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Comments
I've never heard of any case where someone had trouble getting bluebook trade-in value on their old TDI, but I am ready to be educated about that - what do ya know for actual cases!!?!
Also, mechanics do NOT check trade-ins with 75k or 100k in detail, not in this area, because they know the car will be going to a wholesaler.
It is a *very* superficial check from what I've seen. Start engine, try a couple gears and dashboard levers. 4 minutes. No inspection on a lift.
I don't recommend selling a used vehicle privately, for multiple reasons including personal safety & scam-ability! anecdote: I've only done it once (1985), and it went great even though the buyer&friends spoke zero words of english. I heard them massively BURN the tires on the firebird test drive, and they were super happy/chattering/excited when they returned.
Another reason to avoid private-sale is in private-sale-lemon-law state like MA where the seller remains responsible for all major repairs for 3 months *after* the sale, or something like that. (Seller pays for the new transmission, or takes the car back with broken-transmission and refunds all the $.) maybe MA is the only state with that law! maybe the law has expired even in MA.
We also have 3 cars but our total is less than half that.
Craigslist Yooper
There's one other diesel passenger car I see in all the UP right now in the ads, an '80 MB 300CD. Everything else is a truck.
You are probably right about diesel demand being great enough to prevent fleet sales here.
Buddy of mine rented a Jag for his wedding, which was nice.
I bet 90% of rentals are sedans and minivans. Then you have the occasional luxury car or convertible. Toss in a rare sports car while you're at it.
http://www.bio-beetle.com/
I was thinking you were renting a car on the European continent. In line with that, I was thinking that 30 mpg in that car at autobahn speeds,... WOW !! And here I was thinking you were floating alone @ 120 mpg +.
Back to reality dreaming. I was reading that one of the US car rental majors will be renting VW Jetta TDI's at a date uncertain.
The best application for hybrids would likely be a car sharing service, like ZipCar. Those tend to be in congested cities where a hybrid would make sense.
Diesel rentals would make a lot of sense for road trips if you're leaving town. A lot of city-dwellers here at work don't own cars, but rent then when they do stuff like that. A guy at work just drove all the way to West Virginia with visitors in a rental.
Now, I have absolutely NOTHING against folks choosing to GO 55 mph (even less as allowed by law), or for that matter getting 12 to 15 mpg. Trucking (commercial and otherwise) is indeed both required to go those speeds AND have been monitored for literally decades (in Europe). So we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, they ( trucking, slower moving vehicles) can and do co exist with (much) higher passenger car speeds. Indeed it has co- existed here also, albeit not so overtly monitored, and lower speed differentials.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/additive/e15/
Get ready for another drop in real-world fuel economy if this becomes widespread.
Older cars could be screwed. Does the fintail require lead additives, or what?
I wonder if E15 premium is closer to normal gasoline regular in terms of efficiency.
Damaging forces applied to the human body are worsened by increased speed during car accidents. The faster you are going, the more damage "stopping" will do to you, the more damage will occur in roll-overs, the more damage will occur when you are ejected.
Speeding itself does not kill.....it's when you CRASH WHEN SPEEDING that the problems occur.
It's physics, not politics.
Worst part is ethanol production is not efficient here. They can't make it cost effective like they can in Brazil, from sugar cane.
Plus ethanol isn't well suited to extreme cold. I remember ethanol-powered cars in Brazil not starting on cold mornings. By cold I mean 65 degrees F.
5K should be able to find a very nice car like that, should you ever be tempted. Insane restoration costs and stodgy styling keep them affordable.
I think it is also fair to say that most of us have probably had far more and probably there are more severe consequences at the 45 mph and under accident scenarios.
Speed too fast for conditions (inappropriate) is acknowledge to be the "cause" in 20%. That is the other hand clapping saying accidents @ speeds perfectly legal is @ 80%.
As of the 2010 model year, the maximum level allowed by the EPA is 0.20 g/bhp-hr for oxides of nitrogen -- an astonishing 95% reduction since 2004. Even more astonishing is the way that many manufacturers were able to meet the tougher standard, by essentially turning air pollution into humid air."
Navistar no longer makes Power Stoke engines for Ford and that's probably a good thing for Ford. Navistar dropped the ball; can't met air quality regs and warranty costs are high.
Navistar's Warranty Woes (Warranty Week)
Naturally, "It all started in California."
It is dumb politics, food got expensive. It has all sorts of adverse side effects. Cheap octane so the oil companies are ok with it, plus consumers use more!
Brazil Discovers How To Increase Employment With Near-Zero Economic Growth
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/06/21/brazil-discovers-how-to-increas- e-employment-with-near-zero-economic-growth/
Problem is there are so many jobs off the books you could only guess anyway.
Still, they have more oil and ethanol than they know what to do with. Sprinkle in cheap labor and voila.
If you ever get a chance to live there one cool thing is they get European cars, not American ones. You also learn British English in school (or French). To get in to college you must be bilingual, even.
Americans are very ego-centric so I've had to adjust quite a bit.
I think it is fair to say there is @ least one standard deviation (12.5%) of folks who are "out of work." So I think if one does the calculations against a known (relatively) quantity, say US population of 307 M folks; unemployment is really 38.375 M folks, unfortunately as a minimum.
The issue which is better kept than states secrets are what are those "REAL" numbers? How many real "jobs" ? The "official" unemployment records are truly rubber rulers. We don't know how many "jobs" that yield the official percentages. It is commonly known a lot of folks still "unemployed" who drop off the grid are no longer officially counted.
So in this age of massive change, (more on topic) diesel cars really make sense. ULSD is @ par to cheaper per gal despite massively more taxation (in CA 15.2% more, aka .69 cents vs 79.5 cents) than RUG or PUG. When you couple that with way better fuel mileage, cheaper cost per mile driven can be A result. In the case of a 09 TDI/2.5 gasser (39.7/25.7 mpg real world) the gasser is 56% more expensive, per mile driven: FUEL to operate.
IF taxation were the same (.69 cents vs .69 cents, instead of 79.5) RUG would be 60% more to operate.
I have an old close friend who has spent much time in Brazil and Colombia. He tells me of driving his friend's Twingo there. Also tells me of the most brutal and corrupt law enforcement he's ever seen, and generally stupefying socio-economic gaps in general. No place is perfect, everything has something looming over them like a sword on a string.
I asked my friend about the car scene there, he says very few highline cars around - makes you a target. Not cool.
In a poor town you'd be mobbed by panhandlers.
The economy has done well lately but few places have a bigger gap between the haves and have nots.
The 2nd biggest Ferrari dealer in the world is in Brazil.
President Collor was corrupt as anyone (we impeached him and he actually had to leave office) but it was an interesting term because he opened up imports, so you saw tons of exotics rolling in. Especially the used market, due to taxing.
Quick, back on topic....uh....
Diesel costs half the price of RUG in Brazil. But it's not the ULS variety.
Due to the endless droning on about elections 2 years before say the 4 year US presidential term is up (6 years), most everyone now understands higher fuel prices are the government's defacto method of taxation. Again it goes beyond "a tax you want to pay" as taxes on diesel affect the whole inner state commerce system as one of our hosts has said from time to time, i.e.., the very food that keeps one alive.
I maintain my driveway better than Caltrans maintains the state highway I use every time I leave my home. Then I get competitive bids and don't have all those over paid people holding a shovel upright.