View Single Post
  #20  
Old May 24th 2004, 16:55
oasis's Avatar
oasis oasis is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: timonium, md usa
Posts: 1,290
Quote:
Originally Posted by boygenius
Is there such a thing as bad diesel or is it just the fact that he had a 1982 mercedes with 200K on the odometer. What type of maintainence is involved with this type of car. I heard things like I have to run injector cleaner through it every couple of thousand miles. What is the real story with VW TDI maintainence. And what are some real MPG numbers I can expect to see. 60% highway and 40% city driving is what I will be driving most of the time.
Maybe there is such a thing as "bad" diesel, but I've never encountered it. I owned an '81 Pickup LX for five years (wish I still had it ) and I've owned the aforementioned Golf for two years.

TDI info: My wife drives very little highway and she gets 38-43 MPG routinely. Our best is 50.1. Doing 60/40 in Florida with the a/c on half the time should net you 43-47 MPG in my opinion based on our figures. Running the a/c makes a difference, but so does highway driving with the windows down.

Maintenance: Nothing special as far as time intervals are concerned. Obviously, there are differences. The biggest difference is you must use synthetic oil with a TDI. Forget the injector cleaner stories. Routine maintenance every 5000 miles with the Pickup netted me trouble-free driving from a 78k odometer reading to 152k.

Frankly, I wish my Cabbie had a TDI, but we didn't get such things in the states. Regardless if you look at a Golf or Jetta, just make sure it was owned properly previously.
Reply With Quote