![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioQuestions I never thought I'd ask #2: Are modern diesel engines considered bad for the environment? My BS-detection skills are not up to this task, apparently.
Ok, that said... I might have a winner. Tonight I visited VW in search of a Golf. It actually took them a while to scare up a non-busy sales person; I wonder if the person I got is actually a manager. He wasn't as, um, slick as most of the others I've talked with, which might be consistent with not doing this on an hourly basis.
The Golf is very comfortable, and it has good interior space. I was able to find seat and steering-wheel positions that made me very happy. (This was, in fact, the most comfortable driver's seat I have sat in. A lot of them recline too much, which makes my lower back unhappy.) There's enough space in the hatch, and a lot more if you fold down the back seats. The ride was comfortable. I drove an automatic tonight; I need to drive a manual to make sure that the under-responsiveness I sometimes experienced is due to the automatic transmission rather than to something else. I think so, based on the obvious shifting that was happening.
Visibility is quite good IFF you remove the headrests from the rear seats. You also have to remove those headrests to fully fold down the rear seats; I think that's a design flaw. I can see how this will play out: the rear headrests will share the fate of my current hatch cover (the "lid" that blocks hatch contents from view if the rear seats are up): they will sit in my garage except when I specifically think I'll need them. I'm probably ok with that, though I wish the seats folded down without removing them so they remained available. But hey, how often do I have multiple passengers anyway? :-)
The instruments are in general clear and easy to use. There are some locational quirks, but nothing that'll be hard to get used to. The steering wheel did not block my view of anything I cared about, which hasn't always been true.
The car comes in two flavors. The "regular" one gets 24 mpg city (31 highway, I think), which surprised me given the size of the car. (It's pretty similar in build to the Focus, which does better.) But there's also a "TDI" flavor, which the dealer claimed gets 38/49 (though I see this is not in the literature, so I will ask to see that in writing). It does this by using a diesel engine. Hence my questions about that. I always thought that diesel was for trucks, buses, and Mercedes; I didn't know anyone else used it.
Ok, on the one hand it may be silly for me to worry much about gas mileage; 24 mpg and 3500 miles a year (rough estimate) is about $250 in gas, so we're really talking about tens of dollars annually here. On the other hand, I do actually care about use of non-renewable resources, at least within reason. I'm not going to do without a car for six months so I can buy a Prius, but I will pay attention to fuel-economy figures.
Note to self on reviewing spec sheet: must remember to have the dealer disable the automatic locking of all doors at 8mph. I'm fussy about things like that; I want things to be in the state I explicitly put them in, thank you very much. I'll lock my own darn doors; I have no kids to worry about. (I want my headlights to turn off when I turn them off, too. I know; I'm too demanding. :-) )
I also decided to try this modern fad of requesting
car price quotes via the net. I sent off queries
for the Golf and the Focus, which are the front-runners
at this point. I haven't heard back from a VW dealer
yet, but my experience with the Ford dealer who fielded
the query was surprising.
I got email within the hour (not surprising), asking me to call him to talk about options. I called and he asked when I could come in to the dealership. I said "isn't the point of doing this over the net that I don't have to make as many trips to physical dealers?" and he granted that ok, he could do the first part of this remotely.
I said something about price, and he said "oh that's not the hard part at all -- the price is 1% over invoice, period. But I have to find one with the exact options you want; that's what may take a little while." (I got email tonight with a candidate car, so it didn't take that long.)
Now read that again: 1% over invoice price. While I have not talked numbers with any dealer yet, I've gotten the impression that I should expect to pay around 4-5% over invoice if purchasing through the conventional salesperson. Yes, of course everyone who isn't a Luddite has the invoice price; we all know how to get that. But I thought they would choose "no sale" over a 1% profit. I'm surprised. No wonder the sales people hate the Internet.
I wonder if VW has a similar pricing policy, and if so, if I can get that price without screwing the salesman who helped me tonight. I did get some benefit from him, after all; I'd never driven a Golf, and I'll need to drive one more before buying. He should get something from the sale. But if his best price is substantially higher than a net-quoted one, that poses a difficulty. If buying via the net cuts him out entirely, and that's the only way to get a good price, I wonder if he would get in trouble with his dealership if I tipped him.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-24 08:13 pm (UTC)Yes, I wish I could turn off the headlights manually. I'm thinking of that stretch of the Old Archery Field, or out the far stretches of Sedalia Way, where it really is enough to drive with amber parking lights instead of headlights which will glare in pedestrians' eyes.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-24 08:18 pm (UTC)Invoice, Shminvoice.
Date: 2004-02-24 08:33 pm (UTC)Salespeople hate the internet because they don't make commission, not because the price is so low. The dealership can still make money even if they sell to you below invoice price. It has to deal with the dealer holdback, and the manufacturer-to-dealer sales incentive, among other things.
In the end, the invoice price doesn't have a lot to do with how much the dealer actually nets on the car. It's more of a psychological hedge bet against the buyer with a number based on what a wholesaler might pay for the raw vehicle. The dealership gets a better price than the wholesaler partially because they can play other pricing games with the manufacturer and the rest of the inventory, when the wholesaler doesn't have that flexibility.
All that said, you probably got a good deal.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-24 09:37 pm (UTC)Did you try the turbo 4cyl or the standard 2 litre 4cyl? I have the turbocharged version (same engine goes into the Golf, Jetta, and Audi A4 1.8) with a manual transmission which you're welcome to try out if you're interested. My car is a little heavier but it should give a rough idea.
It's tough to comment with a cat on your lap
Date: 2004-02-25 03:21 am (UTC)J&K were deeply happy about their milage. They never confirmed explicitly that they weren't harming the environment more-or-less than they would with a gasoline-fueled car, but they let me know that diesel fuels today are a lot cleaner than the diesel fuels of yore, and the excellent mileage of the diesel Beetle meant that they were satisfied about the environmental concerns. It actually got better gas mileage than the first generation hybrids.
I purchased my VW Passat by searching for prices over the Internet, about 4 years ago. I got a much better price than I would have otherwise. As it turned out, there was still some wiggle room to haggle. As it also turned out, the dealer I bought the car from was not the best dealer for service - that turned out to be a dealer in Laurel, rather than Rockville. The dealer in Laurel, however, did not (at least at that point) participate in the online sales stuff.
I also can't put the back seats down to open up the trunk space, with the front seats all the way back. I can put the seats down with the headrest in, if I move the seats forward.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 04:48 am (UTC)We had a Rabbit in the 1980s -- the car I learned to drive on. It was a fun little thing, but it rusted away from the inside and made my dad give up on all cars not prefixed with the word "Toyota" forever.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 05:24 am (UTC)I think this is very sad.
For one thing, I'm not entirely convinced that having headlights on during the daytime actually makes things any safer. At night, sure. When it's raining, or in the dark right before a thunderstorm, yeah. But otherwise? I actually find other headlights distracting, if anything, in those situations. Or else I don't notice 'em at all. My personal theory is that they may have reduced accidents for the cars with the headlights on, but only when they were a novelty. If there's one car with headlights on, you're going to pay attention to it. If everyone has 'em on... well, nothing new there.
Other problems with always-on headlights: How will we distinguish funeral processions now? What about the times when it's important to turn off the lights? (Driving to a stargazing gathering it's very nice to be able to go down to just "parking lights" and crawl along rather than blinding everyone with the headlights.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 07:23 am (UTC)It doesn't screw him. Cary and Seth gave better answers than I plan to. But just to throw my hat in the ring, if you get a better quote over the internet, bring it to the salesperson and see if they can beat it. If they can at least match it, then there you go. Don't worry, they'll find a way to match it, in all likelihood.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 07:52 am (UTC)As far as environmental considerations go, my impression is that diesel is no worse pollution-wise than gasoline. Current regulations require that diesel sold as automotive fuel have very low sulfur levels -- I don't know the exact ppm level, but it's much lower than in days of yore. My husband's truck runs on diesel, and we're quite satisfied with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 07:55 am (UTC)Re: It's tough to comment with a cat on your lap
Date: 2004-02-25 07:59 am (UTC)I also can't put the back seats down to open up the trunk space, with the front seats all the way back. I can put the seats down with the headrest in, if I move the seats forward.
I'm pretty short, and the left side of the back seat wouldn't go down with the headrest on just after I had driven the car. But the Golf is smaller (shorter), so that's not all that surprising. (The Golf is three inches longer than my current Mazda 323, according to the specs. My Mazda never had rear headrests.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 08:04 am (UTC)I just plunked down the $4.95 to see CR archives for a month (I'll cancel the subscription later), and you're right. They like the Golf to drive but they don't like its maintenance record. Hmm. (Their review is based on a 2000 car with updates, whatever that means.) This bears further investigation, starting by seeing how the dealer responds.
Rabbits were fun. I never owned one, but I drove one a few times. I learned to drive on a Ford Pinto -- yes, the car with the exploding gas tank, but we didn't know that then. :-) (My parents had two cars, the Pinto and one of those huge station wagons with the wood on the outside -- Country Squire, I think? Anyway, my choices were to learn to drive manual or learn on a yacht, so I opted for the former.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 08:05 am (UTC)Re: Invoice, Shminvoice.
Date: 2004-02-25 08:06 am (UTC)Re: It's tough to comment with a cat on your lap
Date: 2004-02-25 09:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 09:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-25 01:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 09:31 am (UTC)However, the headlights do turn off immediately when you stop the car and get out. That's usually desireable -- you can't leave the lights on accidentally and burn the battery -- but it does mean that you can't have the lights on without the key in.
In general, the cars desperately try to DWIM. They mostly succeed, but once in a while it's annoying...