I've been driving VW TDIs (diesels) for about 5 years now, getting my first one when I was driving 120 miles a day. Last year I traded my Jetta for a Passat TDI which has been a great car, though it was tough going from 50mpg down to the mid 30s. But we've since moved, and my commute is entirely town driving now, so a TDI isn't practical. I'm only getting about 29mpg these days - painful.

My wife and I talked about a hybrid, but she never liked the designs... until the new Civic came out. We test drove an EX a couple weeks ago and she loved it. Our dealer is supposed to get a couple 06 HCHs in this week, and we'll be test driving one of those (assuming they haven't already been spoken for - they hadn't last time I checked). Assuming she's still sold on the idea (and I have no indication that she's won't be), we'll be ordering one for January with navigation.

At this point we're leaning toward keeping the Passat anyway and trading in our Subaru Forester, which gets even worse mileage, but we're still up in the air. All we know for sure is that we're definitely getting a HCH.

-Kris

 

Welcome to the Dark side.....

I hope you like your hybrid. You must post a comparison since you will have owned both a hybrid and a diesel. I'd love to hear the differences from someone with first hand experience.

 

I think that's a good move. Diesels are great bar their current particulate emmissions, better to keep them out of towns/cities, but I don't understand how they can't be practical, is it because of the reduced FE you get around town?

 

welcome to another former forrester owner. i had one a few years ago since we live in the country and i commute 40 miles one way to work, and minnesota gets a lot of snow (at least we used to). i was never satisfied with the FE, and even unhappier when it started falling apart just past 120,000 miles. i finally traded it for a honda CRV, since i have always liked hondas. there again, the FE was lousy, so i traded that for my HCH. i think you will be very pleased with the FE, and will learn a lot on here about getting even better.....i sure did.

 

Well, I guess its not entirely impractical, since I still get better mileage in town than my coworker's nearly identical Passat gets on the highway, but the TDIs are highway cars. My drive is down to about 10 miles round trip now for work. The lowered fuel economy is painful, but combine that with the miserable emmissions and that embarrassing cloud of black smoke, well, it makes the idea of trading it in much easier. That might become more tolerable though when the improved diesel fuel standards go into effect.

 

i was thinking about getting a diesel, but was lucky enough to find and awesome deal on my civic hybrid. i'm glad i didn't end up finding a diesel, the prices for diesel have been really miserable lately haven't they? on npr they said the refineries are concentrating on making gasoline instead.

 

Right now, yeah, diesel is more expensive. I filled up about a week ago for $2.95. On the other hand, when everyone else was filling up with unleaded for $3.50, I was still paying around $2.95 Usually, diesel tends to be about the same price as premium.

 

forgot to add: welcome to the boards!