Mighty Mini

The reason for my interest is that in my day job I design engines, mainly diesel engines and our perception in Europe is that you guys in the states are not interested in diesels, particularly not for economy as your fuel is so cheap.

But that is obviously not entirely true.

All the best

Gareth

Our fuel is recently becoming more expensive - although it's still nowhere near prices in Europe (I travel to Europe from time to time). Diesel fuel, in addition to sometimes being difficult to find away from the freeways, has recently become more expensive than unleaded gasoline. This makes the additional fuel economy from a diesel engine less attractive.

Some of those diesel VW Rabiits get ~55mpg. I'd pay the extra $$$ for diesel if I could get those figures.

grob: Design me a diesel that will produce 233ft/lbs torque at 800rpm, bolt up to an isuzucorp 10bolt bellhousing and will fit in my engine bay
(see above pic)

Basically when my engine dies I'm going to be swapping out a GM Aurora 4.0L V8 because it can be dropped in without to much trouble and I can get one from a junkyard for under $1000 in running order.

I'd prefer diesels because the price of diesel is a bit more stable over here. While it goes up and down, it doesn't do it with nearly the frequency of normal gasolines.

Plus I'm sick of spark plugs

Drive 65 mph with a manuel trasmission... I have a jetta TDI and I achieved 56 mph doing 65 along the highway.

Granted, I didn't have the boat attached at the time though

Mark Colby
1973 H16

Here's a good one for you Tad: Get a diesel vehicle, and for $800.00 you can get a bolt on kit to run it on vegetable oil from restaurants! I have a friend that has a diner near me, and he has a customer with a diesel Golf. The guy stops by periodically and fills up on used peanut oil from the friolator! The car still has it's original diesel tank seperate from a new one for the friolator oil, and uses both. I don't know what the figures for milage are but I bet it's the cheapest vehicle going! The other thing I wonder about is winter performance as my old diesel Rabbit had a lot of trouble with the New England winters. Did a fine job pulling my cats in Summer though! Brian

I had a Diesel Rabbit the first year they came out in Canada. I was just married and I wanted to start out properly. (In debt)

I loved the mileage (60 miles per Canadian Gallon) but didn't like it's gutlessness. No doubt they have improved the power.

I remember clearly "the only thing I could pass was the filling station!" (Notice I cleverly avoided saying Gas station)

Guys,

Here in the UK, a couple of the tuning companies are now getting Tuned (and turbo'd) Coopers up to around 275 bhp !

Makes me wonder if its time to sell the Subaru Impreza Turbo and buy a Mini Turbo !

Gareth,
One of the reasons folks in the US have been reluctant to buy diesels in cars is the horrible experiences had with the domestic manufacturers previous attempts to market them in cars. Some were merely converted gasoline engines that lacked the necessary strength in the bottom end. All had problems - those that bought them felt burned, and knowledge of the problems was well spread. Now there are younger car buyers that don't have the bad taste in their mouths, so diesels are probably once again a marketable option.

I'm paying $1.50 per gallon for diesel here in eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey. My TDI returns 40mpg city and 50mpg hwy.I found the Honda/Toyota elec-gas wonder machines to be gutless commuters unsuitable for towing or climbing mountains. As skiing is my 1st love, the TDI was the way to go. Tons of torque and decent power.I sold a BMW to buy the TDI and I honestly don't think I could go back to getting 25mpg for any reason.I drive around 300 miles during the week and at least 500 miles every weekend driving to Vermont in the winter and Bethany Beach Delaware in the summer.

The torque is the issue I have with the hybrids. I think its a valiant effort to solve a plethora of issues relating to fossil fuels, but honestly, as long as I'm a greedy consumer, I need to be able to pull my boat up hills with 4 of my buddies in the back.

So far the only vehicles that can do that are SUV's and we all know that you're not going to be able to get 50mpg on an SUV until these TDI engines graduate to provide more torque. They may be fine for a little golf, but until they can power my 6000 lbs, 7' tall trooper + trailer up a hill, then I'm going to have to stick to my gas guzzler and just bend over grab my ankles and take it at the gas pump.

Actually, torque shouldn't be an issue with hybrids, at least conceptually. The electric motor assist is why - electric motors have %100 of their torque available from 0 rpm on. Once the payload is moving you shouldn't need the assist unless you get to a hill or something. Using the assist continually until the juice is depleted would be the problem. I haven't checked on specs for the current crop of hybrids if they even rate for towing, but if they do I wouldn't expect the rating to be that different from any other car that size. The issue may be more that the transmission and rest of the car is not meant to handle those kinds of loads, or the duration of drain.

The torque characteristics of the electric assist is one of the reason the domestic manufacturers are targeting trucks for hybrid technology - more off the line payload moving capability. But Ford is supposed to be coming out with a hybrid Escape - smallish SUV with the same grunt but better mileage. Not sure what the current schedule for availability is, or if it's been scrapped.

Have you seen the VW Touareg V10 TDi currently on sale in most states ofthe USA? It's 313 hp and 553 ft-lbs of torque, tow rating of 7700 lbs...making it one of the most capable tow vehicles in the world. Oh, and it gets 24 mpg combined mileage.

Mike.

And whats the MSRP? 😛

$texas

?