Do you hate $4 a gallon gas prices? How do you feel about $5.19 a gallon diesel prices? That's what I paid for diesel to fill our 2005 Volkswagen Jetta TDI today in Santa Monica, California.
That's the bad news...
In the last Jetta blog I talked about a release lever inside the filler neck that allows you to put an additional 2 gallons of fuel in the tank. Since then I drove 128.5 miles and returned for a fill up. On automatic the pump clicked off after only .7 gallons. I then pulled the nozzle back, pressed down on the release lever and was able to pump in another 2 gallons for a total of 2.762 gallons.
So, at $5.19 a gallon and getting 46 mpg, is the Jetta TDI saving us money on fuel? This comes out to 11 cents a mile. A car getting 20 mpg and costing $4.11 a gallon for gas (the price on the pump this morning) would cost 20 cents a mile. You would have to have a car running on regular gas that gets 35 mpg before it would rival the cost savings of the TDI.
Philip Reed, Edmunds.com Senior Consumer Advice Editor @ 57,451 miles
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