.5 gal)
you may want to re-reconsider.