From owner-diesel-benz-digest@digest.net Mon May 23 21:03:15 2011 From: diesel-benz-digest diesel-benz-digest Tuesday, May 24 2011 Volume 01 : Number 3429 Forum for Discussion of Diesel Mercedes Benz Automobiles Derick Amburgey Digest Coordinator Contents: [db] road trip: 4,430 miles - averaged 45 mpg [db] w210 steering question Diesel Benz Digest Home Page: http://www.digest.net/diesel-benz/ Send submissions to diesel-benz-digest@digest.net Send administrative requests to diesel-benz-digest-request@digest.net To unsubscribe, include the word unsubscribe by itself in the body of the message, unless you are sending the request from a different address than the one that appears on the list. Include the word help in a message to stag-digest-request to get a list of other majordomo commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 21:46:39 -0700 (PDT) From: john Subject: [db] road trip: 4,430 miles - averaged 45 mpg road trip summary: 10 days - objective - family reunion in the Chicago area 4,430 miles 99.5 gallons of Diesel used 45 mpg average best mpg: today 62.88 mpg worst mpg: 2nd day 40.11 mpg (speeds at 75 mph or higher) lowest Diesel price $3.98/gal (SD) highest Diesel price $4.33/gal (WA) just got home, 10 day road trip - Seattle to Chicago and back... family reunion was on the 15th... :) No close calls, no disasters, no repairs... weather in Chicago was a perfect Seattle winter day. :) This last tank saw 62.88 mpg! Our speed was under 60 mph most of the time, with about 80 miles at just at or under 70 mph on I-90, but there wasn't any wind and I wasn't driving hard. May have been a slight tail wind coming out of Spokane, very pleasant weather, it was the calmest day of driving so far. Also a lot of long down hill grades where I didn't touch the go pedal, which means NO fuel was being used. Overall average for the entire trip was 45 mpg. Used about 99.5 gallons to go the 4,430 miles. Average price $4.13/gal lowest: $3.98 in SD, highest $4.33 here Speed made a big difference in economy... My worst mileage was 40 mpg and done at mostly 75 mph plus, with about 250 miles of two lane mountain highway posted at 70mph with some passing of trucks up long grades where I hit 80 or 90... and it rained... and then the fuel light came on... it was dark, and it rained harder and there were no city lights, no towns and we were on an Indian reservation with little or no cell signal... but we managed to make it into Belle Fourche, SD to find at that point the lowest price Diesel at $4.12/gal. What gets me is that in the middle of absolutely no where, kind of smack dab in the middle of North and South Dakota, I could buy Diesel for $3.98/gal! Here I am less than an hour from a refinery and I just paid $4.33/gal, mostly because of the liberal's extra 50 cents tax on Diesel fuel in this state. After about the 2nd day our backs finally adjusted to the Jetta and by today we were ready to head out for another 8 days... knowing that if I keep my speed down to 60 mph that I can break 60 mpg is pretty cool. 62.88 mpg... even if I could have forced more fuel in the tank it still would have been over 55 mpg easily... I burped it and it was sloshing out... (there's a toggle inside the filler on the TDI that "burps" the tank)... I'm having trouble believing it too, but even my wife admits I was driving gentle all day and we kept our speed down the whole day. Our trip objective was the family reunion north of Chicago... We headed out I-90 through WA, ID, MT, stopped in Missoula the 1st night, 2nd day I-90 through Billings to Custer's last stand, then off east through several Indian reservations, across the corner of WY and into SD. 3rd day we were in Spearfish visiting my brother in law and then drove to Mitchell, SD. 4th day we left Mitchell, drove across SD, MN and down through WI into Elgin, IL. 5th day we were in the Chicago/Crystal Lake/McHenry area driving all over taking pictures of where I grew up... or the places where I frequented when I was younger. ;) 6th day was the family reunion, met my half brother and some other relatives I hadn't seen in 45+ years. 7th day we left Elgin, drove down to IA and across and then up into SD, stayed in Sioux Falls, SD. 8th day we drove up to Redfield, SD to visit my sister in law. 9th day we took headed up to US 12 in Aberdeen and headed west across SD, ND and into MT until we hit Billings. 9th day we drove to Spokane. and today we goofed off in Spokane, watching the raging water fall downtown, then drove through Moses Lake and up through the Columbia Gorge to Wenatchee and Leavenworth for Schnitzels and then over Stevens Pass to home... I put it in 3rd gear at the top of Stevens Pass and didn't touch the throttle until we were almost to Deception Falls... went from 3rd to 4th and then to 5th, but without the throttle... that probably helped my economy, had a number of other serious downgrades where I never touched the go pedal. even had to touch the brakes a few places... amazing how much speed one can pick up going down a mountain... All in all the Jetta Wagon did quite well. The VW TDI engine is surprisingly gutsy... might be because of the 11mm pump, not sure, but when I pulled out to pass a semi going up hill at 70mph, downshifted to 4th and kept my foot in it until the truck was a spot in the mirror I was doing around 90, maybe more... there was more left but my copilot asked why I was going so fast... ;) this was going UP in the mountains of SE Montana... not flat ground... anyway, happy to be home... pictures to follow... http://fotomeister.us/2011/05-May-10-RoadTrip_DAY_ONE-WA-ID-MT/ALL.html will have a day by day, but plan one summary using thumbnails to capture the entire road trip... lots of beautiful scenery... we couldn't go through Yellowstone or Glacier, not open yet... saw snow in many of the passes, frozen lake at the continental divide in MT and fresh snow fall in the Black Hills near Deadwood... john ----- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -o|||||o- Snohomish, Washington - where Jeeps don't rust, they mold http://AMSOIL.com/redirect.cgi?zo=283461 http://JohnMeister.com HTTP://WAGONEERS.COM http://fotomeister.us - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 21:02:34 -0700 (PDT) From: john Subject: [db] w210 steering question that '96 E300 Diesel we looked at before our 4,500 mile road trip is still for sale... the guy lowered the price... but because of that wacked out display on his climate control, the bad glow plug and the check engine light it's not likely going anywhere... those things aren't too serious, well, maybe the glow plug could be serious... my concern is the timing chain, no record of it being replaced, that's a grand at the shop, or half a grand in parts and DIM. but I have one or two nagging questions that require testing another car like it or obtaining wisdom from the collective. those two items are: 1) the steering feels heavy... tight... doesn't positive center, but doesn't pull either, he said they replaced all the tie rods and bushings... but turning the wheel seems to take more effort than any of my other mercedes... they used a rack and pinion setup in it... is that heavier effort normal? 2) the performance was, well, as some of the test reviews commented, adequate... but the guy was using a sophisticated WVO setup on it and wondering if the performance was down a bit because of pump/injector wear perhaps... the car itself is in decent shape otherwise and if the guy would take 5K I might just go for it and sell the toyota rav4... it's a nice little rig and well equipped, but I have my wife hooked on Diesel now... we're a couple of oil burning greasers... :) she does not like how well the fuel gauge works on that toyota... sure, it's getting decent mileage for spark plugs, 21-23 in town (21 reg unleaded, 23 premium)... but she's used to a slower action on that meter... considering that we drove across the entire state of Montana, cut across Wyoming and into South Dakota on one tank in the Jetta... we're spoiled... anyway, plan on test driving another W210... I know what the problem areas are, and if I find the right car may take the risk.... biggest concern is the climate control setup, not much one can do to simplify that, is there? I am very grateful that Mike Frank is on the list and has shared all the issues he had with his... hopefully the Diesel version will have fewer issues, and I suspect it'll be better than a 3.5L... love the ads that say "$35K" in maintenance receipts... of course I did see a W210 advertised with $9k of maintenace in the last three years... yikes... that's more than I paid for 8 years of ownership and purchase of my 124. there are a few 124s out there as well... some with lower mileage... but that w210 seems like a nice car... not rushing into this situation and waiting for the collective to pump my stomach of the kool-aid... ;) pictures of the complete road trip in work, will do thumbnails with links to the larger images... lots of road shots showing all the splendid scenery found in the west... so much to see, too bad we didn't have more time and too bad Glacier and east Yellowstone weren't open yet... thanx, john ----- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -o|||||o- Snohomish, Washington - where Jeeps don't rust, they mold http://AMSOIL.com/redirect.cgi?zo=283461 http://JohnMeister.com HTTP://WAGONEERS.COM http://fotomeister.us - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of diesel-benz-digest V1 #3429 **********************************