"Herbert Graf" wrote in message news:1196278244.4147.16.camel@PD804... > On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 13:31 -0500, Martin wrote: >> I call shenanigans on your Passat TDI getting the same mileage as a >> Prius. Maybe on the highway. Not a chance in the city. > > I don't know about the Passat TDI, but small diesel engines can easily > beat the Prius in most driving situations except perhaps truly stop and > go traffic jam environments (where walking is faster; the question of > course then is why are you even bothering to drive?). The only problem? > These diesel cars don't exist in North America. Everywhere else in the > world, but not here. They used to, but there were very few models to chose from. My dad's 1980 VW Rabbit Diesel got 45 to 50 mpg depending on the city/highway mix. Most of the diesel cars back then were imports. The problem in the US was that, for a while, GM built a diesel engine that would pretty much self destruct before 100k miles. If I recall correctly, it was a gas engine design converted to diesel, so it simply wasn't strong enough to last and the mileage was still pretty terrible since they were put into big GM cars. That put a diesel == bad into many consumer's minds. Jeff -- A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist