switch from Prius to Jetta, been done?

hmmmm.

this is an interesting quandary.

i guess my only qualm with VW is their long-term quality ratings, coupled with being harder to work on (at least that's what i hear).

but, that aside, i think both systems have merit, and are both promoting the move away from our dependence on oil. they're both different angles pointing toward the same goal and i think either way it's a good thing.

 

My question: How much does his fuel really cost? Including his labor and depreciation for the setup as well as raw materials. How much fussing around does he do?

 

How do you know that it is cleaner? have you done any measurements of:
CO2
nox and
particle emmissions?

Thanks!

 

so it sounds like after initial cost, there is little cost other than time right??

if so, that is an excellent way to go. but can he make enough to support two cars??

 

How long will the passion last? He may get tired after a couple of additional years.

 

I have a friend who bought a diesel automatic Jetta in January. He's getting closer to 30-32mpg with it.

I got my Prius in February and am just a hair under 50mpg.

I guess if your fuel is free, you'll run cheaper to get the Jetta.

For most people who would be buying fuel, I'd say the hole in the earth gets more fuel sucked out to drive the Jetta than it does to drive the Prius.

If I followed his Jetta around with my prius, my mpg would be much lower than 50.

If he followed my prius around with his Jetta, his mpg would be much higher than 30.

But, that Jetta won't ever get up to the Prius mpg, and the prius wouldn't drop all the way to the Jetta level if I followed him around.

Power wise, size wise the cars are very similar.

 

**********

I switched from a TDI to a Prius for:

1) small boost in mpg
2) delta between gas and diesel
3) extremely high repair costs for the Jetta (approx $100 per month for the 6 years I owned the car)

I believe I made the right choice.

 

$100 a month!~!

omg... why did it take you 6 years to change??

 

We all have to have our hobbies! Has anybody studied the cost of the raw material if a sizeable number of us were rolling our own. I can see it now: muggings at the McDonald's grease trap.

 

Sorry for replying to my own post, but another image I had was a big debate between biodiesel advocates and low fat diet enthusiasts: which policy is better for society!

 

Park them side by side outside when it's 30 below and then see who's driving who to work in the morning.


Answer:
you will be.

 

One of the problems is the amount of Petrol fuel that is needed to make the bio diesel? I know one day that will not be a huge problem but it is now! It is all very complex and interactive at this point. No one can help but be smeared with the Oil Carbon brush. We need to push ever so slowly beyond this point. Bio diesel is at the base a good idea but it needs a bit of work.

 

BioDiesel is NOT CO2 neutral. Fossil fuel was used to fertilize, grow, harvest, process, distribute, use, collect, and process (again) into biodiesel. I am not saying the CO2 is equivalent to petroleum, just that is is quite obviously not neutral.

Emissions of BioDiesel are *much* worse than p-zev. Not awful like regular diesel, just much worse.

 

VW reliability is awful as the OP mentioned. Have your friend go look at the April 06 issue of Consumer Reports on the news stands, in particular at the reliability tables for VW and the Jetta.

Also, if he sees the incorect #s for the amount of hybrid savings, be SURE to point him to the corrected version of the article that's been pointed out here many times (the corrected table is at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/ne...vs-all-gas.htm).

Although I don't trust JD Powers much, http://www.jdpower.com/news/releases/press....asp?ID=2005089 also shows that VW has poor reliability.

As for biodiesel, I don't know if your friend is planning to buy new or used w/warranty. If it's got a warranty, I'd STRONGLY advise him not to run on biodiesel from processed cooking grease unless he wants to kiss the engine and emissions warranty goodbye. It should be fuel that's 5% biodiesel at most (B5). See http://www.vw.com/contactus/faqs.html#5.1.

Keep in mind that from everything I've read about fractional distillation, a barrel of crude oil produces 2x the amount of gasoline as it does diesel. So, even if a diesel car gets 2x the mpg compared to a gasoline car, it's using the same amount of crude oil. It WILL save him at the pump though.

http://api-ec.api.org/filelibrary/oilfacts_rgb.pdf and http://experts.about.com/q/2441/1227926.htm are two of many sources that discuss crude oil vs. amount of refined fuel produced.

 

Bob,

Personally, I suggest going a route that would help both of you - that is, if it's not something already done. One thing that'll greatly reduce the oil consumption is switching to green power for your home (http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/Green/greenPower/greenupR.asp). Lyle can then spend countless hours in the garage guilt free, knowing his energy usage for making his car completely self reliant is also coming from renewable resources, while you can work on making your prius a plug-in. Granted, you'll still need gas in the tank, but certainly much less than now. If the plug-in prius numbers are to be believed, it would take me 2.5 days commuting to use up a gallon, of which I use up in .6 days of commuting now.

Of course, if you already have done something like this, well, then it just makes all the more sense to me to aim for a plug-in version of your current vehicle and aim to double your mileage. Just my two cents.

-m.

 

I had to mull this over, until I understood how you arrived at this faulty conclusion. Diesel and petrol are different animals. Imagine a fluid made up of two parts water and one part booze. You cannot say that one pint of booze is the same as two pints of water.