No. 2 Diesel
Despite all The Scott's great work on my 10-year old Geo Metro Sedan (with its 158,00 miles and it's noisy manual transmission)...
Despite my throwing some new spark plugs, wires, and a fresh air filter on it...
... it's still an OLD car, and it's getting cranky. It doesn't want to go uphill with the air conditioner on anymore. It threw a SES light for one duty cycle just because it felt like it. I began to envision cold fall mornings when it would decide it just didn't want to start before the sun had warmed it up.
So I started eyeing replacement cars ... cars that get 35 mpg or better and run biofuels ... diesel cars with gobs of torque to climb mountains with air conditioning running full blast.
No rush, I thought, I don't need this car until fall.
But then the supply of diesel cars (not the most plentiful thing on this side of the Atlantic) started to dry up. 2007 diesels were yanked off the market for not meeting new EPA regulations. The word was getting out - 45mpg! Runs on everything from kerosene to fryer oil! Powerful! Efficient! Long-lasting. Make your own biodiesel! Cleaner! Renewable!
America was catching up. I had to move.
4 Volkswagen TDIs and 2 1980's Mercedes-Benzes later, I was worried.
These things were moving so fast that they were already sold by the time you found the web ads. It was beginning to look like I'd be lucky to get a brand-new white car with an automatic transmission (NOTE: I don't do white cars OR automatic transmissions, especially not on a TDI).
Then I hit a lucky find way out in Goldsboro.
A silver Beetle GLS TDI, loaded, stick shift, still under warranty and right on-budget.
Maisimai said "Jump on it! Let's go!", and we drove out to Goldsboro that afternoon. It was in sweet condition, with only a broken hood latch pull (fixed) and a worn-out right-rear tire (all 4 replaced with new rubber as part of qualifying it for 2-year warranty extension).
Additional bonus - Frema Motors is *NOT* sleazy at all.
They post their "profit margin" on the wall of the finance office.
That's it - invoice (and this invoice was $200 less than I expected) plus tax, tags, title, and profit. No hassle. No crap. Nice folks.
So, today I drove to work in my nice "new" Beetle TDI.
Uphill.
Cool.
It's a shame it'll be another 2 weeks before I'm out of diesel and can refill with biodiesel :)
Despite my throwing some new spark plugs, wires, and a fresh air filter on it...
... it's still an OLD car, and it's getting cranky. It doesn't want to go uphill with the air conditioner on anymore. It threw a SES light for one duty cycle just because it felt like it. I began to envision cold fall mornings when it would decide it just didn't want to start before the sun had warmed it up.
So I started eyeing replacement cars ... cars that get 35 mpg or better and run biofuels ... diesel cars with gobs of torque to climb mountains with air conditioning running full blast.
No rush, I thought, I don't need this car until fall.
But then the supply of diesel cars (not the most plentiful thing on this side of the Atlantic) started to dry up. 2007 diesels were yanked off the market for not meeting new EPA regulations. The word was getting out - 45mpg! Runs on everything from kerosene to fryer oil! Powerful! Efficient! Long-lasting. Make your own biodiesel! Cleaner! Renewable!
America was catching up. I had to move.
4 Volkswagen TDIs and 2 1980's Mercedes-Benzes later, I was worried.
These things were moving so fast that they were already sold by the time you found the web ads. It was beginning to look like I'd be lucky to get a brand-new white car with an automatic transmission (NOTE: I don't do white cars OR automatic transmissions, especially not on a TDI).
Then I hit a lucky find way out in Goldsboro.
A silver Beetle GLS TDI, loaded, stick shift, still under warranty and right on-budget.
Maisimai said "Jump on it! Let's go!", and we drove out to Goldsboro that afternoon. It was in sweet condition, with only a broken hood latch pull (fixed) and a worn-out right-rear tire (all 4 replaced with new rubber as part of qualifying it for 2-year warranty extension).
Additional bonus - Frema Motors is *NOT* sleazy at all.
They post their "profit margin" on the wall of the finance office.
That's it - invoice (and this invoice was $200 less than I expected) plus tax, tags, title, and profit. No hassle. No crap. Nice folks.
So, today I drove to work in my nice "new" Beetle TDI.
Uphill.
Cool.
It's a shame it'll be another 2 weeks before I'm out of diesel and can refill with biodiesel :)