quattro Digest, Vol 3, Issue 4: new recall

[Larry C. Leung]

Bummer! I'll have to admit, at least I pay under $1.50/gal for 87 octane
(about $0.40/liter) and 
about 10% more for 93 octane for the 200Q. BUT, there really are NO
public transit options
here, my 20 minute trip to work would take 2 hrs by public trans. Anyway,
I feel for you.

LL - NY

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:16:31 +0100 Tom Nas <tnas at euronet.nl> writes:
At 04:52 3-1-04, Larry C. Leung wrote:


Wow! Never thought that European traffic was getting that heavy  (duh!). 

It's a heritage issue (old cities planned for horse and cart traffic now
stuffed to the gills with cars and trucks) compounded by governments
unable to grasp that people who live in a place need to drive to work
every now and then. I work in a town that's mostly business park and
industrial area which has been built in the 1970s. There are only two
roads leading in and out, one lane each way and both leading to a
congested highway. Every night when I go home, it takes me 15-20 minutes
to get out of the parking lot, because the traffic jam starts there. The
18 km trip usually takes me at least an hour, but almost two hours isn't
unheard of. Around there parts, cruise control is useless.
By bus (no train station where I live or where I work) would take two
hours every time and would on a single trip base be as expensive as by
car (we're getting close to paying $1.50/litre for 98 unleaded).


 Mostly 'cuz I don't trust the parking lot at school (ya never know what 
students in gangland will do to a teacher's car) I've been driving the 
Subie beater to work. It's an autobox and it's sluggish at highway speeds
(although for some reason, off the line, it's really not bad), and even 
manually selected gears are slow to change, but I feel that I'm not
loosing
too much in driving the Sube, as, even though it gets the same fuel, eh,
uh,
economy rates as the 200Q (IOW, sucky) it at least runs on 87 octane. 

My fuel economy ('90 80 2.0E 112 hp) varies quite a bit depending on the
type of driving I do, lots of easy highway driving boosts the usual 10
l/100 km by almost 50%. I could save some fuel money by getting a TDI but
that didn't come until '93 and the TDI cars are popular (= expensive). On
the other hand my road tax rates would go up by 100% for a diesel and
insurance would be more expensive, too.
Running on LPG is being discouraged by reducing the number of filling
stations as well as reducing fuel price benefits.
What I probably should do is buy an old Golf diesel as a daily driver,
but I can't seem to get used to the lack of comfort and the noise and
rattles.

And I wouldn't park a really nice, new car where I work either. Too much
broken glass lying around to testify that it's not a good idea.

Regards, Tom