Though Jeep, Libty is 100% girl car

Back around 80 or so, Pemex (The Mexican national oil company) forgot to add an anti-parrafin additive, so we got lots of cars coming in with plugged pumps and injectors. Many diesel owners in San Diego had auxilliary tanks in the trunk to fill up in Tijuana. The guys who saved money buying Mexican fuel lost their savings and then some. I have one in the VW, it will go nearly 1000 miles between fillups, but filling up cheaper in the Valley and hauling the extra weight around here in the mountains isn't worth it .

I am trying to remember my college physical geography. Is a new mountain range in formation or is one plate just over-riding the other?

The Mexicans weren't (aren't) as smart as the Arabs. The Arabs sent their brightest students to western schools to learn the oil business before they nationalized the western oil operations.

The US would buy all the oil the Mexicans could pump except they put someone's idiot brother-in-law in charge and their output is ridiculously low. Mexico's greatest oil exports were....... in the early 1920's.

Since I work for a RR. I am for that.

:) Ed

L.W. Hughes III (ßill) wrote:

Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Mercedes Benz sold diesels, but not very many. Peugeot did too then you had VW and Oldsmobile. But none of them burned diesel fuel like the PowerStrokes and Duramaxes and Dodge Ram Cumminses. They are the consumers of diesel fuel, not the piddling few Benzes.

Studebaker and Checker Cab offered diesels too back then. You could get a factory Perkins, I think, in a Lark. Checker Cab had a British Ford engine optional I think. They sold very few, but neither did Benz.

Maybe we should jack truckers' costs to force freight back on the railroads where it belongs anyway.

I thought everyone affiliated with the railroad was collecting disability and working somewhere else on the side..

On 23 Oct 2005 12:33:05 -0700 in , "Bret Ludwig" graced the world with this thought:

I'll give this troll a 3.1 at best.

Yea, but the rest of us had fun with it :)

In my area, the Lib is a.k.a. the 4WD Jetta, due to the typical owner's driving habits.

Point taken, but all things being equal diesels tend to have better MPG's, that's one reason passenger car diesels are so popular in Europe.

If that engine was available in a Superduty, it would be relevent. Apples, oranges, it's all the same to you.

Right, and my point was people remember this, and assume modern passenger car diesels are the same GM abortions of the 80's.

the failure rate of GM's engines ruined the reputation of

My truck gets the same mileage as my Liberty

KJK

Well yeah, but you know what I mean. :-)

: > Yea, but the rest of us had fun with it :) : >

: : In my area, the Lib is a.k.a. the 4WD Jetta, due to the typical owner's : driving habits.

Well, I feel the same way about mini vans, soccer moms in huge SUVs wh cant drive worth a s*it and people yapping on their cell phones. It's the driver, not the rig.

KJK

Note the qualifier "all things being equal."

I'd guess my 6.8L gasser gets less MPG than your powerstroke...

No. Contrary to opinion they didn't.

Even the first of the Olds 350 diesels usually went a hundred thousand miles before they died, unless blatant owner ignorance killed them. By the time the last 5.7 diesels, as they were then, were made, they were a surprisingly durable engine. If you didn't "turn them up" as diesels and if you kept the oil clean they would go longer than the chasssis they came in except in sunny California.

GM was irresponsible in that they marketed the diesel to unsuitable owner groups and also spent their budget consumerizing the diesel instead of ruggedizing the engine. They also failed to put in diesel-class filters and electrics.

They would have been far ahead to use a foreign engine such as an Isuzu or GM Bedford Diesel and target limited markets at first. But no, they wanted a splash.

The real anti-diesel forces in the USA are the car dealers. They hate diesel, and all alternative fuels, because they "restrict inventory". They are why Ford has had such tough sledding with its alt-fuel programs.

We do because trucks pay only 10% of their road wear costs. When I buy gas or diesel or propane-and when I pay income tax-I subsidize trucks. We all do.

It maybe too late already as I don't know any independent

The OO has no place in commodity dry van or reefer linehaul trucking anymore, unless he leases out to a big fleet, and then he is just a company driver who loses money to call one truck his own. OOs do have a legit place in some specialized hauling businessses, but you have to be sharper than the average OO to succeed in them.

We are at war, supposedly, for oil. Figure out the distance one pound of fuel will move one ton of freight by rail, and by truck. Figure also the manpower-one driver per truck which can carry less than 25 tons vs. three guys to run a train stretching a couple miles. Throw in the asphalt and construction workers for superhighway vs. rail maintenance (and we don't use our highways to deploy jets, as the Euros do, to justify the supermodel-ass-smooth highways Americans demand). Trucks are what necessitates the constant road maintenance we need.

Way, way, way too much freight goes by truck in America.