June 26, 2008
With gas staying over $4 per gallon for me (damn my car and its appetite for premium gas) I started wondering whether I should have looked for a diesel engine instead of my gas-powered one.
OK, my car went 294.1 miles en route to its last fill-up, at which it took 12.276 gallons -- my worst mileage in a while. Instead of the usual mi/gal measurement, I'm going to flip it over to a more European measurement style and figure it in gal/100mi.
That gives a slightly more accurate way of measuring usage -- I don't set out to drive a certain volume of gasoline. Just remember that small numbers are better now.
12.276 gal/294.1 mi = .04174 gal/mi, or 4.174 gal/100 mi. Not bad.
Using similar math, a Jetta TDI tops out at about 1.667 gal/100 mi. Kick ass. 2.222 gal/100 mi (45 mpg) is closer to normal usage, so I'll use that.
Now we need to convert this to dollars per 100 miles, since diesel costs about 60¢ more per gallon than 93-octane gas. I'm using $4.099 for gas and $4.729 for diesel, which is where things sat Monday morning.
VW Jetta 2.0T = $17.11 / 100 mi
VW Jetta TDI = $10.46 / 100 mi
So basically, I'd be saving about $900 a year compared to now, considering how much I drive over a 12-month period. And I knew gas was going to stay expensive when I bought the Jetta.
I never said I was bright.
