As far as cars go, I have had both a diesel VW Jetta automatic 2002 and a Dodge three quarter ton extended cab diesel pickup 1999 with the six cylinder Cummins engine; both bought brand new. I'm done with diesels. I now have a Dodge three quarter ton four door gas pickup 2005 with the hemi V8 gas hog extremely fun engine and it tows my big thirty foot camping trailer WAY better than the diesel did and gets almost exactly the same mileage.
Wow, that's unbelievable! I guess it really depends on the engine type too. My 350 Chevy got around 15 miles per gallon, but in the winter in the city, easily only 7-8 miles, but my friend's same van with the 6.2 diesel got about 26 and it didn't much change in city or winter. The diesel had 1/3rd of the horsepower, but it still had more torque and pulled a trailer easier. But, of course a V8 Hemi would do that effortlessly
We had a 1997 turbodiesel Jetta as well, it was flawless until 200.000km which is when it suddenly fell apart in every direction...the engines are good though for half a million.
Diesel fuel costs about twenty cents more a gallon more around here.
It's about vice versa here...hence the interest in diesels. Actually, if it's a small engine, like the Jetta etc. I'd prefer gasoline...but on more thirsty ones the gas prices get pretty horrible....around 60 bucks per every 100 miles, which would translate for me to around $8000 per year just for gasoline...I just can't afford that no way....I can literally save enough for a two-week trip accross the world just driving a diesel with low consumption.
That's why, even if I'd love a Cherokee, I'm mostly considering something like a Passat or Mercedes E in diesel...and small engine.
No problems were found and shortly thereafter the automatic transmission totally destructed and froze up never to move again. I thought I was in BIG trouble because I thought I was out of the warranty. I found out that it had a 50K drivetrain warranty and it had 45K actual miles on the odometer. I immediately got it fixed, which required a completely new factory transmission. Immediately upon getting the car back the check engine light started coming on again.
That's why I don't want an automatic, especially in an european car. In the U.S. cars have been automatic forever, but not here. I trust an american transmission fine, they've made them for aeons by now, but not european ones. You can't sell an older eurocar with an automatic...people automatically (heh) assume the transmission needs a costly do-over very soon. Especially VW has had a bad rep for their automatics, the DSG automatic is widely considered as a completely lemon design. The combo of a TSI engine and DSG transmission seems to be the topic of every other car discussion here...they're utter crap. The only european maker I would accept as automatic would me Mercedes.
These days, you have to research which engine model exactly is good and what not...VW has some real lemon engines these days, but also a few well proven ones. Gotta know what combo to get.
Even with american transmissions...there the trouble is you can't find anyone who could even service one here, because they aren't common! To find the first service garage that understands something about Chevy transmissions for instance I'd have to drive well over 100 miles to get to. I once had this strange grinding sound and the local Chevy service would not do anything to it, they claimed it was the transmission and those can't be repaired, so they wanted to replace the entire transmission at a cost of almost 10.000 in dollars...crazy...turned out to be just a squeaky U-joint I changed myself.
For 10K or so you would be able to purchase a really decent used vehicle of your choice. If you spend 20K you can get a relatively low mileage BMW 7 series with a six year 100 thousand mile warranty, if bought from a BMW dealer. I should have bought one of those I was looking at instead of the new Jetta. A VW is not a BMW, needless to say. You can get a 5 series BMW also for the same price in great shape with a manual transmission. One of Charity's daughters in law has a nice Compressor Mercedes, about 2006 that is an awesome car that she bought used for less than 20K with low mileage.
Really? BMW's really interest me, most of my friends have 'em and they really seem to be the most fault-proof cars there are these days. I though thet'd be relatively expensive in the U.S. A friend of mine had a nice 4x4 3-series with a 3 litre turbo, and he traded it for a brand new Merc C series turbodiesel 4x4 top model, but only kept it for 6 months before he got another BMW, this time a 336? or something 4x4 coupe with insane HP. He said, once you've driven a BMW all other cars seem so much inferior to handle he won't ever change again. Plus he never had a single issue during 80K miles on his beemer, but he had a few issues within 6 months on the Merc.
I would definitely like a 5-series STW or maybe a 3-series SUV, if I can get one at a good price.
You are definitely going to have your hands more than full picking a destination to live and work in. There are so many different and beautiful places. But there are also those places into which you may not wish to fall. You are very wise to check things out real good before you make your move.
My perspective is only one view on things, but I hope it is useful to you in thinking the whole thing over. A lot of people here have been around quite a bit and can tell you a lot about the experiences they have had all over the place. There's more stories than there are people on the Fret, that's for sure.
I like that autosave function by the way.
Yeah...it's great to have this kind of insight into things. We talk of it all often with my wife, and all this definitely will have a big impact on where we'll try to 'land'.
I'm still a bit leery of how I'l cope just being a nanny for a year, but, I dunno...why not. It'd definitely feel like a loooong holiday for me. But it could be very tough, unless we can secure enough funding that we can actually also do more than just stay home and watch TV, LOL...gotta have enough money to get the car and also travel round U.S. a bit etc. or it'll be a crazy boring year for me...I expect she'd be working round the clock a lot, so I'd just...I dunno, it'll be demanding
