2009 Jetta TDI fails to meet VW's Predictions

I test drove the new TDI. It's nice. Quiet as advertised. It's the car TDI enthusiasts were asking for 5 years ago. Not as peppy as I thought it would be but then my '04 TDI has some tuning and is smaller and lighter. Nice to step on the pedal and see no blackness in the rear view mirror. Love the DSG, very nice shifts, manuals are obsolete. The steering feels less nimble and detached than the older platform. Maybe it's the electric steering? Lots of room inside, feels heavier. The electronic dash display has a cheap look about it, almost like an old LED design. According to the saleman, suppose to build 15,000 or so for first batch. We'll see how they sell.

As for fuel economy, I expected VW's 60mpg estimate to be wishful thinking, aka fanboys driving 55mph in the slow lane for anecdotal story telling. Anyway, after a spirited acceleration onto the freeway and eventual constant 60mph on flat ground, the displayed mpg had several abrupt changes between low 40's and mid 50's. That's about 30% variation and nothing I've seen before. Not sure how often or when the DPF burn off occurs but it requires extra fuel and could be more likely after a good soot generating acceleration. :noidea:

 

Price as driven?

 

Well, after installing proper tires that actually provided traction in rain at high speeds, my former 2005 Prius never returned more that 36 mpg anyway. So YMMV.

 

After reading several posts I have seen a size and interior comparison of the Jetta and Prius come up again and again. True the Prius may be bigger and have more interior room but the Jetta actually is much more comfortable for me. I am 6'7" and was in the market for a new car for my 60 mile plus daily commute and thought I would try a Prius first. That happened to be a big mistake because I have long legs and my knee was in the gear shift on the Prius.

However with the Jetta there is so much more leg room that I even have to pull the seat up some so I can even reach the steering wheel comfortably.

Point being that more and more Americans are getting taller and finding a car they can drives becomes more of a challenge. I have found no economy cars which offer as much leg room as the Jetta TDI's. I haven't tried any other European autos but I wonder if their designs are similar, longer seat rails which makes it more comfortable for tall drivers.

Price spread between D2 and RUG will be a more interesting thing to watch in the future as more and more refineries are switching the crack spread more in favor of D2. From what I have read (feel free to correct me) refineries make more profit off of a gallon of D2 then gasoline due to a much tighter supply and high global demand. If that is true then economically it will be wise to minimize the amount of RUG and maximize the D2 yield per barrel of crude. If that ends up being the case then in the next couple of years I can see the spread shrinking.

 

If you couldnt get more than 36 miles to the gallon in your prius, you probably don't get more than 10 mpg in any car. I can't fathom a way you cannot reach above 45+ even driving the car hard.

 

You have it backwards. I covered all of this in my thread

http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-h...efinery-discussion-jay-jimmie-production.html

The thread is a bit longwinded at first, as Jimmie had quite a bit of off-topic regarding pickups. I don't think he is with us anymore

Modern refineries are very efficient at converting crude to RUL. A lot of the aromatics that used to be flared off or "wasted" can be subjected to various catalytic steps involving isomerization and catalytic reforming, to dramatically extend gasoline yield

ULSD requires quite a bit of extra hydrotreating to get the sulfur to spec levels. Steps like fluidic catalytic cracking and vacuum distilation can yield extra distillates

 

Indeed. Driving a little slower in heavy rain is safer and saves more money than buying really squishy sticky tires.