RS3 in the USA?

How much is diesel? Just curious, because in the US diesel and petrol cost about the same.

-- Mike Smith

Cheap is subjective I guess, what you regard as cheap has a lot to do with how much you make and how much you've gotten used to paying. Gas in the U.S. is certainly much less a gallon than it is in the U.K. but I still spend quite a bit of my small income on gas for my car every month. If I had the cash, I'd buy a VW TDi or something similarly fuel economical to drive every day, and relegate my GTi to weekend status.

The 1.9 TDi Beetle I drove was *much* quieter than the 150Hp 1.8T powered Beetle I drove at highway speed. So much of my drive time is spent on the highway, this is very important to me. Europeans seem to forget that cities like Los Angeles cover nearly as much ground as and contain more people than some small European countries. Last I checked, if you include Los Angeles county as well as the city proper, there are well over 20 million people living here. The San Fernando Valley alone has close to 4 million people in it, and that's a realitively small suburban area.

They're about the same here, diesel being usually a fraction more.

Because diesels turn a lower RPM at highway speeds, they are quieter than the gas engines in all the VWs I've driven with TDI. Now, at idle, the story is different. You can still tell it's a diesel, but you have to be outside of your own car, and standing nearby.

I really like the low-rpm torque. Drives really nicely in town.

-- Jonesy

Who wants to throw money away? In the U.S., the car is the primary form of transport. Add to that the distance between folks - even in big cities. Fuel mileage is important to some folks, even though we only pay about $1.30-$1.90 per U.S. (3.78L) gallon. My 100 Avant is a thirsty beast at 1800kg (about) and an auto tranny (blech). But it hauls a lot of gear and family, so I like it. I'd like it more if it got better than 22mpg around town. I'd bet that with a 2.5L diesel, I might be able to get over 35mpg. In a 20-gal. tank, that's a 700 mile range! And I'd bet it would get even better on the highway - which I often use to travel across this western state, to the tune of 360 miles each way. At 40mpg, I could get there and back on a single tank, and cut my fuel costs by 40%. That's nothing to complain about. You would turn your nose up if someone gave you 10 quid, would you? :) Neither would I....

-- Jonesy

In article , Steve Grauman writes

Well my experience of the A3 2.0 TDI is that it's virtually inaudible at idle, and at 60-70 (and higher ;) cruising speed, the road and wind noise tends to be more intrusive than the engine tbh.

I have to agree on this one, although I have 2,0 FSI model. Especially in the northern Europe, where the roads are pretty rough, the tires make more noice, than wind & motor combined.

I've seen lots of people having 2,0 TDI here, but none have used 2,0 FSI in this thread. Weird ;). I personally chose 2,0 FSI since it's actually cheaper to me in use. This is because there's diesel taxes, and it only becomes cheaper, if you drive a lot. But in the matter, if diesel is more quiet than petrol one, I can't really say that 2,0 FSI is noisy one. At motorway speeds, ~120 km/h, it's only running at about 2500 rpms. The noise of the motor can't be heard inside the car, only tires.

- Yak

I'm not sure whether the diesel is actually quieter than the petrol, it may depend on how fast the engine is revving at any given moment.

For comparison, when cruising at 70mph (112kph), the 2.0 TDI revs at exactly 2000rpm, which makes for very civilised cruising.

The difference is quite small, and I don't personally hear any difference between 2000 rpm & 2500 rpm, difficult even when car is standing. So at those speeds the revolutions can't have too big impact, if the engine is even heard on either of the models ;)

- Yak