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The first 100,000 miles indeed were pretty seamless. Had the 100,000 miles TB/WP change and VAG.com computer tune up. Compared to say 20 used timing belts I have seen, I am swagging mine could have easily gone another 50,000 miles. I have yet to get an alignment,, still have the original tires, brakes, rotors, springs, shocks and struts. I brought in the car to the dealer for 2 TSB's 1. rear lock door pin part change from plastic to metal 2. center rear brake light switch change (took 15 min but I stayed 45 min to look at new cars in the showroom) I am on a 20,000 to 25,000 miles OCI's, after OCI's of 5,000 miles and 5,0000 miles more (at mile 10,000) and 10,000 miles OCI's till 40,000 miles.
So all you "anti folks" should really get behind reversing globalization as globalization is IMPOSSIBLE without airplanes, shipping, etc. Here is an easy one, can you imagine NYC, the mass transportation friendly city, without nexus/access to any of the aero ports or shipping? Now ban cars on city streets? Before you attribute this to a wacko immagination, remember this was proposed in the not to distant past for so called SUV's by New York's leadership.
WHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG???
According to the NYC Taxicab commission the average NYC taxicab does 100,000 miles in a year!!! So why not so called alternative fuels, CNG, made to IDLE: hybrids, etc,.
NEXT test: what real MEASURED and THEN statistically correlated difference/s would that really make??? Will it stand up to scientific scrutiny? Once the entire NYC fleet is converted, (which will probably not happen), a short term study and its published results is easily 5 years after total/partial conversion and experiments set up. My swag is that it the differences would not even be MEASURABLE, LET ALONE correlated.
According to the above reference, this is no small mileage as there are 13,087 Medallion cabs. * 100,000 miles average. 1.3187 Billion miles per year!?????? I am sure a huge amount is that ultra consumptive idle mode?
So again, why have they waited easily 7 years (2001 Hybrid model) which could have easily clicked 9.23 Billion hybrid or nat gas and or both miles!!?? Guess it is not as important as other things?
Now you have to admit that a population of 13,087 hybrids going 9.23B miles would be a good sub set to base both measurable and whether or not it is statisitically significant. This is not to mention exponentially multple datas in which a LOT of things could have been concluded or NOT ?
Pretty interesting that the real measure is the comparison of the durability, reliability, etc,etc, and cost of a FORD Crowne Victoria!! V-8 no less.
Again, not real rocket science: build it like a checker cab or in the worst case build it like a Ford Crown Victoria.
1.3187 B miles/15/48 mpg= 86.7 M gals-27 M gals= 59.7 M gals SAVED* $3 per gal =179,100,000 dollars!!!!!/7 years= 25,585,714 per year!!!
So if the REASON for operating and driving 13,087 cabs is to at one level, PROFIT, what business would not do with a $179,100,000 PROFIT !!!!1????? This would literally defy description!!!??
However, what it does NOT hide, is the lack of cost effectiveness !!!!!! When you really get down to it, fuel savings is app 2,000 dollars per car, over the 100,000 miles per year average
The question will be, is Ford willing to put the small diesel destined for the F150 into the Crown Vic fleet car for taxi/livery buyers.
kcram - Pickups Host
Been reading my mind?
So being as how the F150 is really made for "heavy duty" applications. It makes a lot of sense that it woud be the heir apparent.
I always wonderd WHY the pickup-truck diesel engines were marked in this way.... perhaps this is a good time to ask if anyone knows why? (I assume there is some kind of federal safety specification that these engines do not meet)
I would agree that hours is NOT a commonly used metric.
Also I think it might be a matter of perspective. For example, why change it every 25,000 miles when 3,000-4,000 miles will do. :shades:
Only people that get paied to change your oil still recommend this ludricrusly low OCI (Oil Change Interval)
Todays modern diesel-engine oils have been shown to easilly be able to handle 15,000 miles. (using regular oil-testing in a labratory) Engines which use micro-filtration systems can easilly DOUBLE this OCI to well over 30,000 miles.
In fact, the same lab-testing has shown that MORE wear-materials are present during the 1st 3,000 miles after changing the oil. This means that changing the oil every 3,000 miles is actually causing MORE wear than leaving it in the crankcase and allowing the oil to do the job it is intended to perform.
Dont take my word for it... please, by all means do your own research on how far oil-technology has progressed in the past 10-15 years.
Let's illustrate with a VW Jetta TDI having an industrial life specification of 25,000 hours with 85% loading.
Indeed hourly operation is an intergral part of the algorithm of almost any/all oem .$10-25 dollar OLM's. It is just not commonly display in such stark, easy to understand terms. I have seen variations (by which you can triangulate back) on the Z06 which has a computer which displays cummulative mph. This calculation would be impossible without an engine hours on measurement.
So for example: a TDI has 100,000 miles, most gasser folks eyes will just start to glaze over due to "high to excessive mileage" . Indeed some to most would wonder why the vehicle was not long since sold as a used old car. So let us use an average speed of 50 and 25 mph, * 25,000 miles, the range is between 1,250,000 to 625,000 miles. So a TDI with 100,000 miles has operated between 2,000 to 4,000 hours. :surprise:
Let me also mention that diesel passenger vehicle operation is no where near 85% loading. This of course implies the numbers are very conservative.
So for example, in 100,000 miles, the TDI @ average of 45 mpg has used 2,223 gals. The 1.8T/2.0 like model Jetta gasser engine @ 29 mpg would have use 3,448 gals, or 1,225 gals (SAVED). At 45 mpg, that means I could go 55,125 MORE MILES for the fuel used in a like model gasser in 100,000 miles : VS a grand total of 155,125 DIESEL miles.
IS this HUGE or is it small!?
So what does/would that mean in the " fuel used" metric?
I can surmise some of points I and you would made in the full range of what that means to me (and probably you), but a wider audience response would probably be... BUT...AND your point being?.....
To me, the numbers are literally over whelming. I am indeed surprised the only one to respond to: " why change oil at 25,000 miles when 3,000/4,000 will do", was a person who sees the advantage of diesel passenger cars. If one goes to the Toyota topics on this site, almost everyone is narcotized by the 5,000 OCI Toyota OEM recommendation, with dealers selling the 3,000 miles OCI to so called "prevent sludge". Seems like the oem is a MASTER at using reasonable doubt in the marketing of the products.
... On the bigboys using the total amount of fuel through the engine in their dyno cells; it is a way of seeing the results of all loads during the test program.
Unless the engine has been gussied up for city use, then you are condemning it to a short life.
If anything, it would make me think.... not worth the effort. Now that is from someone who is in THAT minority position!!?? ( as I run a diesel passenger car. (less than 3% of a registered passenger vehicle fleet of 235.4 M).
So for example, to ME what you are saying is what I try to do. I operate the turbo diesel in its "sweet spot": a specific RPM range. Who else would care but me?
Indeed, something sound bite able like: "RUG to PUG is a minimum of 2x DIRTIER than ULSD" ; makes most gasser folks shell shocked when you state the truth. RUG to PUG @ 30 ppm sulfur vs ULSD @ 15 ppm or LESS. This of course means RUG to PUG is a minimum of 2x DIRTIER than ULSD !!!???
I have seen some diesel-electric hybrid buses but they are the assist type of hybrid, not the Prius type of hybrid, appear in the local Ride-On bus system. There are also some buses powered by CNG, but from what I have heard, they might be a bit cleaner than diesel, but cost more to run and emit as much NOx as a diesel bus.
As to the amount of sulfur found in fuel, one a one-to-one basis, the difference in the production of oxides of sulfur will remain less with diesel, even if both fuels contained 30 PPM of sulfur or 15 PPM of sulfur. Diesel has that 30% to 40% advantage in FE, so that alone will make a difference. What makes a gasser so easy to clean-up is that the air:fuel ratio is the same no matter what the engine is doing. That is also it's achilles heel. On the other hand, diesels vary the amount of fuel based on the load that is placed on them, thus their advantage. Since diesels are lean burn engines, it is the high temperatures of the combustion process and the lack of unburned HC that make them so hard to clean up.
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This statement comes up regularly here, but has been inaccurate for many years. The city bus fleets in the US are almost all run on CNG, not on diesel. The US's, and I believe the worlds largest bus fleet, Los Angeles, runs on CNG only. More than 90% of the US fleet is CNG. The remaining diesel's are virtually all Hi Tech, modern types. Some school districts remain with the spewers, but those are fast disappearing as well.
New York MTA (NYC Transit and MTA Bus divisions): 5800 total buses, 617 of which are CNG - 10.6%
New Jersey Transit: 3100 total buses, 76 CNG = 2.5%
Use of CNG has been a political decision as much as an environmental one. Transit authorities are discovering that, after the big push on CNG in the 90s, operating costs were higher with CNG, and many have reconsidered to clean diesel and diesel-electric.
NJT has used ULSD exclusively for about 5 years in buses and rail locomotives, and is also running a biodiesel test right now (using both manufactured biodiesel and waste vegetable oil formulas) in their bus fleet, and results are expected later this year.
That said... again, let's not stray too far away from Edmunds' focus of consumer vehicles.
kcram - Pickups Host
My post was in response to others posting about mass transit, not a new thread. Your numbers are in significant contrast with other sources.
These buses use the same IH made engine as the super dutys do?
This so globalized shipping, air travel, all forms of farm, industry, construction, mass tranportation tractor trailer use etc etc are what you come up against in the efforts (regulations as reflected by attitudes, to out right banning of the sales of new passenger car diesels, etc etc) against clean diesel.
The above should read:
In short, they show the utter disengenuousness of the regulations, which (again to only give a sound sentence) ALLOW the (long time emitters) use of exponentially greater (5000) ppm sulfur fuels AND are literally totally unmitigated and regulated by allowing almost NO REGULATION
and literally ban to severely limit clean diesel
which is exponentially lower in (0-15 ppm) ppm sulfur AND mitigated.
LA transit authority has 2496 buses with only 150 that are diesel The real kicker is fare revenue pays less than 11% of the cost to operate the MTA system. Is NY & NJ mass transit that much beholden to the car driving taxpayers?
http://www.metro.net/news_info/facts.htm
It would be cheaper to give each of those riders a Smart diesel ForTwo. Or maybe a bicycle.
What is also missing is any longitudinal study documenting gathering data and measuring and statisitcally validating the effects of the conversion of unmitigated diesel vs CNG !!??? . Indeed despite the conversion, the pollution rehetoric is exponentially greater!?????
This begs the question, if CNG is such a good application, why for example in the LA area are not more CNG passenger cars being offered??, ( SANS the advertised in Edmunds.com , 2000 each CNG Honda (FCX? aka Civic?) model?
New York Transit has purchased over 500 CNG vehicles, with more in the planning stages. It also uses diesel/electric hybrids.
This can generate a HUGE source of policy options. At the cost of no new footprint construction, convert and /or require ( new construct mandatory) those buildings (aka, ALL) to modular (to be able to implement efficiency changes) solar energy generators (roof, sides, poles, parking lots) . Now EVERY consumer site has the ability to be a generator and consumer to net net net generator of energy. We would be literally up to our eyeballs in....energy.
As for the bio diesel, there are plenty of adaptable on going proceses, which can in effect convert parts of the process to bio diesel, as a energy product. Indeed the municipal garbage dump, City of Berkeley, CA which saw and TURNED (from) the waste stream production, an annual production of app 40.000 gals of marketable bio diesel. All they had to do was to overcome their own more than onererous regulatory rules against permitting an outlet ;to sell these former "waste" products. Name me a place of human habitation (some others where humans do not habitate also) that does not have a "waste" stream.
Sounds like a good case for private vehicles.
kcram - Pickups Host
So what do you think that does with the embracement of GLOBALIZATION?
But on a deeper level and indeed these are policies which cities follow, a city makes the regulations where road use is almost mandatory. On the west coast, for example most follow the 80 % business 20% residents model. You can almost judge a municipalities health by that metric. Cities literally ignore it at their peril.
So that one can visualize this, how many folks on this thread can say they can walk less than 1 mile to their place of work, business activities, etc from their residence!? Or live and work in the same municipality. On the other hand what do you think that would do to public transportation if in one example there is less than 11% of fare box recovery with a modest goal of par?
We could trim the cost of owning a vehicle just a little if we were allowed to buy small diesel cars and trucks. I do think the car buyer pays a bigger part of the total cost than the guy riding a bus. If we all abandoned our cars as some would have it there would be NO ONE to subsidize the mass transit.
This is very catchy, but I would like to see solid support for that assertion:
1. Percentage of all taxpayers who are car owners
2. The amount of tax they pay vs. the amount of tax paid by non-car owners
3. Percentage of road/transportation infrastructure that those car-owning taxpayers support.
I will venture a guess that a good portion of city dwellers who do not own cars at all are in fact deadbeats who pay little tax if any, and so they do not support anyone's transportation infrastructure. If that is the case, then it is the car owners who bear the cost of operating a car, be it through direct fees or indirectly through their own taxes.
There is a good politics thread for all you good folks. So we don't get shut down here.
gagrice, "Politics" #1031, 8 Jan 2008 5:44 pm
If CA is any example, the quote is almost TOTALLY pollyanish! Indeed that state is FAR from being alone!!??
(NO offense intended)
The CA State legislature has been for literally decades and continues to use the transportations funds as a petty cash (from the general) fund (aka, a billion here, a billion there) . Indeed folks who want to do bonds, etc. have to specfically say to the voters that the money will ONLY be used for transportation issues. Once the bonds or other monies are passed however, the temptations and the powers are overwhemingly in favor of continuely using (VOTED) transportation funds ( a huge % ) for "OTHER THAN" transportation issues, even when they are SPECIFICALLY earmarked.