7 ms·

An Audi A2 diesel does that, with four doors, so does the VW lupo 1.2 diesel. Perhaps they need to re-brand diesel in the USA? They could call it "heavy-oil, a

An Audi A2 diesel does that, with four doors, so does the VW lupo 1.2 diesel. Perhaps they need to re-brand diesel in the USA? They could call it "heavy-oil, a real MAN's fuel" !

sp332 14y ago
Diesel has been tainted for at least a generation by memories of the black soot and foul stench of 18-wheelers in summer. Diesel exhaust filters have improved dramatically in the last 10 years or so, but everyone that's currently 25+ remembers diesel being extremely unpleasant.
- ImprovedSilence 14y ago
  That's changing though. I can count four friends that have bought a VW diesel in the past 2 years. They all love them. They all also happen to be 32 or under. I think the age range of bad memories of diesel is probably 35+.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    +1. I bought a Golf TDI 2 months ago, and couldn't be happier. I'm getting "only" 35mpg overall, but that's just because with a great chassis setup and lots of torque it's hard to keep your right foot out of it. It's that near-impossible combination - an economy car that's actually a blast to drive. Great highway cruiser too - nice to only be turning ~2200 RPM at 70, and getting 45 mpg while doing it.
    - sp332 14y ago
      I know what you mean :) I've got a gasoline(petrol) Mini Cooper S, and even with a heavy foot and occasional turbo-assisted fun I'm averaging 36 MPG.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - darklajid 14y ago
      My last company car was 'pick yourself' - and I got a Golf GTD (I'm not sure if it's sold outside of DE). It's a little less of an economy car than the TDI, but .. it handles the Autobahn quite nicely. I came from an Audi A3 and couldn't complain about the overall quality. Going back to DE soon I might go for exactly the same thing again.
      - TylerE 14y ago
        US Spec TDI is a bit closer to the GTD. Engine is only 140HP, and we don't get the fancy trim bits, but we DO get the sport suspension, which is a big part of why it's fun to drive. I think it's softened slightly from GTI/GTD spec, but not by much. I'd love to have had the option of getting a GTD though...but it's kind of insane how poorly the Golf sells here... only sell about 15k of them a year, in the whole US. As of right now about 60% of those are TDIs. NB: That's not counting GTI or Golf R sales...in the US VW treats those as separate models, not trim levels.
  - swombat 14y ago
    Add another one (well, I'm not a friend). Bought a 2007 VW Passat, Diesel. Very happy with it. Oh yeah, and I'm 32.
  - schwit61 14y ago
    I got the 2dr TDI Golf in early December. I'm 50 and this car is the most practical I've ever had.
  - efsavage 14y ago
    I think you're about right. I'm 35, and remember many times as a youngster being stuck at traffic lights behind stank-ass Mercedes diesel cars. It's been a long time since I've seen/smelled one of those though.
- protomyth 14y ago
  Agreed, plus the pain-in-the-butt Diesel engines were to start in the winter up north. All those memories are tough to shake. I was going to buy a diesel for my next vehicle, but I cannot find anything outside of Volkswagen and I am not buying one of those[1]. I do believe the other side of the problem is that their are not many diesels to buy. [1] poor build quality (door handles broke off) and obscene repair prices ($300 to change headlight - not user serviceable) on my friends VW bug. It had worse build quality than my 2008 Chevy Cavalier and that's saying something.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    The Beetle is hands down the worst mainstream car ever made in my opinion (and the opinion of many others). It's what happens when you design a product for a "lifestyle" and not a purpose.
  - joshu 14y ago
    An important lesson here: It takes forever and ever for a brand to recover credibility. One sufficiently bad experience and protomyth will probably never even consider a VW again.
    - protomyth 14y ago
      If it was only how sucky the car was, I might forgive, but the people my friend had to deal with and their basic philosophy was just beyond the pale. It was like they were drooling every time he brought it in and nothing was warranty work. My 2008 Cavalier was a POS. The 1994 one we had was amazing, that's why I bought the 2008 model. The dealer service center was awful[1], but I took it to another dealer ship. They were amazing and fixed everything. Car made it to 268,000 miles before I gave it to my uncle. Only problem is that they got closed by GM and the bad dealership stayed. [1] bring car in for 8:00AM appointment for 4th recall. Told it needed to be there by 7:00AM. Got it there at 6:35AM. Told it would be done at noon. Finally was allowed to pick it up at 11:45PM. GM called for a followup and I told them the whole story. Dealer called me the next day and was very upset that I told GM the truth.
morsch 14y ago
A modified Renault Twingo did it more than 15 years ago, without any particularly high tech parts, and running on gasoline instead of diesel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmILE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmILE Running on gasoline is significant because diesel has a higher energy density per volume.
drbawb 14y ago
In my experience: "real men" like diesel just fine here in America. So long as it's bolted to an F150 frame and can tow your whole house, and also your neighbors house, and his garage, with two Toyota Prius' parked inside.
- freehunter 14y ago
  I'm still disappointed that Toyota doesn't make their diesel trucks available in the US. I would kill to have a diesel in my 4Runner (before they made the 4Runner covered in plastic and less capable). 35MPG and torque from here to the moon... why Toyota? Why?
  - golgo13 14y ago
    Same with my FJ. Why can't we have a diesel FJ Cruiser? Diesel seems like a natural fit for the FJ.
- protomyth 14y ago
  It's worse. I looked on Ford's website a while ago, the F150 isn't available in diesel anymore. You need the bigger F250. To be fair, around the rural areas, a lot of farmer's have diesel tanks and buy that in bulk.
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    Although of course all farmers are very careful to never use the subsidized/untaxed agricultural diesel in their road vehicle.
    - protomyth 14y ago
      Since the dye is detectable for years and most folks know each other, they tend to avoid criminal activity. If you are already buying bulk for the combine, you might as well get another delivery for the trucks. It tends to waste a tad bit of fuel driving into town and filling up for no good reason.
drone 14y ago
That would be great, if these cars were actually in production. Only the Lupo has been replaced, by the Up!, which only gets 52mpg (US).
zurn 14y ago
It's worse fuel economy though, since diesel has much higher energy content (and co2 emissions) per volume than petrol. You shouldn't compare petrol MPG vs diesel MPG.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  You pay per volume not per joule so you should compare petrol MP$ to Diesel MP$

An Audi A2 diesel does that, with four doors, so does the VW lupo 1.2 diesel. Perhaps they need to re-brand diesel in the USA? They could call it "heavy-oil, a real MAN's fuel" !

sp332 14y ago

Diesel has been tainted for at least a generation by memories of the black soot and foul stench of 18-wheelers in summer. Diesel exhaust filters have improved dramatically in the last 10 years or so, but everyone that's currently 25+ remembers diesel being extremely unpleasant.

ImprovedSilence 14y ago
That's changing though. I can count four friends that have bought a VW diesel in the past 2 years. They all love them. They all also happen to be 32 or under. I think the age range of bad memories of diesel is probably 35+.
- TylerE 14y ago
  +1. I bought a Golf TDI 2 months ago, and couldn't be happier. I'm getting "only" 35mpg overall, but that's just because with a great chassis setup and lots of torque it's hard to keep your right foot out of it. It's that near-impossible combination - an economy car that's actually a blast to drive. Great highway cruiser too - nice to only be turning ~2200 RPM at 70, and getting 45 mpg while doing it.
  - sp332 14y ago
    I know what you mean :) I've got a gasoline(petrol) Mini Cooper S, and even with a heavy foot and occasional turbo-assisted fun I'm averaging 36 MPG.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - darklajid 14y ago
    My last company car was 'pick yourself' - and I got a Golf GTD (I'm not sure if it's sold outside of DE). It's a little less of an economy car than the TDI, but .. it handles the Autobahn quite nicely. I came from an Audi A3 and couldn't complain about the overall quality. Going back to DE soon I might go for exactly the same thing again.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      US Spec TDI is a bit closer to the GTD. Engine is only 140HP, and we don't get the fancy trim bits, but we DO get the sport suspension, which is a big part of why it's fun to drive. I think it's softened slightly from GTI/GTD spec, but not by much. I'd love to have had the option of getting a GTD though...but it's kind of insane how poorly the Golf sells here... only sell about 15k of them a year, in the whole US. As of right now about 60% of those are TDIs. NB: That's not counting GTI or Golf R sales...in the US VW treats those as separate models, not trim levels.
- swombat 14y ago
  Add another one (well, I'm not a friend). Bought a 2007 VW Passat, Diesel. Very happy with it. Oh yeah, and I'm 32.
- schwit61 14y ago
  I got the 2dr TDI Golf in early December. I'm 50 and this car is the most practical I've ever had.
- efsavage 14y ago
  I think you're about right. I'm 35, and remember many times as a youngster being stuck at traffic lights behind stank-ass Mercedes diesel cars. It's been a long time since I've seen/smelled one of those though.
protomyth 14y ago
Agreed, plus the pain-in-the-butt Diesel engines were to start in the winter up north. All those memories are tough to shake. I was going to buy a diesel for my next vehicle, but I cannot find anything outside of Volkswagen and I am not buying one of those[1]. I do believe the other side of the problem is that their are not many diesels to buy. [1] poor build quality (door handles broke off) and obscene repair prices ($300 to change headlight - not user serviceable) on my friends VW bug. It had worse build quality than my 2008 Chevy Cavalier and that's saying something.
- freehunter 14y ago
  The Beetle is hands down the worst mainstream car ever made in my opinion (and the opinion of many others). It's what happens when you design a product for a "lifestyle" and not a purpose.
- joshu 14y ago
  An important lesson here: It takes forever and ever for a brand to recover credibility. One sufficiently bad experience and protomyth will probably never even consider a VW again.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    If it was only how sucky the car was, I might forgive, but the people my friend had to deal with and their basic philosophy was just beyond the pale. It was like they were drooling every time he brought it in and nothing was warranty work. My 2008 Cavalier was a POS. The 1994 one we had was amazing, that's why I bought the 2008 model. The dealer service center was awful[1], but I took it to another dealer ship. They were amazing and fixed everything. Car made it to 268,000 miles before I gave it to my uncle. Only problem is that they got closed by GM and the bad dealership stayed. [1] bring car in for 8:00AM appointment for 4th recall. Told it needed to be there by 7:00AM. Got it there at 6:35AM. Told it would be done at noon. Finally was allowed to pick it up at 11:45PM. GM called for a followup and I told them the whole story. Dealer called me the next day and was very upset that I told GM the truth.

morsch 14y ago

A modified Renault Twingo did it more than 15 years ago, without any particularly high tech parts, and running on gasoline instead of diesel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmILE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmILE Running on gasoline is significant because diesel has a higher energy density per volume.

drbawb 14y ago

In my experience: "real men" like diesel just fine here in America. So long as it's bolted to an F150 frame and can tow your whole house, and also your neighbors house, and his garage, with two Toyota Prius' parked inside.

freehunter 14y ago
I'm still disappointed that Toyota doesn't make their diesel trucks available in the US. I would kill to have a diesel in my 4Runner (before they made the 4Runner covered in plastic and less capable). 35MPG and torque from here to the moon... why Toyota? Why?
- golgo13 14y ago
  Same with my FJ. Why can't we have a diesel FJ Cruiser? Diesel seems like a natural fit for the FJ.
protomyth 14y ago
It's worse. I looked on Ford's website a while ago, the F150 isn't available in diesel anymore. You need the bigger F250. To be fair, around the rural areas, a lot of farmer's have diesel tanks and buy that in bulk.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  Although of course all farmers are very careful to never use the subsidized/untaxed agricultural diesel in their road vehicle.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    Since the dye is detectable for years and most folks know each other, they tend to avoid criminal activity. If you are already buying bulk for the combine, you might as well get another delivery for the trucks. It tends to waste a tad bit of fuel driving into town and filling up for no good reason.

drone 14y ago

That would be great, if these cars were actually in production. Only the Lupo has been replaced, by the Up!, which only gets 52mpg (US).

zurn 14y ago

It's worse fuel economy though, since diesel has much higher energy content (and co2 emissions) per volume than petrol. You shouldn't compare petrol MPG vs diesel MPG.

excuse-me 14y ago
You pay per volume not per joule so you should compare petrol MP$ to Diesel MP$