Jetta TDI vs Hybrid on 1 Tank from Seattle to San Francisco

This thread is the first time I've heard VW's called "cool cars." Novelty items, "cute" as in the bug, "functional", yes, but "cool" is a new one for me. Cool like lederhosen, perhaps?

Of course my first memories of a VW was an old 55 mph governor limited bug (very uncool.) Then there were the Herbie movies...the originals. And when I was in college there were folks I knew driving the boxy little one. It was "fun" in that when the owner had ticked someone off (not in a driving capacity) and the vehicle was spotted on campus, it was light enough for a group of us to lift and move onto the sidewalk, no-parking zone, etc.

I remember driving one of the Mexican bugs on vacation, horrid little thing that went into wild cyclic shuddering at about 30 mph, various other problems too.

 

Oh really!! I think you forgot to send that memo to these guys

SUBARU.COM : MODEL OVERVIEW : 2008 Impreza WRX STI

Mitsubishi Motors - 2008 Lancer Evolution

People seem to forget that they always compare the power of a Turbo diesel to a naturally aspirated gasser. Try apples to apples.

 

• Cleaner diesel costs more. Even if in most countries it pays less duty than petrol, now in 16 countries diesel is more expensive. (before 2003 only three countries had expensive diesel: GB, IRL and CH)
• Cleaner diesel cars are yes more powerful, but are less economical. Just to give you an example, the TDI with 90 HP (the first one) had an average mileage of 60 mpg. now the TDI with the same displacement but with 170 HP has an average mileage of 42 MPG. he fault is not only due to the power hike but also due to heavier cars and multiple cleaning filters: EGR, FAP, DeNox, Etc.
• Congested and polluted cities do tend to forbid the circulation of diesel cars. This does tend to make the mass population to steer away from diesel.

 

What i've noticed since I have my prius is that acceleration wise from other than full stop, Prius is equivalent to 140 HP TDIs, the other day an Audi A3 2.0L TDI (140 HP) tried to pass me when getting out of an intersection, it didn't manage to do so, I have also other example with passat TDI140 and also an A4 audi... This makes me think that the prius acceleration is quite far from ridiculous.
Acceleration from full stop is less good because of the slowlyness of transmission causing a delay between when you floor the pedal and the moment the car starts...

TDIs don't have a Turbo lag, it's effective very early from 1600-1700 rpms, the peak torque is in the 1900rpms
This is due to electronically controled variable geometry Turbo compressor capable of rotating with very low exhaust gas pressure... causing almost no lag and no kick from turbo like it was with the first turbo motors...
When you drive it it feels like a big 2.5 or 3 Liter block with a lot of torque.
When coupled with the DSG System, acceleration is very linear like the prius, except you are not troubled with your audition of motor rev, (when you accelerate, the motor noise is accelerating, as with the prius you can be accelerating with the motor noise deccelerating)...

 

I just traded my Avensis 2.0 D-4D turbo for a Prius... a no brainer really here in the UK with the price of deisel going up and up.

Back and fore to work I got about 38mpg(UK gallons) on the deisel.. and 50mpg on the Prius.
I used to fill the tank up every 3 weeks on the deisel for about £75 or so.. now I fill up once a month at £42...

Plus the saving here on road taxation.. Avensis £205 per year (going up next year big style) and only £15 for the prius (not going up next year)

Also fully comprehensive insurance was a little cheaper on the Prius.

Performance wise.. there is nothign in it.. Avensis and the Prius are about the same.

Now if they made a deisel that did 100mpg.. hmm

 

Interesting. The "diesel fanboys" here in North America think the D-4D 2 litre and 3 litre are the best things since beer, sex, and pickles, combined

Even more interesting, whenever a "fanboy" in the US quotes fuel economy of a EU-only diesel powered vehicle, they take the conversion from litres per 100km to miles per Imperial gallon. Then directly compare it to a vehicle in the US that is rated in miles per US gallon

They then complain about the huge difference in fuel economy of American vehicles vs EU-market vehicles

I don't believe the VW Lupo 3L is still made. About Yaris sized, had the small 1.2 litre turbodiesel, IIRC 65 bhp

 

I am also changing from Toyota Yaris 1.4 D4D to Prius on 29th of September.
The main reason is not fuel consumption. Yaris D4D can probably do better mileage than Prius. But it is also much smaller and noisier car than Prius, has manual instead of automatic transmission and other things ...

I was given a test Prius for whole day to play with. I made over 100 miles with it and managed to get maybe 5% higher consumption than using my much smaller and less comfortable oil burner. And when comparing Prius to same sized and comfortable diesels, Prius wins. It consumes less using fully automatic transmission and its maintenance is cheaper as maintaining small gasoline engine is much less expensive than maintaining modern turbo charged diesel engine. We can then scare people from Prius due to its expensive battery, but then again, we can scare people from modern diesels on the same basis. Broken turbo diesel engines are not cheap to repair ...

So, Prius won my heart and I ordered one. I also looked in direction of Volkswagen Golf TDI with DSG transmission. But those VW diesel beasts are even noisier than Toyota diesels. Not cool at all.

Ogo

 

Lupo is smaller than Yaris. It was in fact of same size as Toyota Aygo.
City Car - Toyota AYGO - AYGO by Toyota

Lupo 3L was in fact made only for the purpose of proving they can make low consumption car. It was never popular, as it was small and very, very expensive. In fact price difference was higher than between today normal petrol and petrol electric hybrids. So it did not make sense to mass produce and sell it. It was more a proof of concept.

Anyway the problem of modern diesels is, that to make them clean, they effectively get less power efficient. All diesels with Dust Particle Filters in fact have 5 to 10 % higher fuel consumption than those without DPF as they spend some fuel to burn diesel dust particles instead of turning the wheels.

Ogo

 

the lupo back on the market today and it will be a HIT
it was marketed to Early with price still low

 

I like both cars both of them have their good points. I know TDIs are much more maintenance than a Prius because of the timing belt and turbocharger. That was my decision breaker when I went and chose the prius for my girlfriend. I hope VW comes out with that TDI hybrid that would be pretty sweet.

Also I think those guys that made that movie obviously favored the TDi from the beginning and who knows what shape the Prius was in, could of had underinflated tires, dirty air filter, etc... THat music they played all the time was really annoying also =/

 

I heard the guy say the Prius driver's seat is not very comfortable. I partly agree with that.

Toyota did themselves a rather large disservice in not putting a seat bottom tilt/height adjustable feature for 6 years on this model.

I can't speak for really long trips in the Prius, haven't taken one yet. The seat is reasonably comfortable for an hour in the seat.

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Impressive to go 733 miles on a tank of gas.

 

You get that impression, at first. Then looking at big-picture strategy, it isn't much of a surprise. They've withheld options in the short-term for long-term gain before and it has proven a wise choice. In other words, seeing it on the 2010 fits that pattern.

Of course, I have taken many long trips. No discomfort for me.
.

 

Comfortable seats is very much a ymmv, but my experience is that after about an hour I notice I am uncomfortable and sit up straight. Then I am good for another couple of hours without any problem.

Listen to your mother: Don't slouch !

 

About the lack of seat bottom tilt/height adjust ..

I'm 6ft 3in tall. If I scoot my butt all the way back in the seat, my line of sight would be obscured by the rear view mirror. I hate having a rear view mirror blocking my line of sight.

Luckily, if I scoot forward just a little bit in the seat (slouch a bit), I can get a little lower in the car and have just enough line of sight to see traffic under the Homelink rearview mirror. If you're under 6ft. this will likely never be an issue for you.

I won't recline my seatback any further. Tried it. Doesn't work.

This challenge to see under the rearview mirror includes pushing the mirror stalk up as far as possible. Many times I've pushed the mirror stalk up to see if it will go up a bit farther. Not a big fan of ducking down a lot to see things.

Maybe some don't mind having a rearview mirror blocking their forward vision. Having good forward vision and being able to see in front is very important to me. Don't want to crash this car.

I've looked under the seat to find a navigation computer, yet some room to move the seat bottom down.

I know there is a lot of technology in the Prius, that it is a great engineering feat, but it is a still a car and must have good ergonomic features and that includes making a driver's seat height adjuster to provide optimum forward vision for a driver.

 

I'm midsize, just like Prius.

All the other hybrids available from Toyota offer more room for seating.
.

 

wanted hatchback, not sedan

Highlander too big and expensive.

I can fit in a Corolla with good forward visiblity because it has the you know what.

I set the rearview mirror in the Prius to only show black bar across back and upper rear window, anything to get that mirror out of my LOS.

When the 2010 comes out with fully adjustable seat, I'll fit more easily into this size of car.

 

Put the mirror as low as you can and look over it.

 

Actually I believe that to be illegal. You can have items above your line of sight, but not below it for safety reasons. Makes pedestrians harder to see

 

I haven't seen it in our legislation.

 

I'll admit I only read page 1 of this thread... but I traded in a fully loaded Jetta GLX for my Prius, & the Prius is a much better car & much more fun to drive.


I loved that car, but it simply wasn't worth all the trouble it gave me.


Toyota & Honda > VW