High Mpg Alternative

 
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Berlin
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Post by Berlin » Fri. Oct. 18, 2013 10:26 am

SMITTY wrote:I remember the old Rabbits - my buddy had one. 55 mpg ... and 55 HP! :funny: Slowest car I had ever been in in my life. Downright dangerous to merge on the highway with.
My Mark II '91 jetta diesel is usually my daily driver. 1.6L 51 hp non-turbo. It's slow, but I've never had any problems merging or passing, the key is to downshift and let that little diesel scream @ 5K plus rpm's. Advancing the dynamic timing keeps the power in the higher rpm's and does help w/ these engines. 40+ mpg in town, 55+@70mph.


 
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Post by Flyer5 » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 8:49 am

I love my TDI Jetta 04 with 286,000. I am hoping for 400,000 out of it. I just do regular oil changes at 10,000-20,000 miles whether it needs it or not. :D Timing belts, water pump and idlers every 100k takes me about 1.5 hrs to do + maybe a half hr to bleed the cooling system and double check everything after. I did rebuild the trans at 175k but that was my fault for not changing the gear oil. And a bad MAF once. Oh yea and rear wheel bearings and struts at 250k. I get about 80k from the brakes. I tow things behind it I probably shouldn't but plenty of torque and braking.

 
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Post by Wanna Bee » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 9:23 am

I drive a Chevy cruze Eco M/T for the fuel savings. Would be a dodge dually or an F350 if not for the Chevy. (They sit in the driveway) It has a 1.4liter turbo motor in it, 75k miles on a 2012, lifetime avg. 43 mpg.

Car has plenty of go and every option you could want. The diesel cruze isn't available with the manual transmission so I have no desire to own one.

 
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Post by titleist1 » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:00 am

you're doing great with the mpg's on that cruze. I believe that is about 10mpg's better than average as recorded on fuelly.com for the 2012's (although I am not sure they break out the eco engine).

i was surprised they didnt offer the MT on the diesel. I was also surprised vw didn't offer the MT on all their diesel models. you have to get the base - no frills edition of the passat to get an MT. you'd think that a european mfg would offer MT on everything.

 
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Post by Wanna Bee » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:31 am

Obviously I do a lot of highway driving with the amount of miles I log. That helps with the lifetime avg. I also watch the forums and see the automatic cars not living up to the expectations.

In regards to the manual vs. auto.
Automakers have to deal with diesel emissions here in the states. If you can control the shift, you can control the emissions. As far as I know, none of them still offer a manual trans behind the Diesel engines in their trucks. I ended up with a Dodge Dually diesel stick shift in 2007, still has the bullshit DPF though. They actually use more fuel to reduce emissions...imagine that. :?:

 
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Post by coalkirk » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 9:54 am

I went to this topic to ask if anyone had experience with the VW TDI as I am considering a `14 Jetta Sport Wagen with the diesel. I'm driving a 98 GMC suburban with 225K on it. Runs great but fuel mileage is not good. The 43 mpg sounds very atractive. What is the deal with the the "expensive trans service" someone mentioned?
I had to rebuild the GMC's tranny at 175K. Costly but it was cheaper than a car payment. My fuel bill is about $800.00/month for the beast though. Flyer5, good to hear you have 286k on yours.

I'm also considering a Subaru Forester which doesn't get as good mileage but apparently has a good reliability rating. anyone know anything good or bad about that one?

 
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Post by Wanna Bee » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 10:08 am

Anything you buy is going to be 100x better than that suburban.

I been driving 15 mpg vehicles all my life. Owning the cruze makes me wonder why I didn't buy a fuel efficient beater sooner. Putting fuel in that car makes me smile.


 
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Post by coalkirk » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 10:28 am

Wanna Bee wrote:Anything you buy is going to be 100x better than that suburban.

I been driving 15 mpg vehicles all my life. Owning the cruze makes me wonder why I didn't buy a fuel efficient beater sooner. Putting fuel in that car makes me smile.
You got that right. Fuel pumps cut you off at $100.00. I haven't been able to fill that suburban in many years. It's got a thirsty 42 gallon tank. :shock:

 
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Post by Flyer5 » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 11:29 am

coalkirk wrote:I went to this topic to ask if anyone had experience with the VW TDI as I am considering a `14 Jetta Sport Wagen with the diesel. I'm driving a 98 GMC suburban with 225K on it. Runs great but fuel mileage is not good. The 43 mpg sounds very atractive. What is the deal with the the "expensive trans service" someone mentioned?
I had to rebuild the GMC's tranny at 175K. Costly but it was cheaper than a car payment. My fuel bill is about $800.00/month for the beast though. Flyer5, good to hear you have 286k on yours.

I'm also considering a Subaru Forester which doesn't get as good mileage but apparently has a good reliability rating. anyone know anything good or bad about that one?
One more place to hang out. :D http://forums.tdiclub.com/

 
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Post by titleist1 » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 11:43 am

the automatic (dsg) tranny has the more costly maintenance service schedule. The link to the TDI Club forum has all the details.

The manual tranny would have the lower overall maintenance cost from what I have read on there and also will get you better mileage by a few mpg's. imo more fun too! You are limited as to which trim package you can get with the MT though. If it was just me driving I would have probably got the MT, but the spousal unit wanted the higher trim package and wasn't seeing the advantages of the MT that I saw, so it was a minor concession on my part to get the dsg instead. We are still seeing at least 42 mpg with each fill up, this beats the epa est for mixed driving. I easily get over 50mpg on hwy trips just by keeping it at 63 on the cruise control which also beats the epa est. it will drop below 50mpg if I go over 65...just depends on how much of a hurry I am in vs what I want to get in mpg.

use the fuelly.com website to get some real world mpg's on the different cars for comparison. I found there is a huge difference in what epa claims are for cars vs what is documented there and was very helpful in my decision process.

 
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Post by SMITTY » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 11:51 am

coalkirk wrote:........
I'm also considering a Subaru Forester which doesn't get as good mileage but apparently has a good reliability rating. anyone know anything good or bad about that one?
I know Chris (009to090) LOVES his Subaru's - says they're easy to work on and super reliable. I might buy one of those after reading some of his older posts. ;)

I will say though, that I worked on a '98 Forester. What a pile of RUST! :shock: Sat for years, and the entire undercarriage went to hell. Was a BITCH to work on. But, this was in '11 .. and my buddy is STILL commuting 60 miles PER DAY with the thing. I had to rip out the whole back seat to run a new fuel line to the tank - it's only exposed to the elements from the back seat to the tank - about 2'. At least the pump is accessible thru the floor ... HEAR THAT, GM YOU PRICKS ?????? :lol:

 
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 11:57 am

I average 30-32 mpg with a 2012 Subaru Legacy on a 38 mile commute. It is fantastic in snow and very comfortable.

 
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Post by SMITTY » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 12:00 pm

Nice. 8-)

I, personally am super-leery of anything built from '08 to present. Seems there was an across the board cheapout of every product during that time. In '09, GM had oil guzzling & smoking Silverados with less than 500 miles on them, Yamaha had Roadliner and Stratoliner motorcycles blowing second gear like clockwork, and Ford had valve train issues in their Taurus line. Seems like there was a really poor batch of steel going around that year .... :shock:

 
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Post by oros35 » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 1:17 pm

I would love to have a small diesel in our Jeep, they already make them and sell a ton of them, overseas nautrally!!! :shock:

They did put one in a Liberty, but the Liberty platform sucked! Even so they are very hard to find because everyone that has one is holding on to it.

There have to be some politics involved because it just makes sense.

 
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Post by Flyer5 » Tue. Nov. 12, 2013 3:31 pm

titleist1 wrote:the automatic (dsg) tranny has the more costly maintenance service schedule. The link to the TDI Club forum has all the details.

The manual tranny would have the lower overall maintenance cost from what I have read on there and also will get you better mileage by a few mpg's. imo more fun too! You are limited as to which trim package you can get with the MT though. If it was just me driving I would have probably got the MT, but the spousal unit wanted the higher trim package and wasn't seeing the advantages of the MT that I saw, so it was a minor concession on my part to get the dsg instead. We are still seeing at least 42 mpg with each fill up, this beats the epa est for mixed driving. I easily get over 50mpg on hwy trips just by keeping it at 63 on the cruise control which also beats the epa est. it will drop below 50mpg if I go over 65...just depends on how much of a hurry I am in vs what I want to get in mpg.

use the fuelly.com website to get some real world mpg's on the different cars for comparison. I found there is a huge difference in what epa claims are for cars vs what is documented there and was very helpful in my decision process.
\

The nice thing about the MT on the diesels is not a lot of shifting because of the available torque.


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