RIP LA scumbags.

they've had pretty much the same car (same identical motor too) for years and years

Sure it's not a Transformer?

are you angry it's not a ford falcon running lpg mr hardware?

oooh the G8 pontiac is sexier in pictures then in person. fun to drive, though its essentially a commodore.

almost guvna, almost
http://www.carlustblog.com/images/2008/07/21/bluesmobile1.jpg

Funny how they say its too small, everything in the US is too small for them heh :)

Seen some funny police cars here in europe, Golf's, 5 series, E class, Focus's

Last time I paid for a litre of fuel just before the airport at Amsterdam I paid 1.44 EUROS, Australia has it pretty good.

Re original pics: Pontiac is discontinued. How old are those photos??

oh god, sad c**** getting a raging boner over f***en commodores and s*** stupid yank tanks. any wonder america is dying with 'ingenuity' such as that.

and also because Americans don't subsidise stupid fuels

We don't subsidise any fuels, we just don't put an excise on the good ones (LPG/CNG).

and LA (california) has the higest fuel tax per gallon in the US, double most states http://www.texasgasprices.com/tax_info.aspx

if you take a random average state and work it out, it comes to 65cpl like i said.

but yes, euro countries are stupid in their fuel taxing. why make diesel cheaper than petrol? it has more oil and pollution in it! i don't see why fuel is so bad that we need more than just gst on it.

last edited by hardware at 11:33:22 07/Oct/09

Anymore besides?

why make diesel cheaper than petrol?

petrol requires more refining than diesel, hence it should be more expensive
in Australia we have more tax on diesel for reasons which I have now forgotten

its annoying though, I should be paying less for my diesel

Not only do you get more km/l but they are a s*** load better to drive.

They produce all their torque around 2,000rpm, where you need it most, not something like 4,500rpm like most petrols.

And diesel engines costs more than the petrol engine so you gotta price up if you'll cover the cost with the savings in using diesel.

petrol requires more refining than diesel, hence it should be more expensive
in Australia we have more tax on diesel for reasons which I have now forgotten
its annoying though, I should be paying less for my diesel

1. Not anymore since govt mandated low sulphur diesel. Back before 2000 when we had ultra-polluting dirty diseasel, it was cheaper because it was easier to refine. Not anymore.
2. Its only by about a cent or two and that i believe is due to energy content per litre or pollution per litre or something like that
3. No you shouldn't. You should be paying more because oil use should be discouraged.

Also ticman is right, and the payback period for most diesels is well, well in excess of the time you're likely to have the car. I'm talking in excess of a decade.

so mission if they sound like a tractor, idle like s*** when cold, why and how are they a superior engine? And don't say bags of torque at 2000rpm, that's just the turbo talking. Strap a turbo to anything and it'll be brilliant. (yes yes i'm no longer a turbo hater)

Yes i see where you're coming from mission, and a few points you raise are very valid ones, but in some of them you've got to drill deeper.
The main reason I reckon why they don't just strap a turbo to a petrol motor is because the same effect (or better) can be had for far cheaper by just making it bigger. Diesel motors are inherently rather heavy so larger is to be avoided at all costs, and this cost for improvement comes in the form of a turbo. It's amazing the number of people who would never own a turbo petrol, but a turbo diesel sounds to them like an excellently sensible idea.

The most popular motor in demanding applications in passenger cars is LPG 6-cyl motors, not turbo diesels. Those applications you list there often choose diesel motors because of their supreme ability to shift something insanely heavy, not cart yourself and a few kiddys around.

And i believe the reviewers in car magazines will tell you which is the better one to drive, not which has the lowest TCO. The better drive i'm sure is only due to the turbo, and if you compared apples to apples and pitted a turbo diesel with a turbo petrol, i think there'd be no question that the turbo petrol would win.

Don't get me wrong, i'm slowly being converted to liking turbo diesels (this is not a win for you Jim despite the fact you predicted it) after i took a nice 350km drive in a Hyundai i30 TD on the weekend and loved every minute of it.

lol payback time, who gives a f***
I want monstrous amounts of torque to pull my ass out of the mud or to tow a boat

I bought a diesel because I can get 700+ks out of a tank and they are better for four wheel driving (imo)

also sifn't crack that plastic off your new diesel motor


http://unix.org.au/~brett/hilux/boost/resize/boost01.jpg

http://unix.org.au/~brett/hilux/boost/resize/boost02.jpg

when the facts dont agree with you hardware, call it an anomaly

lpg just isn't that good.

Well i believe the i30 is a bit of a unique scenario

go look up figures on a bmw 5 series diesel

edit: oh and the 2.0l tdi golfs

hyundai i30 - 55% difference (4.7 / 7.2)
ford focus - 27% difference (5.6 / 7.1)

and yes the volkswagens are almost as good as the i30

in australia infidel, think of couriers and taxis and limos etc

I bought a diesel because I can get 700+ks out of a tank and they are better for four wheel driving (imo)

Excepting consumption, I don't think that's true.

My petrol V8 isn't exactly a powerhouse, but it makes bags (small bags) of torque over its entire rev range, not in a huge lump at 1500rpm. You're better off with a petrol off road. The last thing you want is to run out of puff in a gear at 2500rpm, and have to shift up. With a petrol you're only just coming into the power band, so its no drama. Just keep revving to 5 grand or whatever. With diesel you are stuck climbing things at a narrow speed range if you want to stay in that lump of torque at 1500rpm. Fine if you've got all the lockers, articulation, tyres and clearance to climb straight over things at speed. Not so much if you have to stop, change your line and gas it up to get over s***.

That said, its better than LPG.

I drove it to Sydney the day after I picked it up

http://unix.org.au/~brett/hilux/sydtrip08/resize/IMG_0132.JPG

we drove up to Bribie beach for the day too so its combined highway/around town and sand driving (but mostly highway)

heres me panicking because it had been on "Range 0km" for like 40k's and I was on that stretch of highway south of the border which has "no fuel for 100+k's"

http://unix.org.au/~brett/hilux/sydtrip08/resize/IMG_0134.JPG

I picked it up at Toyota Ipswich, pressed the ODO reset button button for Trip A as soon as I remembered (somewhere on the southside of Brisbane)

so it did 700ks on its first tank and the economy has only gotten better since then

/pimping diesel for economy

I like having my torque available in the low rev range, I've never come across a problem that I couldn't have predicted with the right gear since figuring out the motor and gearing
the one time I did get stuck in sand because I had the wrong gear range all together (first day on Bribie), I was well and truly stuck - had to low range it out