[V8] Americans and Diesels

[toml99 at todomundo.com]

Hey Scott, not sure where you live, but the state of Washington(while  
having some of the highest fuel taxes for one thing), has seen some  
of the highest gas/diesel prices in the country this last year.  The  
refinery @ Cherry Point(20 miles to the north) had a fire awhile  
back, and that was blamed for the savage increase.....None of our  
fuel apparently leaves the west coast.  Our senator Maria Cantwell  
just asked the FTC this week to look into why (at the same time of  
the fire) most of the west coast refineries shut down briefly and  
thus limited supply.  The firm hired(out of portland OR) was the same  
firm that did the audit on Enron.....Ha.   I paid a savage $4.85/gal  
for diesel about 3 months ago, and  was filling up at my local guy  
last week, who told me to wait a week....He just dropped it from  
$3.99 last week to $3.89.....and the sad thing is that I'm really  
excited about $3.89.  Premium is down to around $4.30, down from a  
high of around $4.79

My friend's just moved back from Germany and owned a BMW 330D wagon  
that they loved and got smoking fuel mileage....Variable Vane Turbo  
went out in Spain, and the fix wasn't cheap, but they truly wanted to  
bring that car back.  The "Zero Nitric Oxides" agreement that the US  
agreed to(among other things), prevented them from bringing that  
totally awsome 45mpg clean diesel car back, but it's still OK for my  
other friend to drive his old 84 Dodge that billows smoke and gets  
around 12.....(we still live where there are no emissions testing).    
My Duramax can get 20-22 on the highway, but is currently only  
getting 15 in town, but I'm guessing there may be a few NO's being  
emitted......Still the best mileage work vehicle I've ever  
owned....Diesel is here to stay, and the new TDI technology has even  
made larger older fishing boats "workeable" with today's fuel  
costs.....Would that V10 fit in my 5-speed?......Ha....Tom