What Would It Take for YOU to buy a diesel car?

xwesx

Sounds like a great deal! Maybe in five or six years, those new X5 diesels will come down into my price range.... :blush:

habitat1

We considered the ML350 BlueTEC pretty seriously, as it's already been redesigned for 2012 and the X5 is heading into a redesign next year.

MB does not have any kind of "Eco-credit", making it $1,500 more expensive than the gas version, but it's still fairly close to the X5d's bottom line......except if you decide to order the MB dynamic handling package at $5,150. And unfortunately, spending that extra $5k is the only way to get the Mercedes to approach the BMW in handling. That was not a big deal for my wife, but I do most of the highway driving on long trips and am very glad she preferred the BMW for other reasons.

As for the BMW Performance Center Delivery pick up, that is an extraordinary experience that is "priceless". We are definitely sending my 17 year old daughter to their teen driving class next summer to get a longer version of what I got a taste for in 2-3 hours on the track with real professionals.

ateixeira

will be slipping him a nice Christmas bonus to sneak an M 5.0d engine into our next X5

Hysterical.

stever

What restaurant? The Moose's Tooth in Anchorage is still booming per my Seward friend just now.

Re Yukons in the YT, you'd think so but it's not necessarily true that everyone up north drives trucks. Besides looking at Xwesx's new car, the abundance of little econbox cars in Anchorage surprised me when I moved there.

Er, have two friends both moving to the Bethel AK area, and neither are talking about buying a diesel. One will probably settle for an ATV since they'll be in a village and the other may ship her Chrysler out there. Her AC just died down Port Huron MI so she just had it bypassed. Wouldn't need it anyway.

gagrice

It was the Great Bear Brewing company next to the Mocha Moose in Wasilla that went belly up. Management problems mainly. Oil field is still doing well from what I hear. Wages suck compared to the past. Then that is true where ever you are in the USA it would seem.

Your friends must have gotten a lucrative teaching contract to move to Bethel. One of the many places in AK I never got to or cared about going to.
When I retired in 2006 diesel in the two villages I spent time in was $7 per gallon. Had to be brought in by barge in the summer or tanker aircraft in the winter.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-great-bear-brewing-co-wasilla

stever

One's teaching; other is social working. The latter is making lots more than the teacher apparently. Like over $100k easy. Can't find current diesel price out there; regular gas price in Bethel, AK is $5.85, which is $2.03 higher than U.S. national average. We visited other friends out there back in the 80s for the Kusko 300 dog race, not sure if we're going back again some day. Maybe if one of our friends gets me a job there. Could even justify shipping a TDi out there to drive up and down the river ice road. If it cranked. :-)

fintail

100K for a social worker? Sounds like a nice racket, taxes must be huge there (or it is another state that takes in more than it pays out)...at that income level, they could just drive a nice S-class diesel 4Matic for an in-town car, and get something sensible like a diesel ML or Q7 or something similarly pricey for trips.

stever

28% tax bracket for sure, but that's just federal. No state taxes to speak of and AK gives you the PFD as well. But the longest summer road is probably 20 miles long and you don't want to drive anything "nice" out there. The base pay is upped like 3 ranges to make up for the high cost of living.

I think Gary is wrong about barging in the diesel fuel out there. When they get desperate, I think they may fly some in. :shades:

xwesx

Yeah; $100K in Bethel is probably the equivalent to $70K or so in Fairbanks (in terms of buying power) which is probably closer to $50K in many areas in America (lower 48).

gagrice

No state income tax and my guess is housing is provided for next to nothing by the state or local government. Biggest expense in the villages is food. I don't think there are any paved roads in Bethel. Not the ideal location for a big sedan. PU trucks, SUVs, snowmachines and quads.

I am not sure I would trust AK bush diesel in a modern diesel engine.From what I saw people just run vehicles to the quit and park them. Once they are in the village the cost to fly them out is prohibitive. Usually someone will buy and just keep them running. Warranty is non existent in those villages.

stever

The teacher gets a housing stipend, the other gets nothing.

I'd just rely on a cab myself. Tons of them in the bush towns. "With 93 taxi drivers, [Bethel] has more cab drivers per capita than any other city in the country, making it the unlikely taxicab capital of the United States." (Wiki)

If it's like Barrow, most of them are probably gasser CR-Vs.

gagrice

Just googled Bethel. It does have paved roads now. When I first went to work for RCA in 1970, they were getting communications into the villages. I got the less remote sites being senior tech. Bethel was considered the wildest place in AK to go. One of the few villages where alcohol was sold. Not sure if that is still the case. Most Eskimo villages have outlawed the sale.

gagrice

It looks like Bethel being the regional center for 50 some small villages, it has expanded a lot.. One of the techs got shot at in a bar there and refused to go finish the job. Wild West kind of place.

stever

Damp. No bars but you can fly it in. But yeah, alcohol is still a huge problem up there everywhere.

On the bright side, you could probably run your diesel rig on Everclear.

fintail

Oh, I assumed the place was more developed. A diesel truck would be the best bet there, then. Preferably not brand new.

stever

Well, it's a bigger town than I live in, but I can drive out of town.

I dunno about the fuel out there. You'd want the lowest common denominator, and that may be regular unleaded. Whatever they sell the most of. Snowmachines and ATVs probably outnumber cars and trucks ten to one, and I think most of them burn unleaded these days.

gagrice

I would guess any fuel is pretty old by the end of the winter season. That is all frozen in until probably June. The older the vehicle the less picky it will be. We had some old trucks in the villages. They did not get used a lot so were ok. It looks like they outlawed the sale of liquor in 1977 and opened it back up in 2009. Barrow would vote it in and out every couple years. When the drunks sobered up and realized they had been voted down. it was smuggling time until they passed damp laws again. Still no open sale of alcohol at least in the Arctic villages. The Public safety officers would search luggage when known smugglers flew into the villages.

PS
They would search out luggage. We knew it would be the end of our job and did not take the chance.

ruking1

There is much to be said about getting a 1 year old to 5 year old car. MINUS - 44% (for discussion purposes) after 5 years can be a pretty hefty discount.

xwesx

True. The one pitfall is that more often than not, you just don't know its history. A car treated poorly (especially in the maintenance realm) for five years will dump all its woes on you.

I'll pay a premium for a car with a known (and good) maintenance history, even if that car is seemingly identical to the next one. Likewise, I'll always offer less on a car who's history is unknown even if it looks "excellent" on the surface.

ruking1

Any (assuming you have any number of go to indy's, mechanics, etc) can flesh out the over all condition and potential issues for ANY car you are considering. They will charge you for the shop time needed to do the inspection. An anecdotal example, mine will do the inspections FREE. Further If anything, they are happy to detail the issues, as if you buy the car in question, they have a shot at doing some to all of the work. Unless the PO was abusive to the car, it presents the new potential owner an opportunity.

xwesx

That's true. I'd still ding the PO for lack of maintenance records, as the shop isn't going to catch everything that might crop up (especially if it hasn't started "cropping" already).

Case in point: My local Subaru dealer did an inspection on my Forester a few weeks ago as part of a warranty item being addressed, and part of the notations indicated that my manual transmission's fluid needed to be changed. I let the gal at the counter know that I had no faith in that inspection at all given I had just changed the tranny fluid two weeks earlier.... :confuse:

ruking1

I guess you didn't keep good maintenance records ? :P As she obviously didn't see or ignored your documented transmission fluid change?

On a more serious note, A/T and M/T transmission fluid change can be a little bit of a red herring and a lack of oem lack of back bone or advertent or inadvertent cost padding.

I have 3 current cars that specify LIFETIME transmission fluid. The oem specifies the Civic A/T @ 120,000 miles first change and 90,000 miles subsequent. Yet there are no documented studies that a A/T or M/T fluid change actually stopped a transmission break down.

xwesx

That's it.... a red herring. MT fluid that needs changing looks a LOT different than fresh fluid. If my two-week old fluid, with probably 800 miles on it, looked like it needed changing, I have bigger problems than needing a fluid change. As it was, the fluid on the dipstick looked brand new.

So, the tech didn't actually check the fluid - he just assumed it was still factory (even the stuff I changed out wasn't factory) due to the car's mileage (45K) and said, de facto, "it needs to be changed." If I'm basing a car purchase on that kind of thoroughness, how much chance do I have? :surprise:

ruking1

To tell you the truth, with what I have known for any number of years, I could not tell you without UOA's what the status of any oil is. Indeed you can literally change diesel engine oil and run it for circulation (no miles) and it (the new oil) will look almost to completely BLACK.

More on nexus with my Civic A/T oil change @ 120,000 miles I could literally tell no difference from the oil that had 120,000 miles and NEW (couple of miles to get it warm and check ITS' dipstick. Now, I know the ace tech changed it, as I WATCHED him.

xwesx

That's very true for engine oil. Not so much for A/T and gear oil, but still is to a lesser extent. For those oils, shear forces are intense and as they age (due to shear) they will change appearance. If your oil at 120K looked so similar to new that you couldn't tell the difference, that's a good sign for the health of your Civic's transmission. It doesn't mean the change was a waste (the fluids don't age linearly), but it also means that it wasn't harming the unit.

When I changed the transmission fluid (AT fluid in a MT unit... strange!) in my '98 Escort at about 125,000 miles, it was the same way - I couldn't visibly tell a difference between the two by color. There was a (very) little particulate in the old fluid. The owner's manual says the fluid is good for the life of the car.

ruking1

Without UOA's I think that changing oils A/T, M/T, etc., on change of ownership is first and foremost a BASELINE type action. It is done in lieu of TRUST but VERIFY (verify being faith in what the PO told you or on your own UOA's. At that, it is almost an OLD SCHOOL hold over. Evidently for your 98 Focus, Ford has seen the light with a LIFETIME transmission fluid.

Being as how this is a diesel thread, 2 VW TDI's also specify lifetime fluid 03 TDI Jetta with 5 speed M/T and 12 TDI Touareg with an Aisin 8 speed A/T.

xwesx

specify lifetime fluid 03 TDI Jetta with 5 speed M/T and 12 TDI Touareg with an Aisin 8 speed A/T.

There you go. Trust but verify is a auditor/accountant's mantra, so I know it well, and it goes as well for used vehicles as it does for manufacturer specifications! One always has to remember that they don't want your car to last "forever," but rather just long enough to get you back for another buy in a handful of years.

ruking1

Short term goal for the first one is 200,000 miles. I am 22,000 miles away. It will be due its 100,000 miles cycle or TB/WP change.

stever

Me too. Probably will take me at least 18 months longer than you to get there though. You're the Vin Diesel of drivers around here (Vin got his nickname "Diesel" from his friends who said he ran off diesel fuel, referring to his non-stop energy, per Wiki).

ruking1

If I had used a like model 03 Jetta 1.8 T @ 27.5 mpg, (per 100,000 miles) I would have used 3,636 gal vs 03 Jetta TDI @ 46.5 mpg @ 2,151 gal (per www.fueleconomy.gov.) or 69% more fuel (x 2 for 200k) . @ todays prices of 4.19 per gal PUG that would also be $6,222 more. @ the time the TDI premium was $236. Edmunds.com lists the 03 used TDI @ 1,819 more or 46% more than the 03 1.8 T.