switch from Prius to Jetta, been done?

I guess I'm not saying anything new, but I've owned 4 VW products over the last 20 years including an Audi A4. After every one I swore to myself that I would never buy another VW product. They nickeled and dimed you to death with minor repairs. On my last Audi just about everything electrical failed in the 5 years I had it.
A second issue is the extra hassle running a car on biodiesel can be. Ask him about the winter fuel blending and conditioning.

Third, when I was shopping for a new car last year VW diesels were only being made at the basic option level. No climate control, no Nav system, very basic cars only. Maybe that has changed.

Taking the religious arguments out of it, the VW will have crisper handling, slightly better acceleration, but it will be a big hassle to keep fueled (especially in the winter) it will have less "goodies" inside, and expect it to be in the shop a lot more.

 

How is this faulty? Crude oil from under the earth is refined into various products, some of which we put in our cars but not in equal proportions. One barrel of crude ends up yielding 19.4 gallons of gasoline along with 9.7 gallons of distallate fuel oils (of which diesel is in this category) and other stuff.

If I consumed 9.7 gallons of diesel and didn't get 2x the mpg as I compared to a gasoline powered car, haven't I consumed more crude oil w/the diesel car?

 

i think we have to realize that bio diesel is not a CO2 even product, but at the same time, if we did nt use it, what would happen to it?? it would go to the landfill. take YEARS to go away. why not use it for something useful. we dont have an abundance of landfill space either.

my across the sidewalk neighbor had a jetta. despite being less than 3 years old, (it had 14,000 miles on it when she moved in here) it was in and out of the shop constantly. she finally got fed up with it, took a bath on a trade in and got a VW bug. she is very happy she did it. she figured, besides losing $10,000 on the trade in, she spent an additional $2-3.000 in estimated lost wages and other expenses, including renting a car to go to her brothers wedding on the other side of the state when the car went tits up on her in the middle of nowhere on the I-90 freeway. that was pretty much the last straw for her

 

Hi Bob,

Gasoline/Electric or Diesel ... how about Diesel/Electric? A diesel engine is a great choice for a hybrid ICE, and Toyota makes some great diesel passenger engines; they just don't sell them in the USA. We have poor diesel fuel in the USA and our emission standards are very hard to meet when burning the poor, high-sulpher grades of diesel available here at the pumps. This is starting to change, so perhaps in a few years Toyota will offer a diesel version of the Prius - then you could have the best of both worlds: biodiesel and hybrid electric.

Diesel automobiles got a bad reputation in this country because the US auto companies did a crappy job of making diesel engines. They tried to quickly convert standard gasoline engine designs over to diesel, and the results were less than poor.

For my money, I'd tell your friend to buy the Prius. Diesel technology is already widely supported and standard diesels will burn biodiesel. Hybrid technology is new and needs to be supported. The two will merge in the future; they already do on train engines.

Tom

 

Sounds like you'll come out on top financially with going for the Jetta... can't beat free fuel for life! However the repairs will probably cut a nice piece of your savings.

For the first time, last year my Jetta cost me $100 per month for service and repairs in it's 6th year. If it keeps at this pace, I'll be more anxious to replace it of course. Otherwise it's a fun car to drive.

How much per year does it cost to maintain a Prius? Including oil changes and services at the dealer?

 

That is just fantastic. My hat is off to both of you.

However, in terms of thermodynamics, I don't think that biodiesel really has a prayer of supporting the vast majority of drivers. The numbers drop when we switch to current sunlight over ancient concentrated sunlight. It's all well and good for a few people to hit up their local restaurants asking for used cooking oil, but how many people can really be sustained by that? Not enough, I think.

IMHO, an electrical grid powered by a cocktail of wind, solar and geothermal with a fleet made primarily of plug-in electric cars is what most of us should be driving in twenty years. Biodiesel will likely be limited to people who absolutely need more powen than an electric motor generally provides. Construction equipment and whatnot. That's why I like the Prius more than biodiesel; the fact that it's a step on the path to pure electric cars.

 

Yep, the General Electric Hybrid Evolution locomotive works differently... The diesel engine doesn't actually turn on or shut off-- It runs all the time the locomotive is in operation. The hybrid part of the engine (salt batteries under the walkways on either side of the engine) is merely for recapturing the energy from braking, though that's nothing to sneeze at considering the amount of energy that can be regenerated by braking an 8,000-ton freight train from 50mph to 0.

Before the hybrid locomotives were developed, diesel-electric locomotives used dynamic braking-- The electric traction motors are spun to generate electricity to slow down the train. The generated electricity cannot be stored, so it's dissipated as heat by a dynamic brake heating grid. The Gevo Hybrid locomotive has the battery packs so that the electricity can be stored for later use.

I would imagine a diesel hybrid car would be similar. The diesel engine doesn't actually shut off while the car is in operation, but it will probably just rev down to idle speeds when the electrical part of the hybrid drivetrain is moving the car.

 

That's the typical YIELD, but crude oil doesn't come out of the ground in those proportions (at least that's my understanding).

According to The Oil Drum | Refining 101: The Assay Essay , there's actually very little naturally-occurring ("straight run") gasoline in crude oil (<< 10%). There's much more naturally-occurring ("straight run") middle distillate (~19% - ~32% depending on crude oil type).

It's my understanding that some middle distillate is "cracked" into gasoline to produce the typical yield of approx 2X as much gasoline as diesel.

As far as biodiesel is concerned, I've been running our 2002 Jetta TDI on B20 for several years. It runs significantly better on B20 than it does on straight petro-diesel. Also I've not experienced the poor reliability that is often mentioned.