57 miles per gallon diesel cars

[HappyHiker]

I just read in Scientific American that the new VW Jetta diesels get up to 57 miles per gallon-that astounded me. I wonder how they are as far as pollution? Anyone have one and what's your take on them?

Or what's your take on diesels in general? I guess they use a lot of diesels in Europe and don't they have high emissions standards?

[bae]

I wish they sold the VW BlueMotion 1.2 TDI 75PS engine in a Polo here in the USA. 91+ mpg freeway, 67 mpg city.

[HappyHiker]

I wish they sold the VW BlueMotion 1.2 TDI 75PS engine in a Polo here in the USA. 91+ mpg freeway, 67 mpg city.

Wonder why they don't sell that engine stateside? Does it not fit the EPA emissions standards or is it kept away by our auto lobbyists?

Europe seems worlds ahead of us on auto engine efficiency. Guess they've had high gas costs for longer than we have, maybe it will get better here, car engines mileage-wise, from necessity.

[Bronxboy]

Fuel economy testing is quite different. Mileage differences are far smaller than very high European figures make them appear. While it is unlikely to be a problem in Scientific American's reporting, a U.S. gallon (3.78 liters) is much smaller than an Imperial gallon (4.54 liters). This difference is rarely accounted for in mileage reports from the U.K. or elsewhere in Europe.

For one thing, continental Europeans are unfamiliar with measures other than metric. I ran into this with a couple of German technicians at work in the past month. It was clear after a couple of questions that I was going to have to use metric even when talking about food and beer!!

Also, Europe still uses very optimistic reporting, while today's advertised mileages in the U.S. can be beaten quite easily. I can beat the highway mileage reported for my car at up to 70 mph.

While Detroit-area media have a definite bias in automotive reporting, this discussion is on target.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110417/COL14/104170507/Mark-Phelan-Sky-high-European-gas-mileage-ratings-differ-from-U-S-

[freein05]

I bought a 1981 Rabbit diesel when it was new. The engine in it is nothing like the new VW engines. In 81 I was getting over 41 miles to the gallon. It was handed down through the family it had over 300 thousand miles on it when it died. It was not the cars fault last son did not take care of it.

I believe a diesel motor car is better than a Hybrid. The diesel motor is simple and does not depend on batteries. We are currently in Europe. Diesel here is about 4 cents a liter less than gasoline. So that would make diesel about 10 cents cheaper in the US per gallon. Figure that out as diesel in the US is 10 cents or so more than gasoline. It is a matter of economics and acceptance if a auto manufacturer brings a diesel car to the US. VW has the experience in building diesel motors that meet US pollution requirements and the new motors sound almost no different than a gas engine.

We went for a rid with a friend here. He has a Ford minivan with a VW diesel engine in it. He said you see that a lot here VW sells it's engines to a lot of manufactures. He is a wild driver!! As we were going down the autobahn 200 KM per hour or about 125 miles per hour his van was still getting a little over 30 miles per gallon.

[Juicifer]

My two cents: we had a diesel over 5 years when we lived in Holland, and the car was getting over 35 miles/gallon. This was a Ford Focus and we simply loved it, the diesel was cheap and it took forever for us to use up the diesel in the tank. I wish I could find a good family car like that here in Canada. On diesel that is, for some reason it's very hard to get a diesel whereas in Europe it's quite common. I also believe that a diesel engine suffers less and you can easily put like 400.000 km's on an engine without serious issues.

[freein05]

Every station here in Germany has diesel and I said before it is cheaper than gas. My guess is 40% or more of the newer autos in Germany or diesel.

[dmc]

We use to have a Mercedes diesel and it got very good mileage. Somewhere around 30mpg. I currently have a 3/4 ton diesel truck that gets around 18mpg which isn't bad for its size. And I just like it.

[dmc]

Lets see if I can post a pic of my truck, you may even catch a glimpse of my old travel trailer that I got the truck for.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n550/dmcummins/100_0107.jpg