Fuels aint fuels in Canberra

Holden Caulfield said :

bigred said :

Deref said :

bigred said :

Also weigh up if you can live with retarded take off, the clatter…

You haven’t driven a diesel recently, have you,

It is 6pm, so I guess 3pm is not regarded as recently.

Well, not sure what sort of diesel you drive, but any of the current Euro hatches provide a sufficiently refined experience now that most mug punters would only know they’re driving a diesel when it’s time to refuel.

The torque/in-gear acceleration offered on the sportier examples is quite enjoyable too.

The MINI Diesel is a real blast, too, it must be said.

Ho hum is how I would describe how diesels go below 50 km/h. Accelerating between 80 -120 km/h I would describe the performance as spectacular, but checked the speed limits around the place lately. Driving at 110 km/h on the freeway to Sydney at 2000 revs in 6th gear and using 5l/100km or less is amazing. So is driving down Northbourne in 6th gear on cruise at 60km/h using 0.1 or 0.2 l/100km. With a red line of 4500 rpm, however, you will never be first off the line – esp with an electronic 2500 rpm rev limit is first and second gear to protect the clutch self destructing.

On balance, go TDI every time, but do not exagerate the advantages.

Something even nastier is happening in Qbn, some of you might have noticed on the way to the coast. They display an unleaded price but it’s E10. Apparently there’s some law to help Manildra that says that in a few years, only Ethanol muck will be available in NSW.

Catches quite a few people out, expecting the posted price, when in fact the price of normal unleaded is 5 or 10 cents per litre more than the displayed price.

bigred said :

Deref said :

bigred said :

Also weigh up if you can live with retarded take off, the clatter…

You haven’t driven a diesel recently, have you,

It is 6pm, so I guess 3pm is not regarded as recently.

Well, not sure what sort of diesel you drive, but any of the current Euro hatches provide a sufficiently refined experience now that most mug punters would only know they’re driving a diesel when it’s time to refuel.

The torque/in-gear acceleration offered on the sportier examples is quite enjoyable too.

The MINI Diesel is a real blast, too, it must be said.

HI wild turkey

My cycle travel is soooo cheap I can ride from my place in the (upper) inner north to whichever (lower) suburb you live in for less than a couple of cents’ worth of tyre rubber and tri flo chain oil. And doesn’t it make me feel good!!!!!!!! (on fine days)

Though today I did take the registration paid petrol driven car over to Queanbeyan to visit a friend, with me being a wet weather wuss and all that. On the way back I filled up the chariot with unleaded, that being the only sort of petrol my bog-standard utilitarian Forester will ever need.

Even in the one suburb, prices fluctuate a fair bit. I went past Shell at Wanniassa and turned my nose up at their 139.9 for unleaded. Mobil on the other side of Wanniassa had it for 129.9 (although their premium was a good 12 or so cents more)

Deref said :

bigred said :

Also weigh up if you can live with retarded take off, the clatter…

You haven’t driven a diesel recently, have you,

It is 6pm, so I guess 3pm is not regarded as recently.

I was at a servo in tuggeranong recently, where they had biodiesel available for $1.089/L. Im also seriously considering the diesel conversion. With an old vehicle that will need upgrades to handle ethanol anyway, why not convert to an engine which was designed to run on bio-fuels in the first place.

As for the difference between E10 and regular unleaded fuel, the 3c price difference is due to a government subsidy. Its upto the service station owners whether or not they choose to pass this subsidy onto the consumer.

bigred said :

Also weigh up if you can live with retarded take off, the clatter…

You haven’t driven a diesel recently, have you,

People considering diesel should not only look at the pump price. As a rule of thumb, a diesel version is going to be 40% more fuel efficient than the equivalent petrol version. SO when petrol hits $2 per litre, work out where petrol will need to be in order to be cheaper. Also weigh up if you can live with retarded take off, the clatter and sticky fuel bowsers.

A word of warning on diesel, for whatever reason, when the price of unleaded got up around the $1.60+ per litre range in mid 2007, I seem to recall diesel being a good 10-20c more than regular unleaded, which isn’t so great.

For cost per km you still can’t beat LPG.