Dragaholic

iTrader: (180)

Splitz, a recent discussion concluded that if you want a gas, then get a Corolla, if you want a diesel, get a Jetta, and if you want a hybrid, then get a Prius. Those seem to be the most economical cars out there in each class. Out of the 3, Jetta is by far the best looking car. What car has just as good mileage and looks good on top of it that's a GM?

Brains, my truck gets anywhere between 13-16 in the city depending on how I drive it and between 20-21 purely highway. TDIs get mid to upper 40s with a member here claiming 50. That's 3 times the mileage that my truck gets. Also keep in mind, that I'm not just in the market purely for mileage, it will be used quite often. I'd much rather put the miles on the work car as opposed to on my truck.

pdanrichey

iTrader: (4)

btw drag...they're mocking you as we speak in another thread...just a friendly fyi.

Dragaholic

iTrader: (180)

Its cool. I'm settled down now and relieved at that. Its nice to finally get some answers from locals, staying on topic, and no drama. Even those who have pitched in drama in other threads have spoken kind words.

GusZ28

iTrader: (2)

Eh I'd go with a corolla you can get the m5 base model for like 12500-13000 if you're good at haggling. Be to much for the TDI. I know the Corolla is ugly, but its really low maintenance and VERY very easy to drive and not bad of a ride. I test drove one for my gf.

BizZzatch350

iTrader: (33)

You could also buy some thing used and cheap, I did the 40 miles a day in my Blazer, **** got 17 at best was annoying. TDI Jetta is just so damn expensive over other fuel efficiently commuter cars, hard to justify the $10K at least price difference. Also you have a nice truck, who gives a **** if your daily drivers a base model saturn or some thing.

khaos288

iTrader: (9)

vw has made the most non reliable hard to work on vehicles in the world, motorcycle or buy a yaris, 11k base brand new 40 mpgs

osvaldo

iTrader: (4)

Get the prius those cars are bad ***!

RedWS6 00

As running costs like fuel is one of your top priorities I wouldn't buy German, parts are expensive, a PITA to work on.

Brains

iTrader: (7)

If you simply want another car, that is a whole different animal The way I personally look at it, if I'm spending a fair amount of time in a vehicle, I want it to be enjoyable. To me it's almost backwards to have a POS stripped down bucket that gets good gas mileage, that you spend 80% of your time in --- and then your nice car you actually enjoy driving sits idle. That's why I have a SRT8 Charger for a daily driver

J-Rod

This is the same argument you get into with folks who wanted to buy a diesel pickup to save on fuel costs when diesel was half the cost of unleaded. The issue was that upgrading to a diesel ate up any potential fuel savings with the increased vehicle cost. You had to drive 400K miles and own the vehicle for 10 years to make up the fuel savings.

The only way it makes financial sense to buy a vehicle like the Jetta is if you are getting rid of a vehicle. Let me give you an example. Someone I know just got rid of their explorer that was getting about 13 mpg. They were driving to work 50 miles each way. Along with their around town driving they were using about $400-$600 in fuel per month. They traded the vehicle in and came out with $4000 for a down payment. Their insurance dropped $50 a month. Their note dropped ~$100 month. The fuel hasn't been quantified, but it looks to be about 1/3 of the old cost per month. So, in their case they are saving about $400 month in switching vehicles. That makes financial sense. But, I know plenty off folks who just buy an expensive car to save on fuel, but drive up the associated cost of owning a vehicle and thus save no money. At that point the cost benefit analysis makes no sense.

On the VW's I had a friend who bought a Jetta. Their seems to almost be a cult following on these cars. As soon as they went to sell it, they had people from all over wanting to buy it. The issue with a used one is that folks often dump the cars right before they major service (like needing belts). This service on a 75K mile car is about $1200+ dollars.

I drive 55 miles each way. I drive a Silverado. Before that I had a Nissan PU that had 320K miles when I finally got rid of it. Had I not had something go wrong on the truck that was simply not easily resolvable I would have driven it to probably 500K.

But, what Brian said is true. If you are in the car a bunch at least be comfortable.


Just do the simple math. If you are buying only based on fuel, then calculate up the number of miles you drive each year (that should be easy to figure) overall. Compute the delta in fuel milage between the two vehicles and see how much fuel we are talking about. For most people (unless you drive a lot) its about $1500 at the very most...

Lets take two vehicles by comparison and look at 12K miles of average driving in a year.

Vehicle A is an average pickup truck and we'll say it gets an average of 15 mpg between the highway and city driving.

12000 miles/15 mpg = 800 gallons of fuel in a year.

Vehicle B is a fuel efficent car and we'll say it gets an average of 30 mpg witha mix of city and highway driving.

12000 miles/30 mpg = 400 gallons of fuel in a year.

The delta is 400 gallons. At $3 per gallon we are talking about ~$1200/year.

Splitz

iTrader: (1)

^^ Again another way of looking at it.

I'm going to drive my Z 1 day a week and pick up a DD that gets 35MPG up from the 18 MPG that my Z gets (CAMMED).

The Saturn only needs 87, and the Z needs 91+ and right now it's a .30cent difference.

That will save ME money!

J-Rod

Yeah, it will save you about 400 gallons * $.30 = $120

So, an additional $120 year. if that is a lot of money to you, so be it...

Dragaholic

iTrader: (180)

Thanks Brains and J-Rod. I never looked at it that way. I should of put the numbers out there to really see what I'll be saving.

Let's say my round trip is 40 miles (accurate) and I drive that 5 days a week (accurate). That's 200 miles a week. Multiply that by 52 weeks, you get 10,400 miles a year at the very minimum. I will also be working one weekend a month, so that's an additional 960 miles a year, which brings it to a total of 11,360. So we'll use 12,000 for the calculation.

If my truck gets an average of 15 mpg mixed and I drive 12,000 miles per year, that's 800 gallons per year.

Let's say I purchased a vehicle that averages 40 mpg mixed, driving 12,000 miles a year, that's 300 gallons per year.

If we figure gas to be $3 a gallon, that's a saving of $1500 a year. WOW

That doesn't even include insuring it every month which will knock down that savings to almost nothing. Let's say I was paying $100 a month on Jetta, that's $1200 a month, which would only leave me with a $300 savings a year. Then you have to figure in the maintenance on the EXTRA vehicle. I can totally see you're point if I was trading it in or selling a current vehicle to purchase this one.

Splitz

iTrader: (1)

Ah, but not rackin' up miles on a certain vehicle (which SLOWS the depreciation) will also help!

aggie_corvette

The advice your getting is very good.
I was in the same situation just over a year ago when my old DD died. I was looking at used TDIs as well. I looked at KBB and all over Autotrader but the cheapest ones were going about 8-9k w/120k+ miles. True they get mid 40s but i still couldn't justify the initial cost.
i ended up getting a 94 saturn (manual, single cam) w/75k miles for $4500. i get 32-35mpg combined on my commute (50 miles roundtrip).

As you can see the TDI would have taken years to make up the difference in fuel cost and the repair cost of the Saturn is dirt cheap and its easy to do myself.

As a note over the past 16 months i average 2000+ miles PER MONTH just on my saturn in addition to the 700 per month i put on my vette. So for me the cheapest DD w/great mpg is the way to go. Plus i consider the car disposable where i will never get rid of my vette.

good luck



Edit: I only have basic liability on the Saturn = $250 a yr.

96-speed

iTrader: (19)

^^^ My thoughts exactly.

Drag: Put some rational thought into this. On the other hand, if you want a new car just to have a new car, go buy a new one. However, there's too many dumb people that go buy new cars thinking that they are saving money. In reality, its a knee jerk reaction and an irrational and ignorant move.

Ryan

SSilverSSurfer

iTrader: (8)

honda hybrid nuff said. although i like the interior of the jettas

WizeAss

iTrader: (5)

I am going to be in the same boat soon.

at the end of the year we go to the ROTH plan vs free gas and free company car.

I am debating on whether to use the wife's GTP and buy her a Denali or something or to get something like a TDI, although the loud GTP would be cooler to roll in to appts and what not.

WizeAss

iTrader: (5)

this is completely false. it has been proven that putting 93 octane in vs 87 octane is complete hogwash. Unless you are running more timing or have severe issues such as heat etc. there is not benifit to running higher octane. Fact. Oil Companies promote the use of higher octane, they also lobby the auto industry to use higher octane gasoline. Now if you plan to romp on the car and not let it shift every 3k rpm (where cars conserve gas) then that is a totally different story and the higher octane is a wise choice.

Dont buy into this Premium Unleaded BullShit! keep the car under 3k rpm and the car will perform exactly the same, giving stock timing etc.

Now if I had a tuned LS1, you wouldnt see me being caught dead putting 87 octane in and shifting the car over 4k rpm.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

Not true! You are correct that running premium in a car that needs only regular or midgrade is just a waste of money. But running regular or midgrade in a car that requires premium is also a waste of money. Octane is merely the measure of how resistant to pre-ignition a fuel is. It has nothing to do with the quality of the fuel. So, conventional wisdom is that if you don't get engine knock with lower octane there's nothing wrong with using it.

Conventional wisdom doesn't apply in this case. The LS1 has knock sensors and the PCM is programmed to retard timing when knocking is detected. So you can put regular in without causing engine damage but both your performance and mileage will suffer. I tested this myself last year when gas prices spiked. I tried using midgrade on a long trip (1200 miles each way - almost all highway). I saved 10 cents per gallon buying midgrade - roughly 3%. Yet my mileage dropped by more than 10%. So I ended up buying more midgrade gas and paying more (total) than if I had stuck with premium. BTW, I also checked my mileage using premium on the way back just to be sure there wasn't something wrong and the mileage went right back up to normal (about 24mpg highway).