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Ethanol another tax
I bought a new truck in January and, until recently, it has been getting about 21 mpg. In the last two months the mileage dropped to about 18. We always buy Chevron gas so I emailed them to ask if they reformulated their gasoline and, if so, when. Sure enough, starting this year in our area they add 10% ethanol November through February. That seems to explain why my mileage dropped. So in addition to $3/gallon gas we're now hit with another 10-15% hike due to "feel good" legislation. It's not like we have a big air quality problem here. Instead of chipping slash maybe I should start burning it to offset the good I'm doing by burning ethanol in my tank.
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Ethanol another tax
It's a Toyota Tacoma. It's been very reliable and has great performance but the build quality and ruggedness are lacking. They were probably much better when they were designed and built in Japan, but I have no real regrets. Still, when the 2009 VW TDI Jetta comes out may buy one of those as a daily driver and get an old beater truck to replace the Tacoma. Did you see the Popular Mechanics article on the VW? They claim 75mpg.
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Ethanol another tax
I'll fill up with Premium tonight to see how it does. I tried premium in the summer and didn't see any mileage benefit at all but maybe with the oxygenated fuel now it will make a difference.
Randy, good to see you back! I misspoke (mis-typed) on the VW. Popular Mechanics compared a European VW Polo TDI (not a Jetta) to a Prius. The VW had better performance, got 74.3 mpg vs. low 50s for the Prius, and actually had fewer emissions. The only thing I don't like about the technology is they are using the same method as Mercedes in their Bluetec diesel to reduce NOx. They inject Adblue into the exhaust stream which converts Nox to Nitrogen and water. So the Adblue tank has to be filled up occasionally. Not sure how much that would cost. Honda has a Catalytic style converter that works without Adblue. All in all things are really looking up for diesel technology, which makes a whole lot more sense to me than complex hybrids with toxic batteries.
I can't answer your question about timing belt or plugged EGR. A guy I work with has an older TDI, he cleans out his EGR every year or so and doesn't think it's a big deal. I used to drive VWs and changed a few timing belts on them. A pain, but not a showstopper for me. Still, I wish timing belts would go the way of the dodo too.
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