[T3] Back Home

[Jim Adney]

We are back home, after finishing the rest of the trip uneventfully. I just 
finished figuring our fuel mileage in our VW TDi Sportwagon, which I tend to 
think of as a modern Squareback, but bigger and diesel powered. Our Diesel 
averaged 47 mi/gal for the part of the trip that we drove it.

I don't have complete records of the Honda Pilot consumption, but I thought 
it was in the neighborhood of 25 mi/gal. This is about the same as my 50 
year old Squarebacks get. I'll post a better number if I can find the receipts 
for some of the Honda Pilot fillups.

One difference between the Honda Pilot and our Diesel VW was that the 
Diesel almost never needed to downshift to climb hills, while the Honda 
almost always did. The Honda appeared to have a 5-speed AT, which often 
shifted down to 4th or even 3rd on hills. Shifting to 3rd at 70 mi/hr puts its 
engine into uncomfortably high RPMs.

The lesson here is that Diesel engines deliver very high torque. I now have 
renewed respect for that white Fasty with the Diesel conversion. What's that 
guys name?

One odd thing that the Pilot did that surprised me was that on several 
occasions it would shake the steering wheel and display a large "BRAKE" on 
the instrument panel. It did not apply the brakes, because I had not turned 
this feature on. There was nothing in the owners manual about this 
possibility. This only happened on right hand curves on 2-lane roads, when 
it spotted a car directly ahead in the oncoming lane that was closing on us, 
but was not on a collision course. This makes me wonder how this could be 
prevented. It's got to be a difficult AI problem.

While driving from Wisconsin to Arizona and back, we had lots of 
opportunities to watch gas/diesel prices. What I'm used to seeing here is a 
price difference of about 75 cents to maybe $1 per gallon. On our trip, we 
were surprised to see differences of over $2 per gallon, especially at the big 
truck travel centers, especially Loves, which seems really odd, since trucks 
are their main business.

Does anyone know if long haul truckers have special arrangements with 
those chains, like Loves, that get them special prices?

We saw gas as low as $3.29 and as high as $4.19. Diesel usually sold for 
$4.19 to $4.89, but we saw it as high as $5.29. Oddly, I just filled up (Diesel) 
here in Madison for $3.89, the lowest price we saw anywhere, but other 
places here are selling it as high as $4.19. It makes no sense for Diesel 
prices to be lower here than in Texas. (Gas prices were low in Texas, but 
Diesel prices were very high. Figure that out!)

Using Gasbuddy.com, I see HUGE prices on our west coast. I'd like to hear 
what other people out there are actually paying. And is there an explanation 
for why gas prices are especially high in California?

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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