anti Touareg sentiment

Tony Bad wrote:


> There is quite a bit of irony in Pete's post. I always thought of leasing the
> way JH indicates. It allows you to drive a car you really can't afford to own.

> Not a bad deal, but it means you are fowever making payments.
> If one does a google search, I came up with one offer of $0 down, and $439 a
> month.

Leasing is for financial suckers (with the possible exception of
business owners that MAY receive some tax write-off advantages), that
often wanna appear to live a higher lifestyle than they can really afford.

The problem with leasing is the old argument that "you only pay for the
part of the car depreciation that you use"...What they don't mention is
you pay all the VERY HIGH front end depreciation!

with 118K miles logged on my '99 Jetta TDI, i would hardly consider it a
slug on the highway. an older Audi Quattro yesterday on Rt. 13, met his
stoplight grand prix match in me, on frequent highway stoplight restarts to
65 mph. i had no trouble either staying right with him or leading him out
from a dead stop. and this with the 90 hp engine. and with a one stop fuel
strategy, i smoked him in the longer ride home...
Mike
50 mpg in the TDI offsets the 18 in the Touareg!
"Steve Grauman" > wrote in message
...
> >And to be fair, my wife's jetta wagon is a 1.8t. A 2.0 or TDI would've
> >been more practica
>
> Don't feel bad, the 1.8T and 2.0 actually get more or less identicle gas
> mileage, that's one of the reasons the 1.8T is such a great engine. Only
the
> TDi would've been more fuel effcient, and it's understandable why you
wouldn't
> want that slug to drive everyday.
> Steve Grauman

> with 118K miles logged on my '99 Jetta TDI, i would hardly consider it a
> slug on the highway.

In particular, no one that's ever owned a 1.5 or 1.6L naturally-aspirated VW
diesel would ever call the TDI cars slugs. Torque is where it's at, baby.

> There's nothing unsafe about the vast majority of modern SUVs. It's the
way
> they're DRIVEN that's unsafe, more often than not.

Right and guns don't kill people either...

They don't stop as well as cars, get considerablely worse gas mileage, have
greater risk of rollover caused by their inherent instability due to height,
greatly risk the lives of other motorists in accidents and considerably
limit the visibility of other motorists and all for what? Image?
Puh-leeze.

> There's certainly something said for economy, but that's a little
ridiculous.
> The Toureag TDi V10 is amazing, great gas mileage,

WTF are you smoking? Great mileage? That's bull****.

17mpg for a passenger vehicle using diesel (or gas for that matter) is an
abomination. Even it's claimed 23mpg highway is a horrible waste of fuel.
Sure, it's "less worse" than a likewise equipped Hummer or Land Rover but
it's ludicrous to try calling it "great gas mileage".

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/20379.shtml

In comparison somnething like the Jetta TDi wagon gets 36/47 and has upwards
of 30 cu ft of storage with the seats upright. The Touareg has nearly the
SAME storage space and is nearly two-thirds WORSE in it's fuel consumption.
Sure, the 0-60 and torque on the Jetta are nowhere near as robust but for
most situations they're more than enough. Certainly more than enough for
what most people need.

> Aw quit your complaining (;^D)...the only way my 52 HP or 48HP diesels
could do
> 0-60 in under 10 seconds is if I drove them off a cliff.

Heh, a similar line got me out of a traffic speeding ticket. I said to the
judge, '75 mph in a Beetle? On hilly terrain?' (we're talking a 20 year old
beater here) 'It couldn't do that even if I threw if off a cliff!'. Not
guilty!

"wkearney99" > wrote in message
...
> > Aw quit your complaining (;^D)...the only way my 52 HP or 48HP diesels
> could do
> > 0-60 in under 10 seconds is if I drove them off a cliff.
>
> Heh, a similar line got me out of a traffic speeding ticket. I said to the
> judge, '75 mph in a Beetle? On hilly terrain?' (we're talking a 20 year old
> beater here) 'It couldn't do that even if I threw if off a cliff!'. Not
> guilty!
>

I drove cross country (well a good chunk...NY to CO) in a 68 beetle, and after
my foot started going numb, I got a large stick, cut it to length, and wedged it
between pedal and seat as a "cruise control". I now realize this was VERY
dangerous, and a dumb thing to do...but it allowed me to cruise at about 76 for
hours on end. 76 was all it would do, and it took a LONG time to get there.

Ahhh...the good old days.

Some day I need to get a car that isn't pathetically slow. I probably wouldn't
know what to do! My wife's 2.0 jetta feels like a rocket sled to me!
--
Tony Bad

02 Jetta Wagon
01 Eurovan MV
91 Jetta 1.6 Diesel
86 Jetta
79 Rabbit 1.5 Diesel (semi-retired for now)
Schwinn Continental 10 Speed
Radio Flyer Pedal Car (my daughter made me add this)

"D. Dub" > wrote in message
news:5tI4d.502987$gE.71818@pd7tw3no...
> Umm the TDI is not a slug.

Exactly! I have a 2003 Jetta TDI GLS and it is the most "balanced"
car I have ever driven. Just enough power so there isn't allot of
gear shifting and great gas mileage. I have never driven an auto
but I LIKE the 5-speed.


>
> "Steve Grauman" > wrote in message
> ...
> > >And to be fair, my wife's jetta wagon is a 1.8t. A 2.0 or TDI would've
> > >been more practica
> >
> > Don't feel bad, the 1.8T and 2.0 actually get more or less identicle gas
> > mileage, that's one of the reasons the 1.8T is such a great engine. Only
> the
> > TDi would've been more fuel effcient, and it's understandable why you
> wouldn't
> > want that slug to drive everyday.
> > Steve Grauman
>
>

>They don't stop as well as cars

Some do, actually. The BMW X3 and X5, Porsche Cayenne, Toureag, Volvo XC90,
Lexus RX330 and several other smaller, car-based SUVs stop as well as many
large sedans. Add into the frey the number of older sedans on the road, and the
SUVs start to look even more competant.

>get considerablely worse gas mileage,

While this is true (on average), it has nothing to do with how safe they are.
If you're going to argue with me, at least argue the correct topic.

>have
>greater risk of rollover caused by their inherent instability due to height,

This is something that gets to be less of a problem as time goes by. You can't
ever make an SUV completely roll-over proof, but lots of things can be done to
help. The XC90, for instance, has a really amazing roll-over protection system
that works quite well.

>greatly risk the lives of other motorists in accidents

My GTi got nailed by a Chrysler, and as a result was sent flying sideways at
60+ MPH into a big-rig. Not only did I not have a scratch on me, the car was in
repariable condition. And even her 6 year old Chrysler, which went UNDER the
truck, was safe enough to keep her alive. Modern cars are VERY safe, especially
VWs.

>and considerably
>limit the visibility of other motorists

I don't ever find it difficult to drive behind or next to SUVs. If you give
them the extra room they need, you'll find that the visibility issue is easily
overcome. However, if you, the SUV driver or BOTH of you decide to drive like
assholes, you have problems.

>and all for what? Image?

If you say so. My family makes regualr use of what our SUVs have to offer. And
we have been since we bought our first SUV in the early 90s.
Steve Grauman

>Sure, it's "less worse" than a likewise equipped Hummer or Land Rover but
>it's ludicrous to try calling it "great gas mileage".

That's what I meant. I wasn't comparing the gas mileage of the Toureag TDi to
that of a Diesel passenger car.

>In comparison somnething like the Jetta TDi wagon gets 36/47 and has upwards
>of 30 cu ft of storage with the seats upright. The Touareg has nearly the
>SAME storage space and is nearly two-thirds WORSE in it's fuel consumption.

Sure. But the Jetta doesn't offer AWD of any sort, let-alone a low range
transfer case. And it doesn't offer the high driving position or the
ground-clearence advantages of the Toureag. Of course there are OTHER options.
I'm really interested in the hybrid versions of the Lexus RX and Ford Escape.
You guys need to take in the fact that some of us both need and use our SUVs,
and a Jetta or Passat simply won't cut it. It's not MY fault that most of them
get ****ty gas mileage. I can only choose from what's avaliable to me.
Steve Grauman