Prius to TDI summary from Bob, and thanks

[Bob Allen]

Hi all: My thanks to all of you who responded and may respond in the future, to this little query on my part about Prius owners crossing over and going to the biodiesel side. I thought I'd post a short summary of questions that were answered and observations so that anyone interested might not have to wade through all the posts. I think this is an important issue as we move away from the Big P.

1. VW reliability, alone, is serious reason not to make the switch. The Jetta is well designed and fun to drive, but not reliable enough to warrant paying as much as one would for a Prius. As the mileage demand of consumers increases, other manufacturers' with better reliability, will undoubtedly start producing diesels, including, perhaps, Toyota.

2. A barrell of oil, according to one respondent, produces twice as much gasoline as diesel. If true, this makes the whole oil usage equation look different from simply comparing mileage.

3. Big question about the carbon dioxide "neutrality" of biodiesel. Since biodiesel can be made from used cooking oil, it could be argued that the carbon dioxide involved in the farming and processing, has already been "used" and that getting a second use, i.e. biodiesel, is a bonus. Plus, biodiesel can be made from algae and other sources that might not take nearly as much petrol based energy to produce and/or harvest.

4. Removing Lyle's home brewing from the equation, I would be left with choosing a Jetta and running it on commercially purchased biodiesel (doable in Seattle, but not really convenient, and NOT doable on long trips yet) OR running the Prius as a PZEV and getting fuel anywhere. If Lyle gets tired of making his own, this is what I'd be faced with.

5. If petro-oil disappeared tomorrow, the biodiesel folks would be just about as hard hit as the rest of us because petroleum is so intertwined in the production and delivery of just about everything.

6. There is no "one solution" to this problem. Petroleum is/was unique in being so energy intensive and versatile. We may not find such a universal solution in the future, but instead be seeing our energy grid divided up into biofuels, solar, geothermal, etc....you get the picture. Big Oil will fight this because they have a monopoly on energy right now. I think OPEC might play some games to hang on to their money and power.

You folks are great. This is such a fun and fabulous resource. I turned my Moses Lake dealer onto Priuschat, and I'm sure many dealers monitor it if they want to know how we the Priuspublic are responding.

Drive lovingly,
Bob

[subarutoo]

Last summer on a trip to Europe we put over 2500 Ks on a Golf 2.0 TDI with 6 speed Auto (shift-a-matic). By my rough calculations I was getting around 48 mpg with a mixture of 70% Autoroute high speed and 30% getting lost in cities. This was in my pre-Prius days, so the only reason to care about mpg was the $6/gal equivalent price for Gasol (euro-diesel). I loved the Golf. It was as comfortable, almost an quiet and handled MUCH better than my Prius. I don't know about accereration, but it seems roughly equal. I was sad to see the Golf 2.0 TDI 6 speed wasn't US available when I was ready for a new car. I'm only getting around 48 on the Prius with the freeway stickers. I saw an accasional 51 pre-sticker. I've always been leery of diesels, but that VW was a sweet ride. I'm not a VW fan having suffered theough a 78 Scirocco, but with my 500mile a week commute, and the need for a hatchback, Prius was the only choice. Now about the handling....

[donee]

Hi Subarutoo,

Remember that 48 mpg in a Diesel is the energy equivalent of 48/1.13 = 42.5 mpg in a gasoline car. This is because Diesel has 113 % of the energy as gasoline, per unit volume. To match the Prius at 48 mpg, the Diesel would need to get 54.2 mpg. When Diesel is made to the same enviormental standards in the US as gasoline is now, its most likely that it will cost 1.13 times as much as gasoline too.

[johnmaci]

"VW reliability, alone, is serious reason not to make the switch. The Jetta is well designed and fun to drive, but not reliable enough to warrant paying as much as one would for a Prius. As the mileage demand of consumers increases, other manufacturers' with better reliability, will undoubtedly start producing diesels, including, perhaps, Toyota."

The US market is not (and will probably never be) ready for diesel.
I happend to travel to Germany a couple of years ago and leased a diesel car. Loved it so much that I cam back and bought a new 2009 Jetta TDI. BIG MISTAKE!!!
The breaking point (amongst many other issue I had including bad oil changes at 10k and 20k, and a DSG transmission recall) was when it died at 24k miles on the highway and VW tried to reneg on the warranty and claim it was my fault (Google: 2009 TDI HPFP). After writing letters to the BBB, the FTC, the NTHSA, and the MD Attorney Generals office, VW of America agreed to repair under warranty. It took a week for the repairs to be completed. I got the car on a Friday afternoon, and had it traded in for my Prius the next day.
There were (are) many speculations as to why the fuel pumps are shredding internally, but the best so far is that the ULtra Low Sulfer Diesel we inport does not provide sufficient lubricity and thus the metal to metal grinding in the fuel system. Funny thing is that VW will void your warranty if you use any additives.
I guess I never learned the lessons of my parents. My mom bought a new VW 411 SW in the 70's plagued with problems. FF to 2009, and I did the same thing...LOL

[uart]

Originally Posted by Bob Allen

2. A barrell of oil, according to one respondent, produces twice as much gasoline as diesel. If true, this makes the whole oil usage equation look different from simply comparing mileage.
Bob

Hi Bob. That one is kind of a misleading half truth.

It's true to the extent that if you simply refine crude into it's various fractions you get about 45% (of original crude volume) as gasoline and about half that much (23%) as diesel - with the remaining percentage being other heavier and other lighter fractions.

Once upon a time that's how crude was refined, but not any more. Today the refining processes can pretty much make all gasoline, or all diesel, or whatever fraction is desired by the chemical processes of "cracking" and "polymerization".

You still do get at little bit more gasoline than diesel from a given amount of crude though, but it's only like about 15% to 20% more.

[Corwyn]

Originally Posted by uart

Hi Bob. That one is kind of a misleading half truth.

It's true to the extent that if you simply refine crude into it's various fractions you get about 45% (of original crude volume) as gasoline and about half that much (23%) as diesel - with the remaining percentage being other heavier and other lighter fractions.

From a oil-importing is bad, and from a CO2 release is bad, standpoint, it is also largely irrelevant. You still need to import the whole thing (crude), and you still end up burning all the burnable fractions.

The price will, of course, fluctuate based on the respective demand of each type. If the price differential gets too great, refineries will change the mix they produce. But, my understanding is that doing so is a huge engineering issue, and they are only going to do it for large long term differentials (e.g. they seem fine with 30 cents per gallon either way).

[SpikeVFR]

I thought the amount of diesel vs. gas you got out of a barrell was different based on your refining method, no? That the refining method we primarily use in the states yeilds a higher gas volume while the method that is used most often in Europe yeilds a higher diesel volume.

Originally Posted by uart

Hi Bob. That one is kind of a misleading half truth.

It's true to the extent that if you simply refine crude into it's various fractions you get about 45% (of original crude volume) as gasoline and about half that much (23%) as diesel - with the remaining percentage being other heavier and other lighter fractions.

Once upon a time that's how crude was refined, but not any more. Today the refining processes can pretty much make all gasoline, or all diesel, or whatever fraction is desired by the chemical processes of "cracking" and "polymerization".

You still do get at little bit more gasoline than diesel from a given amount of crude though, but it's only like about 15% to 20% more.

[xs650]

Originally Posted by SpikeVFR

I thought the amount of diesel vs. gas you got out of a barrell was different based on your refining method, no? That the refining method we primarily use in the states yeilds a higher gas volume while the method that is used most often in Europe yeilds a higher diesel volume.

Yes it can be and Uart alluded to that

It's true to the extent that if you simply refine crude

You can go beyond simply splitting out the factions and torture the factions into another configuration

[usbseawolf2000]

Originally Posted by johnmaci

After writing letters to the BBB, the FTC, the NTHSA, and the MD Attorney Generals office, VW of America agreed to repair under warranty. It took a week for the repairs to be completed. I got the car on a Friday afternoon, and had it traded in for my Prius the next day.

Thanks for a personal story. No car is perfect. The difference is, Toyota initiate the recall voluntarily and do it for free with no hassle.

[edthefox5]

Originally Posted by Bob Allen

Hi all: My thanks to all of you who responded and may respond in the future, to this little query on my part about Prius owners crossing over and going to the biodiesel side.

Too bad because imho VW's have the best styling and handling.
But when they start having problems there a nightmare.