[2ndDivisionVet]

Can't or won't? My 1984 Mercedes 300D turbo that cost me $100 runs just fine four years later. It'll probably make it to a million miles (I only have 140K on it).

[FreedomPoster]

My old boss had 300Ds of that era. He’d pick them up lightly used, from people who had to have a new car every two years. He religiously changed the oil every 3000 miles, and did standard stuff like brakes and windshield wipers, and they ran on and on and on and on and . . .

[DainBramage]

By the time you pay a dollar a gallon extra for special fuel you might as well own the 40mpg diesel Volkswagon has.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I can say confidently from my own experience... I would never buy a Ford FIESTA, even if it got 700mpg.

[sitetest]

My comfortable, mid-sized, luxury, 0-60-in-5.9-seconds Mercedes gets about 30 mpg off the highway (except in stop-and-go traffic) and about 38 mpg on the highway at 75 mph. Not an econobox, plenty of trunk space, terrific handling, seats five.

Diesel is cool.

[OneWingedShark]

Hey, thanks for the post here. I’m a big Diesel fan; if the monies/R&D that’ve been poured into Gasoline engines had been put into Diesels, I think we would be in a much different place (in oil consumption/independence).

[meyer]

"But there are business reasons why we can't sell it in the U.S."

Actually, the reasons center around the federal government's inane environazi regulations concerning diesel engines. The fuel is more expensive than gas, even though the actual cost to refine diesel is less (regulations at fault here). And, the emissions on diesels have become very strict in recent years - so strict that diesels that are prevalent around the world cannot be sold here.

[TankerKC]

...Ford Motor (F), known widely for lumbering gas hogs.

Was this written in 1971? ;)