OK, what's the scoop on the VW TDi ?

I'm looking at 2000-2003 Jetta TDi (Runs bio-diesel at 50+ MPG!). I've heard some people say they actually pollute more than the gas engines, but damn 50 mpg just sounds so nice, especially since my current POS car gets about 23. I'm selling it this week, wont miss it at all.

Are there any TDi owners (or sellers) here that can give me the real scoop on these wonder cars?

BTW, I'm looking for a dark blue Jetta or Golf with black/tan interior. I've been perusing the online pics and the cars are stunningly beautiful. Problem is they're really hard to find in manual transmission. I have to refresh Craigslist all day in hopes of catching a deal.

Several people chimed in saying the hybrids are great but way to expensive. Everyone seemed to agree that a much better option would be a VW TDi. It actually gets better fuel mileage than many of the hybrids and biodiesel is NOT petroleum but modified vegetable oil.

I can't remember if the discussion was in GD or in the environmental forum.

At least in that discussion everyone who owned a TDi loved it!

I know that when the local university here converted all their diesel heavy equipment machines (bulldozers, loaders, trucks, ect.) to biodiesel, there was a consensus that a loss in performance and power was noted.

From what I've read the TDi's have great torque at low RPM and decent power at cruising speed. Biodiesel is supposed to be really good for the engine lube wise. I checked and there are several biodiesel stations in Denver.

I'm still trying to figure out the "catch", but so far it seems to be the best overall car out there. Nobody really has anything bad to say about it.

...I'd prefer to see it in a hybrid parallel with electric systems, but more efficient diesels are surely a welcome addition to energy technology.

The only caveat I'd offer is make sure when you read MPG stats that they are in U.S. units, or if they are in Great Britain/Euro units to do the conversion -- "gallons" are different overseas where most diesel cars are first marketed.

There are 4.5 liters to the British gallon, and 3.7 liters to the American gallon.

However most Europeans use metric liters when dealing with cars, the most common metric is liters per 100km (liters per every 60 miles).

I believe horsepower units are also different.

Biodiesels have a significantly lower emissions foot print than gasoline, it can be produced locally, and most diesel engines have higher efficiencies than gasoline engines, so 40/50 miles the the gallon are the norm. There are no significant infrastructural changes with respect to normal gas stations, biodiesel engines only require slight modifications from original gas diesels

In fact the original diesel engine ran using peanut oil....

I like this and it plays well to a diesel strong points

Bio diesel works good and I've found increase in power and performance.

What bio diesel is really good for is to offset the lube taken out of diesel in the new ultra low sulfur. Diesel will now be refined by cracking it instead of the old way of distilling it. This is how they will take out some of the sulfur. They say that the lube has to be added back in now. But who is going to watch the oil comp to make sure it added back. I use lucas injector lube to make sure.

Does that mean that the new "regular" diesel wont work in older cars?

Lots to learn still, I'm deep in research as we speak.

In fact if you are burning diesel now you have already had some of the low sulfur stuff.

They are supposed to be working it into the system. Old diesel will work with the new stuff. The newer ones will plug up the particle filter if you burn the old diesel.

I just don't trust the oil comp to put the lube back into the fuel!

Where a hybrid saves a lot of fuel is the motor shut down when at idle and starts back up again when the accelator is pressed and it runs lower battery reserves. It use the torque of the electric motor for take offs and then switches back to the gas motor. It is more difficult to do an instant start with a diesel.

Most of the energy savings in a hybrid has nothing to do with stopping the gas engine. It has to do with running the gas engine at its sweet spots, either taking energy from it or adding energy to it to match the demand of the driver while still getting the best economy. That and having a place to store the power from regenerative braking.

In fact, from a pollution perspective, hybrids are a great match for diesel engines which are very clean if run at certain rpms and loads.

There are already hybrid diesel cars on sale and working fine in Europe. Why not in the U.S, other than a big giant limited edition pickup truck? My pet theory is because we did not have ULSD fuel until last year, and since hybrids look to get PHEV certification, that was making the emissions system less cost effective. Now that we have ULSD I bet that will change.

http://www.hybrid-cars-guide.com/hybrid-diesel-electric-car.html

And rumor has it we'll see one from Toyota in the coming years -- in the U.S.? Who knows?

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/21/toyota-to-sell-diesel-hybrid-by-2010-thanks-to-isuzu/

...have issues with particulates.

That might be the pollution you're thinking of.

Diesel will now have particulate filters
They are also going to take most of the nox out also
I wished they would have used urea instead exhaust gas re burn
Some builders are using a capture of urea and burn right in the exhaust

I love it. Lots of low-end grunt, smooth running, plenty of trunk space. The back seat lacks a bit of headroom compared to cars like the Corolla. I get 1000 km on the highway out of a tank of gas, which is about 40 mpg US or 50 mpg imperial. This is with low profile semi-performance tires and a performance-boosting after-market ignition chip.

I run straight ULSD. I started off running B20, but then I saw the light regarding biofuels and refuse to put biodiesel in it any more.

When I bought it I was considering a hybrid, but I'm still not convinced about the hybrid's total life cycle cost.
TDIs are great cars. Between my parents, my sister and me we've owned six of them over the years.

How is the overall quality? Any major engine/trans problems, trim falling off, rattles and shakes, etc?

I had an 80's Audi and the quality sucked, but I know things have changed at VW.

mr liberty has an '03 GTI VR6, 6 speed manual transmission (his baby, his "affordable" dream car). Quality is excellent, it's really a nice car - we love it.

I'm bookmarking this thread, mr liberty and I are thinking about our next car (which will be mine, but the purchase is still at least a year off - I have to go back to work first!) and I'm very interested in the bio-diesel option. My next car will either be biodiesel or hybrid, definitely.

I bought it used with about 80,000 miles on it. Just after I had it chipped the turbo actuator arm broke a couple of times before the mechanic realized the manifold was gunked up. He cleaned it out, and since then there haven't been any problems. I had the timing belt changed when I bought it, so that should be OK for quite a while. No squeaks or rattles, the trim is all solid. One of my parents' Jetta two TDIs lasted for 250,000 miles of country gravel-road driving, and my sister's Passat TDI did over 300,000 highway miles before she traded it in on an Audi Allroad that was a POS in comparison, at least as far as reliability went. I traded a BMW 540i for my Jetta, and it was a good move. The VW is infinitely more reliable.

And others say it's the worst. Some say it's tight and others say it falls apart. Some say it's a peach and others say it's a lemon.

I believe you, but I'm still wishy washy. Sorry, but I'm the kind of car buyer that researches for months before making a choice. I'll ask a million questions if you and others will answer them. :)

Sigh.. I really wasn't having any fun looking at Civics (so conservative and booooring), but at least I know they're 99% reliable. Maybe I should look into a short warranty just in case I get unlucky.

I've seen a sample of six so far, and they've all been reliable and well screwed together.

That said, I've owned two Civics as well, and they are also exceptional cars. With a manual transmission they are a lot of fun to drive, too - especially the Si and SiR models. A friend was just looking for a new car. She tested a TDI and a Prius, but ended up with a Civic because she liked it better and the value seemed to be higher.

that most people only rate an item if they've had a very bad experience with it. If 1000 customers are happy with a product, and 1 customer gets a lemon, you will tend to see one excellent review and one terrible review. It makes the data hard to interpret, if you are somebody who is trying to actually use the reviews to make a purchase decision.

Lots of people (who gave good reviews) speculate that the bad reviews are coming from competing auto companies. But then again maybe those speculating people work for VW. :crazy:

That's why I'm attempting to ask real people what they think of VW quality.

Was your concern mechanical or environmental?

Right now I believe the external cost of biofuels are well below petroleum.

The external costs of biofuels are below those of petroleum at current rates of biofuel consumption. There are no legislative or policy barriers in place at the moment to check the global growth in consumption, however. If consumption expands, the externalities may grow even faster, especially in the area of food prices and global food supply.

I lay out objections in this article.

food capacity though. Some biodiesel comes from industrial food processing plants and represents the use of waste oil. I really don't know how much biodiesel comes from virgin soybeans.

If I were driving a diesel, I would feel free right now to use biodiesel. It's not the worst biofuel. It's very different than ethanol and has much different processing. In the case where forests were being destroyed for soy or rapeseed, I would feel differently.

The problems only become apparent with scaling. The Dutch wanted to use biodiesel for some "green" electrical power plants - ask the Malaysians how well that turned out.

My problem with using any quantity of any biofuel as a general consumer is that it amounts to advocating for them as a class. This goes double for activists, where any use is viewed as endorsement. I don't endorse them as any kind of general solution and I think the situation we are getting into is extremely dangerous. I recommend that all environmental activists terminate their personal consumption of them so that our policy proposals will be uncontaminated by the optics of our personal actions.

I'm not sure that it's fair to paint all biofuels with the same brush.

I think that for the next few years, in the biodiesel case, one will do less damage with biodiesel than if one uses pure petrodiesel. I suspect that much of the biodiesel is waste grease that would have ended up in land fills.

The ideal case, of course, is not to drive at all.

Note that I am not a biofuels advocate. I fully credit what you say and I recognize that for the long term biofuels will prove trivial. Personally I would rather we make efforts to do away with cars. Failing that, I support nuclear powered DME to fuel diesels. That said, the commercial DME infrastructure now being build in Asia is fossil fuel based, and thus DME is not likely to be truly clean for at least 15 to 20 years. (Thus it is of little help in the current crisis.) In any case DME is has very few of the drawbacks of either petrodiesel or biodiesel and it burns perfectly cleanly.

For the long term I fully expect that some biological fuels may be important additives. (In particular, I think biodiesel could have a role as a lubricity additive.)

20% of the fuel is biodiesel. That 20% is maybe half as damaging as petroleum. So using B20 gives you the same environmental advantage as driving 10% less... Using biofuels is a political statement. At the moment it has virtually zero impact on the ecosphere. If I'm going to make a political statement I'd rather do so in a way that I know is effective and sustainable, and the only answer for that is conservation.

You're right that it's not fair to paint all biofuels with the same brush. But that's for the cognoscenti. Try asking a member of the public about the difference between biodiesel and ethanol. They will say, "Aren't they pretty much the same?" The public does not see biodiesel as differentiated in any meaningful way from corn ethanol. Using soybean biodiesel sends the same message to the public as advocating for corn ethanol. That's an education problem, and may change, but until then promoting one means promoting the other. Given the problems they share I'd rather promote neither.

If I had a diesel powered car, and I don't, I would put B20 in it. If available, I'd put B100.

I often drive home matters of scale in this space, but my harping aside, small private choices do count.

I think that some renewable energy champions are silly overall but really, even though I know that solar energy will not get to an exajoule for more than a decade (if ever) I am thrilled when someone installs a PV system somewhere.

PV is not great, but every PV cell does displace some natural gas, and that is desirable.

Wood burning is not great, but if someone burns wood - especially from downed trees - and that prevents the burning of natural gas, I'm OK with that.

If FritoLay uses its metric tons of left over frying grease to make biodiesel - I'm OK with that.

I am not an activist. Nobody's looking at me. But if someone were looking at me, I'd try to drive as little as possible, period. That is the best example.

The most exciting use for biodiesel and DME technology involves public buses. I think such application is a winner.

Biodiesel is superior to petroleum in particulates, carbon dioxide, sulfates. It's a mixed bag on nitrogen oxides. The biggest problem with biodiesel that I've heard is palm oil plantations in South Asia, but I note that the surfactant industry also drives this business. However, I think that overall, biodiesel can make a contribution, if only a small one.

DME produces zero particulates, no sulfate, lower carbon dioxide (zero if made by hydrogenation of carbon dioxide from nuclear or renewable hydrogen), damages no agricultural land, works with existing natural gas infrastructure, displaces LPG and natural gas, powers cans of hairspray and could work as a refrigerant. It is the technology I think we should chase. But until fossil fuels are banned, we must go with the best options we have to ban them. If we want an educated public, we merely need to educate them. That's what we're all trying to do on this website.

www.tdiclub.com

You should probably factor in a timing belt change, ~$800, to the purchase price of a used TDI since it will more than likely need one. Read up at the above site before you commit to a TB change though.

Oops, forgot the manifold clogging. Read up on that also, although it seems to be an approx. $250 maintenance every 30k or so. Many think the ULSD fuel should eliminate this problem, as it does not appear to happen in Europe where they have been using ULSD for years now.

That year has the pre-PD engine that appears to be more amenable to high BD concentrations.

VW factory warranty only warrants up to B5.

TDI's are not for people who forget to do their maintenance. The TDI powerplant is a fine piece of engineering, and should last 100's of thousands of miles. That said, like all high performance diesel engines they are not as forgiving of maintenance lapses as the average gasser. Parts are also expensive.


If money is tight, a used Toyota or Honda is probably a better bet. The TDI, especially used, comes with a much higher risk of a significant maintenance event.

There is nothing that combines the efficiency and performance of a TDI, though. And they do have that German handling/finish. And they are fun to work on, for some reason.