after a recent 1,600 mile/26 hour drive ( each way ) road trip to maine, odin says the 327 mile/6 hour drive to the upper peninsula is so short it’s almost like not even leaving at all.
and with the low diesel prices and getting 52 mpg with the jetta sportwagen tdi it’s almost like not even spending any money to get there in no time at all.
something that hasn’t happened in 13 years. any guesses as to what it is?
here’s the answer if you can’t figure it out 🙂
i expect it’ll go back to the way it was soon.
it’s 50F warmer in southwest wisconsin than when I left 9 days ago! And that means the jetta tdi sportwagon is back to getting above 50 mpg!
as most are aware regular gas prices are plunging which is putting the pinch on oil exporters and handing a $75 billion tax cut to the U.S. but as a long-time TDI driver i watch the diesel price which is spiking. currently, in wisconsin, there’s a $1.20 per gallon difference between regular and diesel – hence “Black-Market Diesel: Thieves Sell Fuel By The Truckload”. pop quiz, when was the last time diesel was cheaper than regular gas? 2002 which was the first year we bought a diesel.
after driving our 2005.5 jetta tdi sedan for nine years and 186,000 miles we thought it was time to get another car and loved the gas milease of the diesel but wanted more room so opted for the sportwagen.
we’ve been driving manual transmissions tdis for almost 15 years and in the sedan i could regularly get close to 50mpg which was much higher than the “official” mpg ( which i think was something like 38mpg ) and i was a little nervous that we’d still see that kind of mileage with the wagon which if officially rated at 23 city and 33 hwy.
sure enough after the “break in” period of a few thousand miles i can regularly get higher than 50mpg at speeds between 55-60mph ( it drops to mid to high 40s at higher speeds ).
on a recent trip through rolling hills of the driftless region i managed to get 57.9mpg after driving 90 miles.
and no i wasn’t doing any fancy hypermiling manual transmission moves. pretty amazing. i’m not sure what you with an automatic transmission so can’t say how much of the difference between the official numbers is a result of conservative reporting on volkwagen’s part or my super optimized manual transmission skills.
in the interest of full disclosure, kris took this picture while i was driving 🙂
diesel was still $4.20 on 4.20 so i figured i had to capture the moment since it it may not ever happen again. who knows, maybe it’ll be $5.20 on 5.20 with the run-up ahead of memorial day weekend.
i’m surprised nobody took me up on my offer for 420 bonus points.
i have a jetta tdi so i really only care about diesel prices although i really actually don’t care about them too much since i’m lucky enough to get 50 miles per gallon.
you poor saps with regular ol’ gas guzzling cars – ouch! no wonder vw is adding diesels across their entire line.
let’s be clear, i’m not talking about me, but i chuckle at the thought of potheads around the nation attaching cosmic significance to the fact that diesel has risen to $4.20 per gallon.
i’m just thankful to be getting 50 mpg in our TDI.
420 bonus points will be awarded to the first person to post a photo of themselves catching the facebook 420 character limit while pumping $4.20 diesel and smoking a fattie! ( i jest. sort-of. )